Comment by hansvm

It sounds to me like inflammatory language around a real problem. As a rule of thumb, the people who ignore leash laws are more likely than average to have not bothered to train their dogs to be safe off-leash. I've had a few dogs bolt from their owners toward my dog and I before (normal suburb, normal locations like the dog choosing to cross a downtown road to our sidewalk from theirs), teeth bared, barking, growling, etc. In my case, I'm big, strong, and scary looking, so I just lift my dog high enough the attacker can't reach, stomp toward it, and yell something like "hey," and it'll usually back off and whimper a bit. My wife can't lift our dog easily or scare other dogs though, so our dog has been bitten a couple times when she's been out walking.

There's one person in the area who seems to have a revolving door of dangerous dogs available he likes to keep off leash. Every time the police take one away for mauling an elderly man or whatever he finds another. He lives in an RV though, and CA's relationship with the homelessness problem is complicated, so he keeps getting a slap on the wrist.