Are dogs more polite nowadays compared to when you were a kid?

As a kid, I remember dogs just being wild and out of control, but nowadays every dog I meet is a docile hairball.
What's your take?

Maybe the dogs are just good at picking their battles

when I was a kid there was quite a few free-roaming, wild and out of control dogs in the area. When my mum was going to work she'd carry biscuits in her pocket in case one of the snarlier ones got too close to her. These were like starving 19th century feral slum dogs, thankfully not something I've seen that much since. But I did see some fucked up and badly cared for dogs when I was working in Bradford. But most dogs I see in my area now are pampered settee hoggers.

I think there are still plenty of rural areas with surly dogs roaming around. We adopted an adult dog from a shelter in such an area, and he’s not exactly docile around strangers or other dogs.

there are a lot of awful, cranky dogs in my neighborhood, I get barked at every day

I think something traumatic must've happened to me as a child, with a doberman or something attacking me from a pickup truck camper shell... because I still give them a wide berth, not sure why

I got a puppy a few months ago, and I did worry that it would bring me into contact with some snarling brutes in the park, but so far most other dogs we've encountered have been lovely.

A dog playfully jumping on you when you are 5'10" is entirely different than when you are 3'10".

Yes! I'm slightly scared of dogs and I'm sure they would come up and hassle me all the time, especially in the suburbs where I grew up. I'd say maybe it's because I'm a grown up now, but I'm sure this went on well into adulthood.

I've seen some horse-sized dogs out and about who are just the gentlest giants, even when pestered by much smaller yip-yappers. I guess the would-be growly grizzlies are kept at home, or have already eaten their owners and escaped to the woods.

My experience was pretty much the same as calzino's; people used to let their dogs roam the neighborhood, and a few of them were pretty assertive. I never see any free-roaming dogs anymore, certainly not in our suburban neighborhood. We do have free-roaming foxes and coyotes, but that's a different story.

I've seen some horse-sized dogs out and about who are just the gentlest giants

One of my neighbors has a boerboel, which kind of looks like if a mastiff got into powerlifting; it weighs about 200 pounds, but it's absolutely the most chilled-out dog I've ever seen. It doesn't bark or anything. It just stands there staring at you as you approach, and then once it sniffs you it'll just lie down on the pavement, not giving a fuck about anything.

Yeah, I think that's the thing with big dogs: they're generally much more chill than small dogs, probably because they don't feel as threatened in most encounters due to their size and confidence that they could defend themselves. But in that low-probability zone where they do go ballistic of course they are much more dangerous than small dogs.

The dogs in my neighborhood don't run free, but rather are constantly chaperoned by humans. Almost all of them are well-socialized to people and very unaggressive. The few exceptions weren't preceded by any precursor behavior like growling; they seemed completely reflexive, instant reactions to some invisible trigger.

this really was a thing when I was younger, so much so that you would see what we would call Dog Catchers driving around the neighborhood. Do they even have those anymore?

They work at a farm upstate

PBKR OTM

going with no, not more polite.

earlier this year i was walking down the sidewalk and a guy with a v large dog (90 lbs maybe more?) was looking at his phone. he did not look up as i approached, his dog stood up, put its paws on my shoulders and literally pushed me over. i fell into a soft pile of mulch and was fortunately not hurt. but this guy needs to look where he's going and the dog needs to stop pushing people

in 2013 my dogs and i were attacked in the alley by a large off leash dog and my dog sustained injuries so severe he had to have a drain on his neck. my nervous system fritzed the fuck out for weeks and i am terrified when i am approached by off leash dogs.

so no i do not think anyone is any more polite than they were. i have two (little) dogs and they have v bad manners and bark all the time but they don't attack or push people.