Please leash your dog (or at least don't be rude to people who ask you to)

This is very old man yells at cloud/into the void but I feel like this needs to be said yet again. Your knowledge and understanding and in depth training of your dog means literally nothing to a passerby stranger. Just because you trust your dog doesn't mean anyone else has to or should. It doesn't matter if you're in a residential area 3 streets back from a major road or, like I experienced this morning on my bike, walking across a narrow bridge with your puppy on a path that is shared with cyclists and pedestrians - please leash your dog. I love dogs and own a dog and am guilty of doing this myself in the past but learned my lesson that basically no one is comfortable with this and you're just selfish if you walk your dog off leash because you don't want to do deal with their reaction. It's no one's responsibility but yours to take care of your dog. If it gets spooked and runs out into traffic, bites a child, gets in front of someone on their bike, etc - someone else getting hurt or your dog getting hurt because you decided to let it off leash in an area that it's not expressly permitted is no one's responsibility but yours. Do you really want to risk your dog's wellbeing or a lawsuit from someone who got injured falling off their bike to avoid your pup?

Just put them on a leash, dude. It's not hard.