The other workaround is to use the Pirate speech. For whatever reason, that text is clear and unscrambled, and not too hard to figure out.
I've tweeted Dinnerbone on this issue twice and linked this page. No response 😞
This is a serious problem on my server. Every time anyone logs in, our animals are scattered throughout the area and whoever is there has to spend a half hour or so gathering all the animals back up.
Not fixed at all. Playing 1.6.1, dogs have been tamed forever, I never hit them and there's no other players to do so. They don't despawn, they're just sitting there growling constantly.