ponyparty
Well-Known Member
Today, walking the dog with my mum and her two Maltese (they've all moved in here temporarily while her house is being built) we had TWO ridiculous run ins with owners with out of control dogs. My mum's Maltese, Alfie, has been reactive since puppyhood (he's 10 now), I suspect it's in his breeding as his dam was "snappy" apparently; her other one couldn't be more different, personality-wise. The reactive one is on lead all the time, and the other if other dogs approach.
First one as we got onto a narrow woodland path, we both got off the path, and the woman saw us (with all our dogs on lead), called her dogs, both of which ignored her and went straight to my mum's reactive Maltese, who was barking and snarling and trying to lunge at them. Unfortunately my mum was also on the phone to the consultant my gran is under - not usual, and certainly not best, practice but the hospital called just before this happened and understandably she's keen to get the opportunity to speak to him - so she was struggling to listen to the consultant, and keep the dogs off her dogs; then one came and had a sniff at mine, so I told it and the woman to back off in no uncertain terms.
A while later on the same walk, we were on a big open playing field. A man with 6 large dogs - some lurcher types, some bull types - came onto the field from his car, with not one lead on him. I called over in a friendly way as they started getting closer, "two of these dogs are reactive towards other dogs, please don't let your dogs get close" - we were against a hedgeline so didn't really have anywhere else to go. Great, we thought, he's going the other way.... nope, he was popping back to his car to get ONE lead (!), which he put on ONE dog... and then carried on towards us, half heartedly calling the rest, who completely ignored him. One lurcher type came over and we shooed it away, but it hung around for ages, with my mum's dog going berserk; then a bull type went over to my him, so he had a snarl and lunge at it - it started snarling back, my mum screamed at it and I went running over with Frank, and it ran off to the owner - but it would have easily killed my mum's dog if they'd had a fight. The man had NO control over any of them, literally they completely ignored him. We both had a right go at him and I told him I'd be filming him and his dogs if I saw him again. We watched him walk off round the field, not even looking at his dogs as they crapped all over the place. On a kids' playing field. Honestly makes my blood boil.
His response to us was "they just want to say hello" and he couldn't grasp that our dogs did not want to say hello; nor that one of his was definitely up for having a go at our reactive one! I hadn't taken my stick that I've taken to carrying with me on walks lately, typical - really must take it every time, it could have been really nasty due to the sheer size difference.
No real point to this post apart from to vent!
In the meantime I've had a trainer out to assess Frank, he's on the waiting list to go on some doggy socialisation days with him and learn to be confident around other dogs again, and then the trainer is going to work with me AND Frank to help get our confidence up on walks again. But for the time being, I've just got to "manage" the situation with other dogs.
First one as we got onto a narrow woodland path, we both got off the path, and the woman saw us (with all our dogs on lead), called her dogs, both of which ignored her and went straight to my mum's reactive Maltese, who was barking and snarling and trying to lunge at them. Unfortunately my mum was also on the phone to the consultant my gran is under - not usual, and certainly not best, practice but the hospital called just before this happened and understandably she's keen to get the opportunity to speak to him - so she was struggling to listen to the consultant, and keep the dogs off her dogs; then one came and had a sniff at mine, so I told it and the woman to back off in no uncertain terms.
A while later on the same walk, we were on a big open playing field. A man with 6 large dogs - some lurcher types, some bull types - came onto the field from his car, with not one lead on him. I called over in a friendly way as they started getting closer, "two of these dogs are reactive towards other dogs, please don't let your dogs get close" - we were against a hedgeline so didn't really have anywhere else to go. Great, we thought, he's going the other way.... nope, he was popping back to his car to get ONE lead (!), which he put on ONE dog... and then carried on towards us, half heartedly calling the rest, who completely ignored him. One lurcher type came over and we shooed it away, but it hung around for ages, with my mum's dog going berserk; then a bull type went over to my him, so he had a snarl and lunge at it - it started snarling back, my mum screamed at it and I went running over with Frank, and it ran off to the owner - but it would have easily killed my mum's dog if they'd had a fight. The man had NO control over any of them, literally they completely ignored him. We both had a right go at him and I told him I'd be filming him and his dogs if I saw him again. We watched him walk off round the field, not even looking at his dogs as they crapped all over the place. On a kids' playing field. Honestly makes my blood boil.
His response to us was "they just want to say hello" and he couldn't grasp that our dogs did not want to say hello; nor that one of his was definitely up for having a go at our reactive one! I hadn't taken my stick that I've taken to carrying with me on walks lately, typical - really must take it every time, it could have been really nasty due to the sheer size difference.
No real point to this post apart from to vent!
In the meantime I've had a trainer out to assess Frank, he's on the waiting list to go on some doggy socialisation days with him and learn to be confident around other dogs again, and then the trainer is going to work with me AND Frank to help get our confidence up on walks again. But for the time being, I've just got to "manage" the situation with other dogs.
