there is a big park at the bottom of my road, which has been perposefully made for dog walkers. it stretches for miles and is enclosed from the main road.
i am one of the regulars on there, i have been taking my pups there from the time they could first go out.

today i was out with them as i normally am, we were playing fetch with a rope tuggy toy.

a lady walked past with a small terrier type dog on a lead. my 2 did not take much notice and carried on playing with the tuggy toy.

the lady walked off a bit ferther up the path and then all of a sudden her dog came runnign over to mine.
at this point the dog started to snap and snarl at my larger pup lupin, lupin is very submissive and ran away from the dog to my side. the dog then turned round and launced its self onto my other pup , puepa who is a bit more confident and the nest thign i new the dog was biring at her neck. puepa kept backing off intill eventually she started to growl back. the lady came bounding over and said i think its just all nose with him (her dog). i said well im not standing here waiting to find out.
she did not try to remove her dog from mine and by now it was getting very heated., everytime my dog tried to get away from her he was on its back.
i told her i knwo my pups wont bite me if i seperate them but will your dog bite me>#she said she did not know.
in the end she managed to peel her dog of my pup and dragged it off on its lead. my poor pup had weeed all over the place and both ran towards me tails between there legs. then the lady said to me, oh he is only a pupo, he is 1 years old. i called back saying well mine are only 5-6 months old. and all she said was. oh the black one looks big for a 5-6 month s old and walked away liek nothign had happened.

by now a few of the other regular dog walkers had seen what had happened. and they could nto belive it. they knwo my pups are well behaved, and saw the tottaly unproviked attack.

but was it my fault?

what a horrible experience...I dont see how it could have possibly been your fault?? your dogs were under control and hers ran back and blantently attacked your dogs. I would have been furious aswell. Have you come across this woman before, I mean is she a regular? Hopefully not!

i have never seen this lady before.
my pups are well spocilised and play with all the regular dogs on the park. if we see new dogs i ussualy put them on a lead. however it is a good thing they were not on a lead today as it would of made them more vulnerable.

the dog looked to be a yorkshire terrier cross. wasnt vey big and looked so dainty and sweet.
he came bounding over lookign liek he wanted to play.

both my pups barely had a chance to notice he was even there before he started on them.

im lucky thougth becasue it did not seem to have knocked there confidence in any way. they were soon palying with some other regulars.

It's definitely not your fault wolfwoman, but you need to make sure you pups get lots of exposure to friendly other dogs.

If possible, especially lots of friendly socialisation with other dogs which look like the one that attacked them.

not saying its the same thing at all, just sharing this experience for the sake of it, but there is a dog round here that loves mine, mine is a big dog and this other one a small terrier type thing and it appears to be trying to climb up mine, pawing at his face and hanging of his ruff, mine is just perplexed, eventually the owner tears it away when she thinks mine has had enough, seems innocent enough although I dont know much. no snapping or growling like in your case, all just playing im sure.

It's not your fault and you were incredibly tolerant of this stupid woman and her ill mannered dog. She's VERY lucky it was somebody like you and your dogs in this situation. She's asking for her dog to end up getting mauled or kicked into next week by an irate owner.

i think you were extremely calm I'm afraid if it had been me I would have removed it whatever way possible from my pups people like that definitely would see another side of me if they let thier dogs become aggressive to  mine .

give her a wide berth if you see her around in future and if you do unexpectedly come across her and her pooch warn her that you wont be responsible for your actions if the dog approaches yours again.

Roni

Hi,
I'm afraid, NO dog would be on my puppies back!!!
I would have grapped it off before it even had chance to bite!
or do anythink eles!
I wouldn't allow a child to attack my babies, or a dog to attack
my puppies. The women was very lucky it was you wolfwomen,
and not me!!
Regards
Denese

Hi morgan, we also had a similar meeting to yours with a border terrier who was hanging off tyler while he was running around, there was no agression, the guy said the vet had told him his dog was palying, which may be wrong but as neither dog were in distress we let them get on with it.

Hi wolfwoman,

I don't want to hijack your thread but it's uncannily timely.  Zak (GSD) and I have just stopped shaking from a totally unprovoked attack this afternoon.  Coming back from the park I spot a group of people with a boxer waking towards us on the pavement; as we are are near an entrance to the allotments, we take a couple of steps back in this space to allow the others to pass.  At which point the boxer whips round the corner and just pounces on poor Zak, grabbing him by the face and making it quite clear he means business.  I manage to kick him off but he's coming up for another go when one of the young lads turns up and with a hasty 'Sorry love' grabs the dog and drags him away.  Poor Zak is bitten under the eye but not severly but both he and I were (are) shaking like leaves.

I never for one moment thought that this situation was mine or my dog's fault. Why the hell was the boxer unleashed in a built up area next to a dual carriageway anyway??  The only saving grace in this case (apart from lack of serious injury) was that at least the dogs were evenly matched size-wise because, having had similar experiences with small aggressive yappers, when the Court of Public Opinion sits, it's always the big dog's fault.

I'm very sorry you had a similar experience but don't blame yourself.  Sadly the world contains a lot of badly-trained and uncontrolled dogs with dim owners. I hope you and yours have a better day tomorrow,

All the best, Linda

Hi Linda,
I take on board exactly what you mean by, popular opinion, always claiming that it's the big dog's fault!
My dane, Diesel, is enormous and a very well behaved boy. However, a couple of weeks ago, we were out at night, and a man on the other side of the road was walking a Staffie off the lead. Diesel didn't even pay him any attention, however, a minute or so after he had passed us, I glanced round only to find this dog careering back up a main road towards us, with his stupid owner chasing after him. Well this dog literally launched himself at Diesel and started biting at his neck. I got such a fright...it all happened so fast
Suffice to say, this stupid man eventually managed to get his dog off mine and was tearing into it with a chain lead, which would have appaled me ordinarily, but I was shaking. I was roaring at him why didn't he have his dog on a lead?  And do you know what his response was "He's a big dog, he'll be fine" I couldn't get into the house quick enough, burst into tears. Poor Diesel was wondering where his walk had went to, luckily enough all he suffered was a cut to his 'little man' (or should I say not so little in his case ) But if that had been the other way around, and it had been my dog that had 'attacked' It would have been round the village that I was the owner of a vicious brute :rolleyes: When will people learn???
Sharon

thats awful, your poor baby. i know what you mean about the predjudice, you cant have a big dog without it.

Totally with you on that Morgan, if I had a little dog, people would probably laugh at me if he decided he wasn't going to come back to me, in the middle of the park
But it's a different story when you're out with a big dog.....The amount of times, people have actually picked their small dogs up, when I approach with Diesel, is unbelievable :rolleyes:
Even going so far as to shout over to me has he been fed, tongue in cheek I know, but after a few thousand times of hearing it, it gets a bit lame.

Sorry Wolfwoman, it appears I too have hijacked your thread
Hope your puppies are no worse the wear for their experience.

trouble is after a while you get fed up with the looks and comments, at the park on sunday some teenagers saw us coming and grabbed each other and said "does he bite?", I said yes, which of course is a lie just to be shot of them, My OH told me off, I guess I was in a bad mood. Then yesterday someone asked me to put him on a lead because they were scared of them, he had never touched her!!!!

:rolleyes:
What breed of dog do you have Morgan?

hi wolf woman i would have thought she was to blame she must have know her dogs were going to go for yours they will have done it before and she as got away with it mabey in a nother park she should have put them on a lead till she got away from you i know afterwards  you say why didit i do this or that but you just dont think you just want the dog of yours hope you and the puppys are ok Ann

No, it is not your fault.  In a nutshell, the owner whose dog is not under control in a public place and allowed to harass, pester, show aggression, attack or generally be a nuisance to other dog walkers, their dogs, people, children, or livestock is at fault.

This is just another classic example of one of the biggest problems we have in the dog owning population, idiots that have no control, verbally or physically, and allow their dogs to bully others. 

Hi

Im so sorry you had to go through this. I went through a similar thing and I too asked if I was to blame. Its just because they are so small and helpless in these situations and you are the responsible person. Because of this you feel that you must have done something wrong. You didnt though so dont worry. Concentrate on getting back out there as with a young dog and plenty of good experiences you can turn this around. Remember they take their lead from you so try to be confident.

How are your babies now?

Caroline x

Hello,
don't want to stick my head above the parapet, but a similar thing happened to me once a few years ago at the woods we take our dogs to. Except it was my dog that attacked a puppy. she was JRT and had never done anything like it before, but as soon a she saw this pup (a young cocker) she ran straight up and started really attacking the poor thing. It was terrible, the pup was shrieking and shrieking and then our other terrier joined in. we couldn't get our bitch off quickly enough and the pup was totally terrified. we got the dogs off and couldn't appologise enough, luckily no physical damage was sustained and the woman owner just looked at us and walked off. she made no attempt to help get the dogs off her pup even though we were saying to her to try and pick it up. maybe she was scared of the JR's.

we were both shaking and went home shortly after. I have no idea why she attacked but after that she wore a muzzle and stayed on the long lead at the wood.

what i'm saying is that dogs can surprise you with how they react although the woman you met didn't sound surprised she probably felt as bad as you after. i know we felt terible and i just hope that the pup didn't develop and fear of other dogs because of it.

Legally it would be tricky to prove because all the dogs involved were off the lead.   It's obviously the little terrier type who's caused the bother though.
Just one thing though.  I don't like to see people playing fetch etc.. when there are other dogs around as toys can be a catalyst for a jealous fight.  People have mixed views on this but I always stop playing with my dogs and toys until the other dogs have gone.

Other dogs playing fetch reminds me of when my dog was quite young (about 5ish months). She was off lead and having a lovely time when she saw a woman throw a ball for her Boxer.  To my horror my dog started running for the ball which then looked like the Boxer was running for my pup   Once my pup saw the Boxer coming full speed she soon changed direction but the chase was already on.  The Boxer more frightened my dog than anything else and the Boxer's owner did recall her dog and the dog responded well.

IMO though you can't stop people playing with their dogs.

You're right you can't stop other people playing with their dogs :) .  I do out of courtesy though. 

lara, having a dog that was always and still sometimes is, more than keen to go and play with anyone and anything I really appreciate your understanding of the problem. I also now try to keep things calm when I see a dog looking at us or straining on the lead to come over because i have been on the other end of it.

i can recall two incidents but the problem where people not dogs, i was playing fetch with my dog,, she must of been about 5months and so i was giving her some encouagment calling her back etc and they i this bloke was stood under a tree about 30ft away and he started to try call her over to him by her name!! lucky she did not go over to him but it scared me i recalled her and left, quickly.  Another time this women started to make a fuss over her, and then i called her to come back, and she didn't come so i asked the women to stop touching her as i was trying to train her but she kept on and the checky women looked up and said she doesn't want to come back to you! I'm not a hundred % sure but i think she was restraining her by her collar, i was fuming i said a few other words after her comments and she soon stopped.  Is it just me this has happened to?

How scary that a stranger was calling your dog by name and the other woman interfering too.   Only had a couple of instances where people (think they were just teenage kids messing abou) copying my whistle.  My dog is very cautious of strangers so there is little if any chance of someone grabbing her

I saw a programe on tv and this  lady had her yorkie snatched when she was walking it, it is scary that people would so such things.  I was talking to another lady the other day and her sister had her dog stolen from the house this man walked in and took it and she was home at the time hence why my dog sleeps in the bedroom.  its sad that it is no longer safe to walk the streets at night, or even take your dog for a walk what is this society coming to!

It can happen so easily.  I had a scare a couple of days ago when walking two of my dogs.  One is particularly fond of the sea and goes straight for it if he can see it.  As there aren't many leaves on the trees just now he saw a local beach through the trees and made straight for it, more than 300 yds away.  From experience, and the fact that I can see the beach from the woods, I know that he is just lying down in the waves and will come looking for me quite quickly when he knows I am not following.  With this in mind I walked in the opposite direction knowing that he would be along at any minute.

What I didn't expect was a man running along with him and calling to him, clearly thinking the dog was following him.  My dog just kept on going and headed straight for us with the man shouting to him to come back.  Now I don't know if he though the dog was lost or if he was trying to take him but I just ran for it with the two of them and didn't see anymore of the man.

I am probably overreacting but with all these dog nappings going on you cant be too careful.  We wont be doing that walk again until all the leaves are back on the trees.

I didnt have such a similar experience, but when my dog was being trained, i used to take him to a local school field and meet his trainer. I got there one day and it was full of travellers who had cut the fence. Merlin was on a long lead and we were early, the trainer pulled up and said to get him back by pulling him only, do not call his name and get back into his car. We did this and he made a few phone calls and we went elsewhere. That opened my eyes to the reality of dog napping as my trainer had previous experiences with this group he would not discuss

my pups are ok by it. they bonced back from it. are a bit mroe carefull around strage dogs and so if anythign i hope we can at least make somethign positive come from it.

going on from what is being said about dog napping. my dogs woudl never go to anyone else. no matter who calls them. they dont even go to my oh when he calls them. and when peopel do try and pat them, they tend to wait intill i give reassurance that it is ok.

but  i knwo of a lot of over friendly dogs who go to anyone.

They don't need to go to strangers they can be caught by other means.  A lot of dogs are just snatched away from the owner by force and bundled into waiting vehicles.  My dog was not following the man he was following my trail but I dread to think what might have happened if he had got a line on my dog who friendly by nature may not have resisted too much until it was too late.