I have just returned from a walk with my young Rottie. It started beautifully and ended in a near death of a Westie! I was coming off the fields with my Rottie who was now on her lead and a lady I met with her 6 month old Pug pup, who's owner followed my action by putting her baby on the lead as we were approaching the car park, behind us were 2 nice Westie's having a stroll, and he didn't put their leads on. A lady then arrived with 3 young, very large and powerful dogs, 1 being an entire male Akita and the other 2 Akita X Rottweillers. All looked about the same age, very poweful, excitable and she was unable to hold all 3 who were on fine slip chains.

The baby pug hit the deck and I beckoned the owner to follow me. I popped my girl into the car, when the Akita slipped or broke his chain and went after one of the Westie's, not obviously aggressively, but the three of them out of control, pulling her all ove rthe place and breaking free, made a pretty overwhelming site for most dogs.

One Westie froze, whilst surrounded by the two crosses that pulled her over to him, while the Akita gave chase to the other Westie who was terrified and took flight. The owner of the westie, an elderly man, ran across the car park in sheer panic as his frightened dog headed for the roads and then fell all over the gravel car park cutting his head and hands.

He came back to get his car in tears as he said 'Bailey' would have to cross 2 main roads if he was heading home. The mans hands were bleeding profusely and he was in a hell of a state. I got his address out of him and I went to look, and the lady with pug was walking home.

By luck in a road not connected to Baileys (the Westie's) home, I saw a car parked up with a lady lookignworried, and realised she may have found the westie, and she had, but he was running to the main A road. I drove in front of the dog and managed to steady him and gently got hold of his harness, he was so scared, and I was so relieved to get him.

We got him home, but the poor man was out scouring the roads, but the wife was there in tears.

I have reported this to the dog warden. This woman could not hold these 3 excitable young powerful dogs on inappropriate leads and it was mayhem. I would think the man may need his hands stitiching, the car park is really rough gravel and he went absolutely sprawling, I thought he had had a heart attack when he went down.

Awful scenario, and a real lesson in what we have been talking about with training and giving dogs individual needs. Have I covered every angle? Is there something else I could do? I didnt speak to the lady other than to remonstrate that her leads were inappropriate for her dogs. I could have said a lot more but I was more worried about the man and finding his dog unharmed.   

Firstly sending you a big (((hug))) as I bet you are a bit shaken up by the whole affair!!

What an irresponsible woman!!! (the lady with the 3 dogs!)

That must have been a awful experience :(

Gosh, I am sorry to hear that this happened. The blind irresponsibilty of som dog owners astonishes me. I really hope the poor man is ok, and I hope the akita owner gets a call from the police. Im really sad to say that I believe a lot more people need to be prosecuted over this kind of thing, because there seems no motivation to stop it. I sometimes feel that I am running the gauntlet walking my own dogs sometimes....we are frequently coming into situations that are quite scary, although nothing as bad as this. Id be willing to bet the dog warden will do nothing sadly.

My heart goes out to you all.
What an awful experience for all of you.

This is why I can understand that council's are bringing in control orders.
As people don't seem to be using common sense when exercising their dogs.

I wouldn't ever take out more than two of my Boxers out together if I'm walking on my own.
As I would never be able to control them effectively if a 'situation' arose. I can safely manage two
but that's the limit. I own five Boxers - never ever would I walk out all 5 together even if they were the world best obedience champions!

That said we did experience a silly young lady walking two labs no leads on, on the village green (a week ago). I was road walking (on the pavements)
my two 9 month pups. One lab came hurtling over and ran into the road trying to get to my pups. The young lady had no control over these dogs..
and really should have had them on leads until she was further into the village green. Will a lesson be learned? Sadly I doubt it :(
The only lucky thing was no cars using the busy village B road at the time her dog ran into the road.

I sincerely hope the man will be ok.
Another dent for responsible dog owners :(

Priority was to the helpless, the man and the Westies, I'm sure we would all have liked to have said much more to the woman concerned but you did the right thing.

Hopefully, the woman concerned will take someone with her in future or only walk 2 dogs max if she can not hold them. And I'm sure the man will lead his dogs in future too once at the car park.

You did really well in the situation and helped immensly, I am sure the man will be eternally grateful to you. :-)

Awww thank you all, it did shake me up. So dammed relieved he didnt get run over. Such a sweetie. Nothing shocks me anymore about people, but this incident shook me up for sure. I cannot believe people's mentality really. The dog warden is going up there tomorrow to have a look round. Its the gateway to the south downs and is very beautiful and very popular but it does attract some idiots!

how awful! hope everyone involved is ok, poor man, and poor you! you must have had a real fright!

what a stupid woman

Bless you, how I feel for all of you. What a bloody stupid woman, people like her give dog owners a bad name. That poor man could have had something really serious happen to him. I hope he is ok & that his little westie gets over this fright.

Please keep us posted how the man is though.

That's awful!  The poor man, and you, it must have been horrific!
I do walk all 5 of mine together , BUT they are all obedience trained and I DO have control of them at ALL times.

What a horrid experience.  I do hope that the elderly man is ok.  And the dogs as well. 

The lady with the three dogs, needs a good talking to.  If she cant control her three, then she should be taking them out seperate. 

I personally, even though I have small breed dogs, walk each seperately.  And its not because they are out of control.  I am always nervous of having another knee episode, and if I cant walk easily, how can I walk two dogs? I take the one, in the morning, and the other one goes out at evening.  It is much easier, and safer that way. 

I do hope you are ok as well.  It is such a frightening experience, and it makes us a little more fearful each time something like this happens.  I can tell you, that since my Casie was attacked, I am more fearful of taking the dogs out, not because of my dogs, but because of the irresponsible owners out there.

Also, congrats to you for helping out this man.  People dont tend to lend a hand when needed anymore, and its people like you, that do what needs to be done, that reassure others that there are still wonderful and nice people in the world.

Just goes to show how having dogs or a dog not under proper control can lead to an event that can spark off a chain of events that can lead to someone being seriously injured.

Years and years ago, a dog spooked being chased by another dog ended up on the road around here; I found her in the end frightened out of her wits.  Luckily she was on the footpath but it was at the side of the main road about a mile away. I knelt down and called her to me and luckily she came; I was worried that approaching her would make her bolt straight onto oncoming traffic. 

Lets hope the experience has shaken up the woman as much as it shook up you and the poor gentlemen. With any sense she will think differently about how many dogs she takes out and how she controls them. You totally did the right thing. As much as you wanted to give the woman a piece of your mind i think you were right in making the man and his dog the priority.
Glad everyone is OK although delayed shock could be an issue for the poor man and his westies. Maybe you could pop round to see he's OK?
Hope you are alright aswell :-)

> Lets hope the experience has shaken up the woman

heres hoping it's scared the cr** out of her so she thinks in future!

>heres hoping it's scared the cr** out of her so she thinks in future<

Well when I left her she was sitting on the grass where her 2 Rott crosses had put her and she had hold of the Akita but she didn't see him fall, I told her, neither does she know the outcome. Now I have calmed down I REALLY want to have a go at her. Thanks for your support, it was much appreciated. I have had a lousy week and I was having the lovliest walk too, doing some nice training with my girl as well,  then bang....it all goes off!!!

Thinking about it these were 3 young powerhouses, and I am wondering if the Akita was dad and the 2 Rott X Akitas which were like peas in pods were his offspring. Bit of a coincidence isnt it?

They really were all over the place and she just couldn't hold them on very inadequate equipment. No wonder people with my breed gets a bad name. When the Rottweiller press hit last time I had the car spat at with her in it! I was told I should be drowned for owning one, and all sort of horrid things....and she is the sweetest girl ever, a wonderful ambassador for the breed.

Then I comes across a plonker like that woman today and it undoes all the good done by her. (the 2 crosses looked very Rotty to an untrained eye) 

Such as life. Thank you again

i know how you feel, the anti breed sentiment you can get sometimes is aweful. my aunt and uncle had rotties back when it first kicked off and they had threats to burn their kennels down etc. scary stuff. ad its never the proper breeders and genuine fanciers who are the ones causing it.

now i really like rotties and my bf and i are thinking of getting an akita, both breeds are wonderful BUT need careful handling, can you think of a worse cross? with an owner like that thats like a loaded gun!

>My aunt and uncle had rotties back when it first kicked off and they had threats to burn their kennels down etc. scary stuff.

What kind of people behave like that; it's like witch hunting centuries ago.  I thought we'd all moved on from that and become more reasonable beings.  The media have a lot to answer for; absalutely crazy. 

Thank goodness you were there to help. The poor man. I bet he was beside himself. I can imagine he was so relieved that you had found Bailey love him. What a fright it must have given him. I expect it will make him so nervous walking in the same spot again. That woman should be ashamed of herself with what has happened and I really hope she will learn from this experience.

> What kind of people behave like that; it's like witch hunting centuries ago.&nbsp; I thought we'd all moved on from that and become more reasonable beings.&nbsp; The media have a lot to answer for; absalutely crazy

couldn't agree more

What a dreadfull experience.  I do walk all 5 of my dogs together and I have to say they are no problem whatsoever. Yet, I can meet a person with one dog and they arent able to control their one dog.  If I do meet anyone whether they have a dog or not I call my dogs, put them on their leads and get them to lay down till the person/dog has passed. Often you get comments like 'my you have your hands full' (this is normally when they are struggling to control their one dog!)  I always say Not at all MY dogs are not a problem. Sadly they dont seem to take the message.  Or you get the silly owner that doesnt put their dog one the lead and laughs as it jumps all over mine, and yes at this point I tell my dogs off you go,then the person has to come after me if they want to get their dog, as it is normally following us! I know a similar insident happened near where I live where a toy poodle was attacked by a staffie, poor wee thing already had a heart problem, whe was in the vers at least three wks, I dont know if she survived or not, her poor owner was elderly.  The police were involved.  (I know in an earlier post someone said the police dont get involved in a dog on dog attack, they do in this area) Another incident happened in a local park where a Rottie attacked and injured a Husky. The Huskey needed vet treated.  The owner phoned the police. and they said that at the moment ( the police were working overtime on a local murder) the dog attack was low priority.  I wonder how they would have felt if the next day the Rottie did the same if a child were handling the dog, and got injured in the attack.

What an awful situation, poor Bailey and owner. Thank god you had your wits about you to be able to help so quickly and the outcome was good in that Bailey didn't get knocked over.
I had an unbelievable situation just before Christmas, I walk 5 of my dogs at a time with my next door neighbour who comes for the excercise, thankfully he was witness to it. We walk along a public footpath and are allowed with the farmers permission as he knows my dogs are under control down the set asides of the fields. One day we were about to walk down the set aside, the dogs were all on leads still at this point with my neighbour having the 3 oldies I had the 2 yooungsters. A couple of yellow labs came from the track, the owner a middle aged foul mouthed woman was screaming at them to come back, she was carrying a riding crop in her hand. To cut a long story short she managed to get one dog on its lead and then promptly gave it a few wacks with the crop. I had the two youngsters sitting on the grass and her other dog came charging across and without provacation flew at my 18 month old male. He got him around his neck and tried to shake him, my younger bitch was going barmy and barking at the dog. The owner came over and belted merry hell out of her dog and it eventually let go. It seemed like ages but was only a matter of a few minutes from start to finish. Incredibally she then let her vent up fury out on me saying I was walking too many dogs etc, they were out of control...... If I was a violent person I would have hit her but I calmly stated my dogs were on the lead, hers attacked, she had no control and why was she carrying a whip, the whip was because her poor fat labradors keep getting attacked !! Well the next day we went on the same walk and the lovely woman had reported us to the dog warden who was waiting on the walk for us. I was gobsmacked but at least she could see the dogs were well behaved. Some people are just beyond me I am afraid, they say revenge is a dish best served cold, I found out where she lives and reported her to the RSPCA for carrying and using the whip and after hearing various stories from the villagers about her dogs attacking a number of dogs my neighbour reported her to the dog warden.

Good on you Floradora for reported the horrible woman :( unfortunately you do meet THEM on the walks, i have many encounters with rude dogs/dog owners it's so frustrating.

How scarey.  I am so relieved that it didn't end in total disaster.  Poor Bailey's owner, he must have been very shaken.  Poor Bailey too.  Thank goodness you were there.

The elderly man must have been so relieved to get Bailey back well done you. I have two dogs and if they both pull I would have diffeculty holding them and I am quite strong. Thats why we tend to exercise them seperatley day to day. That and it does make training easier, if they both took off I would go flying, I think to walk multiple dogs 1) they should be well trained & 2) you had beeter be built like Rockey if they aren't!!

oooh dear. You did a great Job getting the Westie back! Well done you

Hope the woman with the akita's apologized ! I must say if I see someone coming with several dogs and look like have their handsful I go the other way, so annoying when the owners dont have full control and not fair on the dogs.
The situation today could have ended in Tragedy for that poor little dog and its owners 

Kim

I was in the park last summer talking to a neighbour who has three Rotties. Beautiful big softies. Trained to perfection.I had my two well trained and calm dogs. All 5 dogs sitting  or laying quietly while we chatted.
A man who we all moan about appeared with his Alsatian. The man is always with out a lead and the dog totally untrained. It came barging up to our dogs, teeth gnashing, hackles up.After some pathetic "here's".
His response was to send his daughter,  maybe 8 over to get the dog!! That child would not have stood a chance. The lady with the rotties had hers in a down and stay and I walked off to one side with my two. But what if it had all turned bad, what if our dogs had been off leads as well or not so well trained???
Well guess what? Walking home from work last Thursday I saw him . He now has a Rottie cross as well also with no lead and as equally untrained.

Headlines coming up "Young Child savaged by Rottweiler Devil Dog". I hope to God not.

How awful - I'm so glad you found the Westie, hope everyone gets over it. Rotties are lovely gently dogs when properly trained, but so dangerous (just from sheer size and exuberance!) if not. We used to have one in our park who was completely uncontrolled, no lead or even collar on - one of my friends once said something to the owner and he was very threatening towards the friend, saying he'd 'knock his block off' or something. A year ago he got another one!! These Rotties weren't at all aggressive, just young and bouncy, but as he made no attempt to control them they were scaring all the dogs and owners in the park. I think someone must finally have reported him (I would have but didn't know who to) as lately I have only seen him when I've been out very early, and he usually walks with another person and only one dog at a time, and they do at least have collars, and are often on the lead too.