we took our border pup on his usual walk tonight,let him off his lead as usual,he was trotting along next to us lovely,we spotted another dog so we got a fare distance away and put him back on his lead,the other dog a fat overweight greyhound lay in long grass and his owner told him to stay but it completely ignored his owner and came running at our pup,he sniffed around our pup then snapped at our pups face,it frightened him and he gave out a right yelp,the owner of the greyhound never said a word just walked off then he grabbed his dog by the collar and dragged him away.
if this happens again how do i deal with it,i don't want my pup to be frightened of bigger dogs or for him to not enjoy his walk.

Best thing to do is to ignore the pups frightened behaviour. He will get over it , as long as he meets plenty of other friendly dogs.

However, if there is a dog off lead and their owners clearly have no control of it AND you don't want it to come up to your pup (for whatever reason), then I find using your body to block him (like walking up to it in a very in a very aggressive manner - spreading your arms and legs) and talking in a very stern voice (like 'get out! off! shoo! hey!) will stop the other dog straight away and most importantly will get the owner's bum moving quickly to get control of their dog. When the owner eventually comes then you very sternly say 'you need to learn how to control your dog' and leave it at that. If we all did this, then people will be much more respectful and learn some decorum.

I also advise my clients (who have fear aggressive dogs - which are kept on lead and really hate it when out of control dogs come up to their dogs) to take a compact umbrella with them and if the body blocking and shouting at the other dog doesn't work, then to pop open that umbreally in the dogs's face. However, this is extreme and you really don't need to do this with your pup, but it's a good tip for those of you that hate other dogs coming up to your fear-aggresive dog and getting it started. I have also heard that throwing a poo bag (with poo) at the other dog works, but I haven't tried this myself... yet.... :-D

All the best with the pup and keep him safe!

Cheers,
Patty

I love the idea of the flying poo bag !!.
A similar thing happened to me (not the poo bag thing !) and my border terrier on Monday evening. He was happily playing with his tennis ball when I heard a man shouting like mad. I turned round to see to rotties flying towards us. They ignored their owner completely and started jumping all over my lad. The more the man shouted/screamed the more excitable they became - he kept shouting to me "It's ok, they are friendly". I thought, try telling my dog that !. Everytime my little one made a run towards me, hoping that I'd throw his ball, they would just tumble him over, he couldn't get away. I just held the ball up to keep his concentration on me and to stop him panicking. Bless him, he could only take so much - in the end, as I expected, he turned on one of the dogs gave the biggest bark he could and chased it away. What would have happened if one or both of the dogs had retaliated I dread to think - I know they aren't particularly big but they are powerful. I'm only glad that my boy hadn't been on his lead, it would have been much worse, he really hates it and panics when out of control dogs come up to him.

thanks for the advice.