Didn't have a good walk today

[White Bryony]

Have just come back from our regular walk and I am not very happy.

The walk is two minutes away from our house, across a fairly busy road, over a style and on to several big grassland fields. The dogs love it.

Let my two off when I got over the style, who both ran off together as they normally do sniffing and exploring.   At the top of the field was a woman with a fairly big dog going in the same direction as me.

Woofie and Maddie don't run up to other dogs, they just prefer each others company, in fact Woofie just prefers his own when on walks!

Anyway this dog sees Woofie and Maddie and comes charging down the field, starts chasing Woofie and ends up knocking Woofie over (who yelped loudly and rolled twice!).  Woofie obviously didn't like this so started snapping and growling.  I called my dogs back and they headed back with the stupid dog chasing them.  I crouched down and held both of my dogs by their collar and the dog just crashed into us knocking us all flying.

The woman (who had a small child with her) finally noticed something was wrong (she had watched her dog knock Woofie over and done nothing) and came down the field saying, 'Oh sorry, hes 10 months old and just wants to play'. 

I told her that Woofie wasn't happy about being knocked over and it would be better if she put her dog on a lead and we would go on ahead.  She spent a couple of minutes trying to get him back on the lead and waited to give us a head start up the field.

I feel I should have said a lot more and feel I let my Woofalump down 

We enjoyed the rest of the walk and Woofie doesn't seem to have any injuries.

As we were walking back down to the style at the end of the walk she was ahead of us, I had put Woofie on the lead at the top of the field as now he is nearly 11 he goes a bit deaf and I think it is better to be safe than sorry.  She didn't attempt to put her dog on the lead until she got to the style, and as I was just thinking that was a bit stupid her dog ran straight under the style into the main road. Luckily it isn't too busy on a Sunday. Stupid stupid woman!!!!

Sorry for the rant but OH is in bed and I feel better now I have shared 

[Karma]

Inconsiderate woman....

I know adolescent dogs can be difficult, and previously good recall can go out of the window - but she should certainly have asked if poor Woofie was ok.
And the fact that she hadn't put it on the lead in enough time at the end of the walk just shows how silly she is. 

Honey would have told the dog exactly what she thought of his antics  , and I bet the woman would have thought Honey in the wrong!!! 

TBH though, it probably wasn't going to be worth you saying more... you made sure your dogs were safe and away from the young hooligan, but getting into a confrontation with the woman would just have led to more stress... 

[MaggieR]

I can completely understand where you're coming from - having to keep Maggie on the lead at the moment we fall victim to other people's dogs on a daily basis She's pretty good and will say hello but then just wants to move on.  I try to just keep her moving - but some of them just don't get the message and it can get fraught with Mags telling them exactly where to go...  I've engaged in some "heated debate"  on this a couple of times, and it just winds me up more cos I know these people aren't going to change what they do and as far as I'm concerned Maggie is perfectly within her rights to tell them to back off!

Glad Woofie is ok 

[White Bryony]

Thanks for your replies ... I think I wanted reassurance that it was ok for Woofie to tell the other dog off.

Woofie is normally so placid that it upsets me when I see him growling and snapping!

[Karma]

Was absolutely right for Woofie to tell the dog off!!! 
If some teenager bowled you over in the street, you'd tell them where to go!! 

[Coco]

Not nice for you guys and Woffie was doing what came naturally but she sounds inexperienced. You will know if she is inexperienced or just plain inconsiderate and stupid. If it's the later then i'd worry for her dog and unfortunatly you bore the brunt of it but if it's the former perhaps if you see her again you could try to point out the danger of the road and the danger to her dog if it is off lead and far away and 'plays' with an agressive dog   Perhaps if it's her first pup she thinks all dogs are like hers, if she does she'll get a nasty shock