kelp

Some places are better than others i think. the oval i was on tends to be used by dog owners while passing through rather than hanging about, playing with the dog stypw activities so people dont stick around for very long . they dont get to know eachother . But there are also other ovals near me where regulars meet up at about the same time every single day. the dogs get to know eachother and dont go bonkers when they meet up. I get to know the other dogs too, and know when to leave or stay... plus it means the owners tend to keep on side with eachother.

rascal yikes!! That boxer owner should have been more on the ball. I mean how coulld he have not seen you, your pram plus FOUR dogs? that was a serious near miss. when this stuff happens it is all so quick. my hat is off to you for keeping your temper. While Loosing it can feel good at the time, on the other hand, it means the baby, children, toddlers not to mention the dogs get upset - more upset than the person being yelled at, unfortunately.

thanks all for your thoughts. didnt mean to transfer my crossness to others! i was thinking of ringing up the dog ranger to report, but i got back later than expected from an errand. i dont think there is anything they can do. they have their hands pretty full I imagine. I never cease to be amazed when this sort of stuff happens. yy - accidents and sillyness of dogs and owners is one thing (and when the owners at least try to sort their dog out) but being rude and blame-shifting and rude is another. skip, that girl with the staffy would she have listened ? i am thinking not - nobody wants to admit their dog is in the wrong in the heat of the moment. It is sort of like explaining right of way arrangements in cars just after a near-miss. everyone is hot under the collar so not wiling to concede they are at fault. would a public message campaign be useful for dog owners, on tv, or on signs at pet shops or whatever places dog owners tend to go to, (and when they might be a more receptive mindset ) to show people what acceptible dog behaviour looks like. would these campaigns work, or would they be futile?

juice - isnt that victem blaming? my dogs were on leashes. hers was not. irrespective of the oval being in an off leash area, isnt the issue control? her dog was in no way in control. on the "dog under control" spectrum mine were way more under control than hers. plus the cyclist owner was no way close enough to deal with her dog in any case. i guess i was pissed off she didnt get that her dog was causing me problems. why is it ok for dogs to hassle other dogs and owners ? is it ok for off leash dogs to hassle peoplewithbabies in prams , and with toddlers - these people with young children are encumbered, just as I was. mine would have sat down if i had had enough time to react. i've not had problems with carrying my dog before. most people get there must be a reason. as to kicking . it was growlling already. plus i just didnt think. doesnt kicking just escalate things?

A little rant... I was taking my two medium-small dogs for leisurely walk around an oval this morning. One of my dogs has been injured so I have been carrying him on our daily walk while the other dog sniffs up the duck poo, on leash. He is relatively young still - we are still working on his recall plus I didnt want the uncessary hassle of him getting the zoomies on my own. (injured dog has back leg injury, so he is all bound up, on three legs. Our Vet advised injured dog take things easy for a while. I didnt want to leave injured dog at home as he enjoys being out an about, so I was happy to carry him around). The oval is open, with only a low log fence plus trees around the outside. It allows dogs to be off leash if they are under control and if it is not being used for sport. Normally I can see other people and dogs quite a way off, as this give me time to get my dogs under controll and to suss out dodgy dogs /owners from a distance. We'd already had some nice calm sniffs with some dogs whom we had already met on previous walks. Some other dogs and owners had also been happy to keep on walking when asked. It was at a typically quiet time for people and dogs. A very large german short haired pointer came bounding up suddenly behind me , out of nowhere. He was growlling its head off. My arms were full of injured dog and I didnt have time to put the other dog into a sit stay position (he is happy around most dogs). My injjured dog who is also normally happy to meet other dogs was equally surprised as me and started barking. As he was injured, i wasnt going to put him down on the ground.especially since the GSP was growlling and so big. I was defintely caught on the hop. I asked the owner -who was speedily cycling along the path on the outside of the oval behind the low woodenlog fence - to recall her dog, but she refused, kept cycling and yelled that i was being unreasonable as her dog was "safe". I asked her again to recall her dog or I would ring the police. (I didnt because i didnt actaully have my phone). She again called ME a total f***ing idiot beacuse I should accept her opinion of her perfect dog who was "just doing what dogs do.," told to "get a grip" etc. I had never ever seen this dog before. The dog only took off when she got to the road atthe end of the oval, when she put one of those extender leashes on. From my point of view it seemed clearly obvious that I was struggling to keep my dogs from being hassled. . I should not have to justify why I didnt want my dogs to meet hers. Her dog should have been her responsibility, not mine. It has got me thinking that she was never going to come around to my point of view. Ringing up the dog warden/authorties to complain is just going to be a nail in the coffin for clamping down spaces for ALL dogs, not just the badly trained dogs. Should there be more public messaging on what is acceptable dog and dog owner behaviour? it is not just about picking up the poo, right?

we inheirted a cat when our puppy was about 7 months old. the puppy was smaller than the cat at that time. A few months later,, i took the cat to the vet and told her I was worried that the cat had lost a vast amount of weight since it came to live with us. It turned out the cat had actually put on weight, but the dog had grown up a bit, soit was larger than the cat. it was a matter of perspective :D the vet was very kind about it.

yes, i would like to give her some new photoes, so i will try to remember then. ii'll also ask another family around here who has one of her dogs when i see them next.

gruf, one dog was 9 weeks. i didnt really look at the dewclaws until we clipped him at 12 weeks, when the groomer noticed and told me. the other dog was two years old when we had him come to live with us. they have the same father.

strangely enough, both my dogs came with only one of their front paws with a dew claw. (that is, not on both legs) i keep forgetting to ask the breeder about it. is having only one dew claw something that comes up genetically or is she removing only one of the claws? if the latter, why?

oops. i was reading your earlier posts and didnt see this one. But I am still keen to hear how you are going with your girls. how are they going these days?

off to read the reactive dogs thread in the training section now

this will out me as a relatively new dog owner, but i am always saddened when i read about dogs that are attacked or have a traumatic experience being forever changed in their dealings with other dogs. some have only one incident but are forever changed. : are there any statsitics about on the prevelance of this? with OSS's above story of the rescue dobe, which behaved fantastically for 12 months before reverting to its former aggresive behaviour is also very sad. what hope do those who are not experts have? Is there a thread about good news stories for behavioural issues? Hankdog, the 101 things with a box. yes! great suggestion! we can do that. my littlest child seems to have a mind like a dog's, and always explains to me the dog's reasoning for doing things a certain way (eg, tchild ressons that the dog reasons that jumping up gets you treats when you eventually sit down...). so your explaination about why a dog may bark also makes perfect sense to my child. :) the dogs are continuing to heal nicely and are scampering sround. I was watching a dog language DVD the vet lent me today and i let the dogs watch the section on appeasing/calming body language. just so they can see some nice friendly dogs in a safe environment... my dogs just turned their backs on the dogs on the screen, and went to sleep. :D (we have watched a few movies /video clips with dogs in them and our dogs have tended to bark anxiusly).

thnks again for your well wishes. quick update..vet checked dog.. no obvious puncture wounds but she told us to keep an eye out for future discomfort. She examined his paw which i thought was tender: it is also ok.. all the places where the dog's mouth bit were checked (rump and side of tummy) and were ok. his wound is also ok, so he is physically on the mend. report shows this. we have follow up appointment in another weeks time to see how his emotional state is. We went for a different walk this afternoon and passed by two medium dogs, border collie and heeler cross (all leashed). both were dogs we had not met before. Our bitten became very worried, and started barking at them, using the strangled bark voice, the same noise he used yesterday evening. He seemed ok with the small dogs at the vet's though, just watching them between our legs. it is tricky to see how he is gping to react as he is still not healed enough to play off leash. The behaviourist said this afternoon to wait till he is more physically resilliant, and not to rush things.. It is ok to try to arrange a few pass-by encounters with dogs he knows in a day or so. . He did spend some time chewing a bone this afternoon on the grass, without being velcro'd to me, plus he had a snooze on the carpet (not on my lap)this evening. he was also happy to move away and move away to sniff the cat.

ps, not that i expect this to happen again, but what does one actually do when a big barrel-shaped dog is jumping on your back? do you shout at it? won't this make everything worse?

thanks for these views. your support is truly appreciated. I am still really upset, but the dogs and children seem ok. we went for a different walk today, and came across a little westie X who was very tail-waggy and polite. our dogs wagged back, and seemd generally happy to see this other little dog. As they were in post-op recovery period, and that i had never seen this dog before, we didnt let them get too close. persephone, the slowness of our walk, and us stressing the reactive dog is something i feel really bad about. But, On the otherhand, I have stood at the same spot talking with the neighbours . The only difference this time was that the dog managed to find his way out of his otherwise secure property. i wonder if the main door had originally been opened by them to ask us to move faster (and we would have been happy to do so). The screen door is also usually locked, as a default. We have visited reasonably regularly, in the past. :) But this time, their daughter was visiting, and she might not have been fully aware of the dog situation, as she moved out before this aggro dog came on the scene and their previous dog had been placid. Their dog has been also extremely reluctant to go beyond its back fence which is set back a way from the road, so the fact that it came out beyond its comfort boundary, onto the street and down the road a bit was also a surprise. It is a big big shame to have to talk to the neighbours about this. These neighbours are otherwise great, and i had always considered them to be quite responsible dogwise (unlike their nextdoor neighbours whose dogs were also going bonkers at the time and i wonder if this stirred things up). The two sets of dogs wind eachother up, but the good neighbours take steps to hush their dog but the dreadful neighbours just do not care. In fact, the dreadful owner said they liked her dogs to bark at everything, as it meant they were scaring off possible would-intruders and it was just too bad for us neighbours trying to sleep. Our dogs were caught in the crossfire between this barking war. As an aside, it is impossible to get a complaint about barking dogs sustained here. I do wonder why some rescue people think all dogs are inherently rescuable. Do they not realise that a dog attacking another dog has the potential to make the victim dog itself reactive and aggressive? i wonder if i should also report this dog to the rescue they got it from... and yes, i am more cross at the rescue than the neighbours that this dog was passed on as safe to home. once we get the vet report, which they are happy to do, we will talk to the neighbours. We havent heard their dog since yesterday, they may have even taken steps themselves to deal with the dog.