Fed up with stupid dog owners

I was feeling a bit angry earlier today as on our walk round the heath Cherry nearly got bulldozed by a large, out-of-control Staffy. I saw it come charging towards her and the owners were 2 young lads a long way away. I hadn’t seen the dog before and Cherry does not take kindly to dogs charging up at her like that so I used my pet corrector spray to get it to back off. It took 6 times of it backing off and trying to charge up to her again before it got the message. Those of you who have read some of my other posts know that I have had a real struggle with Cherry as she used to be very reactive to other dogs and she is now brilliant and ignores other dogs and has doggy "friends" which I never thought possible. The 2 lads were quite snotty about my spraying their dog as they said it only wanted to play -I replied that Cherry didn’t and she would try to bite (well head-butt in reality!) and then things could escalate and she was quite frightened of other dogs behaving like that. They said in that case I should leave her at home!

I kept quiet as there were 2 of them and quite rough looking and sounding but inside I was furious! How dare they say that when Cherry was not doing anything wrong and their dog was completely out of control? If Cherry had have protected herself out of fear she could then start being reactive again and I can not stand the thought of her reverting back to what she used to be like. As it was she remained calm as she trusted I was sorting the situation out.

How would some old lady feel walking their Yorkie/Poodle/whatever small dog and this dog came charging up at a distance like this? They would be scared I think, no matter how playful the dog it is not fair to let your dog do this when someone had their dog on a lead. I always call Parker and clip on his lead if we see another dog coming on-leash (unless I know the dog), it is courtesy.

Rant over but it is upsetting when someone else’s dog behaves badly and you get the blame. I had this happen before with a huge Malamute type dog that was bouncing all over poor Cherry and the woman owner called it for over 5 minutes and it wouldn’t come. When I said Cherry was frightened of big dogs she said she should be left at home! I said she should take her dog to training classes. Even Parker told it off as it was so OTT.

On the positive side just after this experience we saw my friends with their 2 Airedale terriers that we had not seen for nearly a year. I was worried that Cherry might react as she hadn’t seen them for so long but she was a star! She stood in the middle of them and wagged her tail and had a sniff. Cherry used to react to the female Airedale from over 40 feet away and it took a year before she would sniff it’s butt and be friendly! I think it was because it was a cruelty case and had a funny way of walking due to back leg damage poor thing.

People like this really re-inforce the stereotype of Staffy owners-I know they are not all like that but I have only known one nice one that used to go to our top class at training club. You would think that because people can be a bit scared of the breed the owners would ensure they are very well trained but the other one we meet bombs into your legs at 100 miles an hour which is painful but I know that one is friendly and Cherry has got used to it now.

(sorry-I have accidentally got 2 posts the same on and don’t know how to delete one!)