Who hasn’t heard this when walking their dog:
“Is your dog friendly?” asks the other dog owner who’s walking toward you with their dog on or off leash.
Normally, I would say “Yes, of course, my dogs never hurt or attack anyone.” Until today.
Latte and Emma and I were walking the marsh. They are – as always – on leash and we are on our way home. A few minutes ago, Latte spotted this dog coming from a path on the right walking off leash with his owner on a bike. They were on a course that would intersect with ours in a few minutes. Latte was very intent on this dog, for whatever reason.
The other dog (a wire hair breed of sorts – and the owner on bike behind him) once closer, stopped in the middle of the path and just stood there: paws firmly planted; a solid, alert stance, shoulders forward and tail straight up in the air.
MY hackles went up. He was off leash and the owner just rode his bike past him and past us and was now behind me. This whole situation was not good.
Latte took on a very similar stance to that dog, looking straight at him. That was new! I had never seen Latte do that before. I was on high alert and was encouraging both Latte and Emma to keep moving and get past this other dog, while looking over my shoulder as to why the owner was just riding on.
Before I knew it I heard a squeal, saw some fur flying and saw the other dog run off after his owner. Latte was agitated and making jerky moves. At first, I thought that maybe he got hurt, but as I replaid the scene in my minds eye, I saw Latte going after the dog’s neck and getting some fur.
I watched the other dog run off after his owner who in the distance got off his bike, checked out his dog, then got back up on the bike and rode on. I must assume everything was OK or he would have come back.
Just as I was turning around to keep going home, a lady and her dog came toward me. Her dog was on leash. He inquired about the yelp and what happened and I explained. She nodded and said “Yes, I think that’s the dog I’ve had trouble with before.” Why didn’t that surprise me?
Fortunately, the rest of our way home was uneventful, except for the rather large lady with huge grey hair that Emma must have mistaken for something frightening because she made a huge circle around her and decided to forego dinner out of fear.
It must be getting close to a full moon. Too much strangeness!
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In summary, I have to say, that I would be hard pressed to take responsibility for anything that might have happened to that dog as it was MY dogs who were on leash and under control and his wasn’t.
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