I have just had a wonderful confrontation with a nice lady walking a GSD.

When I am unable to walk Jasper myself my son takes him onto the field next to our house, he is very well behaved and will happily run round and come when called. If another dog appears he will of course go and say hello but if the other dog doesn't want to play then it's back to his game. Several times this woman has appeared with her GSD and has shouted at my son to put Jasper back on the lead. She even made him put Jasper on the lead so she could let her dog off, who then proceeded to destroy Jaspers ball. At one point he came back into the house after only a few minutes quite upset as she had been quite horrible to him and called him a name not suitable for this forum, and certainly not suitable to use on a 10 year old. Once I had got this out of him I of course went straight out to speak to the woman but she had gone. It has got to the point where he is afraid to go out with the dog, which is his greatest love in the world.

This morning we were both there and Jasper was playing happily when she arrived. Jasper had seen the dog but was more interested in chasing his wubba. Eventually this woman passed close enough to us for Jasper to investigate, he stopped about 5 yards from them wagging his tail when the woman shouted across to me that I had no respect for other dog users, no control over my dog and that a child shouldn't be out on his own with the dog.

Although this was like a red flag to a bull I managed to remain calm. She of course denied swearing at my son and said that she was just worried about how her dog would react. I told her that if she could not control the dog in public then she shouldn't be out with it until she could and that she could not harass other dog users just so she could walk her own. She then explained that it was a rescue dog she had only had for 8 weeks and didn't know how she was with other dogs. So I put Jasper on his lead and took him right up to her.

I explained that she could not keep other dogs away forever and she needs learn to understand her dog better. She was completely astounded when I told her that we had only had Jasper 2 weeks longer than she'd had the rescued GSD, but completely predictably, they said hello, had a sniff and then remained spectacularly uninterested in each other. I explained Jaspers behavior and what her dog was likely to do and hopefully in future she will be a little more trusting of her dog.

It amazes me that people can take on the responsibility of owning a dog and share their life with it and whilst being so completely ignorant as to make no effort to learn about or understand the animal.