The other day my parents came down with their two boxers, we went to the beach for a walk and although there wasn't too many people on the beach to be on the safe side we kept them on the lead. They can be a bit wild and are quite boisterous when playing with each other so my mum always keeps them on the lead in public places so she can control them both. Everyone we saw was really respectful and walked past and keeping their dogs close or they sniffed each other and kept going. One person however who had a poodle threw the ball straight in our direction and the dog came sprinting over. Her dog then started yapping at one of our dogs, showing its teeth and jumping up at her too! Surprisingly, my mums dog just looked quite confused and didn't react (no barking, lunging - just a very confused face) but as my mum pulled her away she was pulling back and this little poodle kept going for her. Then our other dog who is much younger and just wants to play started pulling my dad too and the leads were getting tangled.
I asked the woman if she could just get the dog away but the woman was more interested in retrieving the ball than calling her dog back which was really frustrating, I asked her again to either take her dog away or put it on a lead and she just started hurling abuse at us saying we should control our dogs and should muzzle them (they weren't growling or barking) and then how we should muzzle ourselves. She was really horrible and it was really upsetting.
I have a dog too who is a big dog and she has in the past had two small dogs run up to her yapping at her and jumping up at her and the owners didn't do anything while she was hiding behind my legs.
Obviously this isn't always the case but I've found that this seems to be a common occurence and can only think that if this was the other way around people would be appalled at a big dog seemingly attacking a small dog but some owners with small dogs just think its ok
I asked the woman if she could just get the dog away but the woman was more interested in retrieving the ball than calling her dog back which was really frustrating, I asked her again to either take her dog away or put it on a lead and she just started hurling abuse at us saying we should control our dogs and should muzzle them (they weren't growling or barking) and then how we should muzzle ourselves. She was really horrible and it was really upsetting.
I have a dog too who is a big dog and she has in the past had two small dogs run up to her yapping at her and jumping up at her and the owners didn't do anything while she was hiding behind my legs.
Obviously this isn't always the case but I've found that this seems to be a common occurence and can only think that if this was the other way around people would be appalled at a big dog seemingly attacking a small dog but some owners with small dogs just think its ok