I was walking Martini the other afternoon and was at the end of the walk and back to the apartment building. I was about to walk through the parking garage to get to the stairwell closest to my apartment. It’s a little bit of a shortcut.
There happened to be a couple with a big, snarly-looking dog standing over by the entrance to the parking garage. The owner pulled the dog tight with a prong collar and the big shar pei mix (I think) growled at Martini. The owner said something like, “yeah, he’s friendly” and I raised my eyebrows and pulled Martini over to the side, putting myself between the snarly dog and Martini.
As I walked past, the owner shook his head and said, “idiot” not quite under his breath. It was clear he wanted me to hear.
I called back and asked, “Did you just call me an idiot?!” and he said yeah. I asked WHY and he said it was because of my reaction. He was already walking the other direction and I guess I should have just let it go, but I called after him, “what was it about my reaction?” and he said something I couldn’t quite make out, but before long we were yelling at each other while we both walked away from each other!
It was so weird and uncomfortable, but I will say this: if you have a dog that is pulling hard on his prong collar and I can see that you’re straining to keep your dog under control, I’M GOING TO HAVE A REACTION. And that reaction will be a part of keeping both myself and my dog SAFE.
Did I tell you about the guy with the Rottweiler who lets him off-leash in the park (adjacent The Treehouse) to get his exercise? Now, this dog is actually an amazingly beautiful creature and he’s very well trained, but I prefer to enjoy watching them do their workouts from the safety of the Treehouse balcony.
But one day I was walking Martini, as I do, and I could see the dog and the dude close to the path, so I picked up Martini and held her tight and the dude got SO OFFENDED that I did that. He said, “This dog is well trained - I paid very good money to make sure this dog will obey.”
And I said, “That’s fine and good, but you never know what might happen.”
And he huffed and he puffed like I was the asshole in this scenario.
I’m sorry. Once again, either leash your dog or take your dog to an off-leash park or an open field where there are no other creatures. Martini is an 8-pound dainty but mighty girl and can hold her own with some big pooches, but she still looks like a squirrel/snack to other dogs!
I’ve heard too many stories of big dog/little dog situations gone awry. And in fact, I heard fairly recently that big ol’ Rotty was off-leash and bitten pretty seriously in the leg by a Pitty (another breed I will react defensively around).
Now who’s the idiot?
Good day, sir.
GS
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