See how I got all sidetracked? I meant to come here and share an actual pleasant dog experience that I had yesterday – I know, pleasant! *gasp* It does happen!
I took my crew to the park to play ball while the baby slept off her play date exhaustion, ran Karma and Teak down, easy enough, and got Dyson out. Yes, Dyson is the jerk who wears a remote. But it wasn’t charged, but we’ve had a really good run of no dog fights or bad interactions, and I only go to the park when there is little foot traffic so I figured we’d be fine. I’m hyper vigilant when he is out because well, I just am.
I was throwing his ball and someone pulled up behind my van. She got out, came up to me, and very politely said “I have a small dog on a leash, would it be ok for us to get it out since yours if off lead and playing?” Yay for giving me the chance to respond! I said, “No, actually, he’ll probably try to kill your dog, but I’ll be more than happy to put him away. Thanks SO MUCH for letting me know you were here!”
I immediately put D in the van, no problems, no drama, took all of like a minute, and I again told her how grateful I was she’d talked to me. What do you know, she said her dog was a jerk too and liked to antagonize bigger dogs. We completely avoided a problem by actually, I know, wait for it, speaking! Exciting, isn’t it?
Everyone was safe, no one got pissed off (dogs included!), and it was just so nice that someone recognized the need to communicate. I’m happy to put my dog away, after all, it’s NOT a dog park, which is why we go there, to minimize contact with other dogs. If my dogs were friendly, if I were friendly, we’d go play at a dog park. But my dogs are not friendly, and have been attacked too many times and are defensive. I like to play ball with my dogs, which always creates frenzy at a dog park. My dogs don’t play with other dogs, they play with me.
It was just so nice that someone actually spoke to me, asked if my dog was safe, instead of just ignoring me. Fellow owners of jerky dogs unite!!
Posted on March 25th, 2010 by michelle
Filed under: Random run ins
That’s awesome! Its always nice to hear people actually being diligent about this sort of thing.
I’m always thankful when people ask if my dogs are friendly before allowing their toddler to run up and grab their ears. I’m unfortunately not being sarcastic, that has happened more than once and neither me or my dog were too happy about it.