What Kind of Dog Owner are You?

Are you the kind that happily interacts with other people you come across on a walk and willingly let your dog mingle with other canines, or are you the type that keeps your dog on a lead, keeping to yourself and not allowing any kind of socialisation for your doggy friend.

Me personally I fall in to the first category, I’ll have my dogs off lead for most of their walks where possible, allowing them to run and meet new friends, after all dogs are pack animals and naturally will want to go and meet other canines they come across. Its sociable for me too not just for the dogs, meeting new people on walks or coming across the same person every now and again can be great for owner and dog.

But I find far too many people these days are fussy who their dogs interact with even becoming aggressive when they don’t want to be approached by a big bounding Labrador who only wants to say hello, personally I think what’s the point in owning a dog if you don’t want to go on long walks and meet people along the way.

I’ve got a black lab and a golden retriever and wild horses can’t stop them from greeting people whilst we are out on a walk, my lab Murray seems to think that everybody wants to say hello to him including humans, whilst this is typical nature of a lab I take great pleasure from watching him assume everybody wants to have a play. Over the last year and a bit since we’ve had Murray we have met all sorts of dogs some wanting to play others who chase him away, that’s fine but it’s the ones that chase him away who have the problem owners, they are not allowing their dogs to socialize with him and so are turning aggressive towards dogs in general. Murray is far from well balanced he has his moments but letting him run free and be told by other dogs and not humans that they don’t want to play is probably one of the best things you can do for your dog. Fussy owners who control who their dogs play with if any at all need a lesson in looking after dogs.

Whilst I understand some dogs are aggressive and cannot be let off the lead to socialise, I also think for a dog to lead a fulfilled life they need the freedom to run with other dogs, so an owner keeping a dog confined to a lead is only contributing to aggressive behaviour as they are being constricted. These dogs need to be rehabilitated with some basic training.

Only the other day I was walking back from the quarry where I regularly take Murray, a whippet cross breed was approaching in the other direction and I could hear it start to growl at Murray, and as we got closer it snapped at Murray, whilst Murray did nothing to retaliate only giving it a wide birth the owner turned round and spoke to the dog as if it understood English, he said “ I told you if you did that again that there would be trouble” and hit the dog across the nose with the end of the lead. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing this owner clearly could not control the dog and had no intuition of dealing or training his dog only using aggression when the dog did something wrong , rather than discipline with a jerk of the lead as a correction for his behaviour and a stern NO he was bullying this dog and treating it badly, I’d hate to think what goes on behind closed doors if he can do this to his dog in broad daylight on a public street.

How isolated this dog must be feeling is beyond me, he clearly has social issues with other dogs, whilst growling to protect him self and ward other dogs off him he is being hit across the head by his supposedly loving owner, so not only is he fearful of other dogs but of his owner too. This owner is only adding to the problem and some simple socialisation skills and confident dog handling will go along way to rehabilitating this dog and leading a long happy life, greeting dogs whilst out on a walk rather than being fearful of them.

Although I can control my 2 dogs to a point, they are still young and learning, Their recall is not the best and I only let them off in safe locations away from busy roads or cattle. I let them off because I know they are not aggressive and only want to say hello to other people and dogs they meet, but it annoys me when we come across somebody with a dog on a lead, whilst I know that the correct thing to do is put my two on a lead which I do as soon as I have caught up with them, but it absolutely annoys me beyond belief when people get stressed that their dog is not interacting well with my dogs and basically blaming me for their dogs behaviour, because mine are running loose and apparently causing havoc. If these owners just relaxed and let nature take its cause then their dogs would in turn relax and not turn a pleasant situation of dogs greeting each other into a sour , bad taste left in you mouth kind of experience.

My golden retriever is 4 months old and already becoming hesitant to other dogs because he has been growled at so many times by other miserable dogs. I will carry on with his training and socialising him with dogs I know are friendly, but if I didn’t then Lucas could well turn into one of those dogs that growls because he has been growled at.