Out on my morning walk this morning. A guy stepped out of a doorway at the end of the road, where it goes onto fields. Shadow was surprised and ran up to him, barking. The guy (probably in his early 30s), did exactly the right thing, turning his back and ignoring him. I apologised and collected Shadow. OK, Obviously the barking wasn't acceptable behaviour, I get that. We've been working on it and he's a lot better than he was. Still, unacceptable. But, get this. As I carried on and walked past the guy, he put his hand out and PUSHED ME! I was agape! The only words that had crossed between us were me calling my dog (in English) and apologising (in Spanish). I have no idea what nationality this guy was because he didn't say a word. Not one word. Just pushed me. I was too shocked to do or say anything. I just stood there, like this:
I am shocked too! Hope you are OK, some people are just so odd...but to be physically pushed would've left me quite frankly stunned.
Shadow probably wouldn't have done anything, to be honest, since I didn't react to it (except by catching flies with my open mouth), so probably wouldn't have interpreted it as aggressive. I'm absolutely fine, but still very "whu?!" about the whole thing.
People can be very strange, that's for sure. Were you frightened? Did he leave before you could say anything?
The guy was obviously much more upset than he seemed, I guess. Totally unacceptable to push you though! Things like that always upset me a lot, I hope you feel ok now.
I wasn't frightened, no, it was over in a split second. He just put his hand out and gave me a shove but carried on walking as if nothing had happened. I can totally understand him having a problem. Totally. I could understand him being cross, scared, whatever. But he showed no signs of anything like this, and even if he did, a rational person would vocalise their problem first, surely? I mean, I got his point - he didn't appreciate being barked at. In hindsight, I'm surprised (and pleased) that he didn't react towards Shadow instead of me.
It's completely unacceptable to have pushed you. Outrageous behaviour. I was at the Common yesterday with my friend and her dog - a normally extremely well behaved girl. Both Charlie and my friend's dog ambled up to a man walking along. Charlie recalled immediately, but my friend's dog didn't. And she started to bark at this man. Absolutely out of character. My friend had difficulty recalling her, and even when she did recall she would not let my friend take her collar. My friend had to kneel down and tempt the dog with treats etc. All this time, the man was stood stock still. I smiled at him, explained the dog was acting out of character, and thanked him for his patience. As soon as my friend had hold of her dog, he changed. He was extremely annoyed, and said so, but had stood quiet and still because that's what he thought the right thing to do was to avoid making the situation worse (and it was).
Absolutely he did the right thing with Shadow, which probably lulled me into a false sense of "oh, this guy knows what he's doing around dogs". I would have thought a normal person would, like the guy you met, have a pop at me once the dog was back under control. Maybe, and I'm just making excuses for him now, he didn't speak English or Spanish and so didn't know how to say what he thought. Not that that would stop me, I'm more than happy to shout at someone in English, even when I don't think they speak it There are some strange people around. J was skiing at the front of his class yesterday and someone went past them, pushing each person as he went by! Hmmm.... maybe it's the same guy!
That is just weird and creepy behaviour. The man clearly knew nothing about dogs at all and was probably much more upset and frightened than he appeared but shoving you is just downright odd. Years ago when my old girl Remy was a 4 month old puppy she ambled in front of a jogger who immediately screamed "get away from me" and started behaving like startled prey, flapping his hands about, shouting "shoo" etc. It was a textbook example of how to get bitten by a dog. Remy of course as a 4 month old puppy thought this was a great game and went from ignoring him to trying to interact. She was easy to get under control but the incident triggered me to go to our local running club and do a talk for them on how to avoid being chased or bitten by dogs when out running, and one of the parts of this was not to physically interact with the owners. That sort of incident is always upsetting, more than you think it's going to be at the time I find. Hope you are OK about it now.
That's assault. I suppose you could make a big deal of it if you wanted but you'd probably have to have filed some kind of report right away. Can you ask around to see if anyone else has had a peculiar interaction with him?
I assume he's a holidaymaker, since I've never seen him before. I've mentioned it to a few people, and the nature of the village means everyone will know about it very soon.
Must be one of many differences between Europe and North America. What the guy who shoved the OP did was battery. No matter the barking you do not put your hands on anyone uninvited. The dog barked, it was over, no threat to the guy. I wouldn't have stood for it. Of course I doubt the guy would have shoved me, I'm a large man covered in tattoos
I don't think it would be either of those things in the UK (Snowshoe is from Canada). Not that makes it trivial from Fiona's point of view, things like this make me hopping mad and upset me.
That's just awful, he may have been upset but he had no right to put his hands on you and push you! Saying that I would have probably done the same as you and been too taken aback to say anything. Then I would have spent the rest of the day going over what I should have said to him
