Well, I had an eventful run this morning with leash reactive, dog aggressive Shadow. Normally, I can do my 10km circuit without seeing another soul, which is perfect for us. Shadow trots around off lead, stopping to smell the flowers while I stagger and gasp like a strangled tortoise around the route. This morning, however, was a different story - there were loose dogs EVERYWHERE! This is part of the culture of the Spanish countryside; farm dogs are left free to roam, but we normally don't see any. This morning, we had four instances where we came across them. Each time, I clipped him on leash, put him on the far side of me and ran past. I'm never sure if this is the best thing to do as he's leash reactive, but I didn't want to chance him running up and getting into a fracas with multiple dogs - there were two or more each time. Each time, he barely flickered, just ran alongside me seemingly without a care in the world. No hackles up, no snarling, no pulling towards them, nothing. Just a boy and his "mum" out for a nice run together. Luckily, the other dogs all seemed a bit wary, too, and all stopped to look at us, followed us for a little while at a distance and then left us alone. We did have one strange episode where we had just passed a corner where there were two of these dogs and he stopped to sniff. Whatever it was he was smelling scared the bejeezers out of him - he looked really worried, his tail went between his legs and he made himself as small as possible. I heard a strange howl in the distance. Hmm, peculiar. Apparently, wolves have been seen in Catalonia, but not in packs so they wouldn't be howling - and they're very rare, anyway. So it was probably just a regular dog, but it didn't sound like anything I've heard before, nor anything like the baying of the bloodhounds we hear quite a lot locally. About a kilometre further on, we hit tarmac so I popped Shadow on the lead for this section of a few hundred metres. Then my heart sank as I saw, just off to the side of the road, a flock of sheep and their guardian dog. Oh, bollocks. It's the job of these dogs to protect the flock from predators which he doesn't know we're not. They can get pretty nasty. I jumped off the road into the olive grove opposite and legged it up the hill and into the forest as fast as my little legs could take me. Shadow took one look at the PMD but, again, no reaction. He just ambled alongside me as my legs spun round as fast as they could go. Super proud of my boy this morning.
What a good boy! But heck..your gentle jogs, smelling the flowers along the way (add the sound of music piping gently in the background...) are sounding positively dangerous!
Good boy Shadow, but by the sounds of it you're risking your life everytime you go out into the countryside. I like a bit of wildlife, back to nature and all that, but I don't think I would leave your house!
I can hear a song that goes something like "....The hills are aliiiiiive, with the sound of mu....ohbuggerwhattheheckisTHAT!!!!"
You must be thrilled as well as having moments of being scared stiff. I train with an ex police dog handler (and no, he isn't typical, believes in giving dogs confidence and not punishment) and he always advocates that you keep walking (or running in your case!), as if you stop the dog believes there could be a problem.
Wow amazing both of you. I know it was a little worrying but each encounter was a good training opportunity not to be missed, especially as you don't get many xx
You're not wrong. I don't really "do" running - I find it pretty tedious, although podcasts are making it a bit more enjoyable these days. I certainly don't do sprinting. But that's what I did - and UPHILL! - when I saw those first off-leash dogs, and with the PMD. Those things often don't mess around if they feel the flock is threatened. I'm trying to tell myself that it was a fartlek run, good for half marathon training
Took me a little while to figure out what a PMD is. Google tried to help, but somehow I don't think you had an encounter with the Pakistan Meteorological Dept, nor a Personal Microdemabrasion device. Apparently there's a PMD "source code analyzer" too, but I don't even know what that means. I was very grateful to finally hit on Pyrenean Mountain Dog. Yep, that makes a lot more sense.
Love it! @snowbunny, that's great, well done to Shadow, and you of course for all your patient training. You must be over the moon.
Well done shadow. And a particularly fetching photo of you too. I feel a bit uncomfortable off the beaten track anywhere outside the UK, I think you lot are brave with your wild animals Don't you think maturity also helps?
