On our walk this morning, I was picking my way across a stream, concentrating on not getting wet feet, and unbeknownst to me, a runner was coming towards us down the mountain path. I heard shouting, so looked up. He was only about ten metres away at this point, and my two were trotting up to him to say hi. Not running, not barking, just going to say a friendly hello. The poor man was obviously terrified of dogs, and was shouting "no, no, no, no, no" at them whilst waving his arms around. I pipped my recall and they came back quickly, thankfully, and I kept them with me whilst he ran off down a different path, throwing me a relieved "thank you" as he went. I have never seen someone so scared of dogs before, in the face of absolutely zero body language that could be interpreted as aggression. I assume he must have had a horrible incident in his past to behave like that. Poor man. I was very relieved and proud that my two recalled in the face of all that fun arm-flapping, and they got plenty of sardine mush for that
Well done to you and Willow and Shadow, he is very lucky that the dogs are so well trained and not reactive to arm waving and shouting. I know some dogs, that although well trained, would have started barking at him because he was a man, and waving his arms.
To be honest, I'm surprised that mine didn't! Willow had a bit of a woof when I had them back with me, but I was holding onto them by then and, other than that, they were really well behaved. We met a couple more sets of people on the path on the way back home, so I did a bit of work on them sitting by me and letting the people pass without engaging them. Of course, there was the one guy who decided to wave his hat at them to encourage them to go say hi, but I got in first with a C&T before they moved. Hah.
Don't you just love people - training our dogs would be so much easier without some of them . The ones that really annoy me are those who reach out to stroke Juno as we pass on our walks when I'm encouraging her to ignore them and focus on me whether walking along or sitting beside the path. Makes my blood boil
Where shall I start? And then there is the pub when you've just got your dog settled and up comes the 25th person wanting to say hello and is it ok to give her a treat. SCREEEEEEEEEEAM!!!!!!!!!!!
Labradors certainly have more than their fair share of magnetism.Although one of the funniest moments I've had recently were a couple passing Juno and I riding their bikes. Juno was walking beside me on a loose lead and as they passed we all said "Bonjour", we are all very polite in France and the guy turned to have another look at Juno as he rode past. The next minute he was trying to stay upright on his bike as he had ridden into his girlfriend . I will admit to having a chuckle to myself at his embarrassment
Well done Willow and Shadow, impeccable behaviour from them The one that gets me at the moment is parents encouraging their small children to go and "stroke the nice doggy", at which point I often find myself shouting NO SHE BITES, which isn't really fair on Lola, but is about the only thing that stops them! As I skimmed down this, I read it as "Juno and I riding our bikes" and was most impressed that Juno was getting around on 2 wheels!
Great recall!! There certainly are people out there who are absolutely terrified of dogs.... And scared people can be loud and exciting. Would be a good thing for all of us to proof our recall against - an arm-flailing, shouty person....
Well done Willow and Shadow! People must be awfully confusing to our dogs. Some encourage them to approach, some shout at them to stay away. Must seem bonkers to the poor dogs. My hates are people who let kids run up to dogs (what the....really) and people who encourage my dog towards them when he is on a lead. This includes receptionists and other customers at the vet's and people in the pub and street. Why? Why would anyone do that? The dog is on a lead attached to a human. He can't move towards you across the room/street/park, all he can do is pull on his lead.
That was a really great show from your 2 Fiona,you feel well chuffed when they behave so well. If it was me and I was so terrified of something as common as a dog,let's face it,you see a lot of dogs in your daily life,I'm would make it my business to understand what I should do to mimimise attracting their attention to make the encounters as easy as possible.Not running,not flapping ones arms comes to mind! Mind you,I am irrationally terrified of spiders.....there is a lot of running and flapping of arms when one of them is encountered I can tell you!thankfully they are less common to encounter than a dog! X
Spiders also don't tend to think, "Oooh, fun!" and run over to give you a lick As I walked this morning, another thought came to mind. Willow tends to get rather frothy around the mouth when we're out. He might have only been scared because he thought she was rabid
Well done Willow and Shadow! Mira is a mouth-frother too; if the walk involves a heavy amount of scent-following the excessive sniffing makes her very frothy!
Lots of joggers in London wave away dogs - I think they just get sick of dogs running up to them when they are jogging. Poor people running through the Common get mugged on a regular basis because so many dogs will run up to people that are running. I don't think they are scared of dogs, just tired of getting mugged by them.
I may just try this with school holidays approaching. Well done Willow and Shadow. Joggers wearing grey no problem, wearing blue now that's different yay a moving target thinks Mabel. The " sit and watch me" tactic is work in progress. We are getting there
I hadn't seen my daughter for a few months and she surprised me with a visit from Vienna a few days ago. (Sorry, that bit's irrelevant ) Anyway, she commented on how big Chepi's teeth had grown and was very careful when giving her a little pat. I guess dogs can be a bit intimidating if you aren't around them much. At least the runner was able to show his distress, you dealt with it and he didn't get nasty. That's a good result.
We love our dogs so much and know their behaviour so well, instinctively at times, that it can be hard to remember how intimidating our dogs can be to others. I have a few friends who are genuinely petrified of all dogs. I"m ok with spiders, but don't like them in the house, I do not want to be anywhere near snakes and cannot see why on earth anyone would want to touch a lizard. Chickens give me the total creeps. Beaks and feet and flapping feathers- I'd rather be a mile off!
My daughter was TERRIFIED of dogs as a toddler - once in the park two Afghan hounds ran up to her, just wanting to play, but she was screaming and crying, I was running towards her to scoop her up, and the man assured me "it's ok, they only want to play..." You can imagine my reaction. I was FURIOUS! For goodness sake, that's like having two cart horses gambolling around you, and the owner assuring you they are really friendly! Not helpful! Anyway, I am very sensitive to the fact that other people might be frightened of dogs, and try to have Pops walk closely to heel if they call out or look at all worried. Or if they have small children with them, or an elderly person, or a dog on the lead.
