Catherine and Cali were enjoying a lead walk in a local beauty spot recently when a collie suddenly appeared. Catherine’s been with me long enough now to recognise when an approach is friendly or not – and this was not friendly.
The owner was nowhere in sight. The collie stalked closer. Catherine tried to protect Cali while shouting for the owner to come and control their dog – but to no avail. The dog pounced.
Both Cali and Catherine were bitten, luckily not too badly, and both were left very shaken.
The owner did eventually appear and put her dog on lead, without a word of apology, only to let it off again as they walked away, presumably to allow some other person to be scared and bitten. (The incident has been reported.)
One person’s irresponsibility has left Catherine having to do a LOT of training with Cali to make sure she is comfortable around other dogs in future.
Not fair on either of them.
There’s a few reasons why people don’t call their dogs back when asked and let them run up to other people and dogs. Here’s a few:
- They can’t. They haven’t trained their dog to come back when called
- They’re embarrassed and are pretending it’s not happening
- They don’t care, and, worse – they don’t even bother trying
- They think it’s OK – this is often when people think (wrongly) that their dog should be allowed to meet any other dog they want to, often in the name of “socialisation”. No. No. No. Socialisation is NOT about letting dogs run up to any other dog.
Regular readers will know that you should never, ever allow your dog to run up to another person or another dog. Never. Ever.
- If the person is scared they might get bitten, your dog could end up dead. There does not have to be a bite for the law to uphold a complaint.
- The other dog might be ill, recovering from an operation and an unwelcome and wanted approach from another dog could damage the dog’s recovery
- The dog run up to might be in the middle of being trained to help them get over being scared of and reactive to other dogs – obviously, it will set that training back days and possibly weeks.
You should only let your dog off lead when you are at least 95% sure you can call them back. If not, they should stay on lead until you’ve done the training.
And if your dog does run up to another person and/or dog and won’t come back – life does happen – then immediately go and fetch your dog and apologise at the very least.
I’d love you to email and ask me about anything your dog does that you don’t understand. Or about anything else to do with dogs. Let me know how I can help you most through these emails.
Keep training and keep safe,
Carol