Reactive Dogs - Part I

Since we don't have class on Tuesdays anymore, I decided to take Iris over to the state park to get some exercise. Also, Tues was VERY humid and the park has a pond. We usually see a few dogs while we're there, but we've never had any problems before.

Not so on Tues. This woman shows up with her very reactive cocker spaniel and a rambunctious young (I'm guessing around a year old) pit bull. The cocker is on a leash and is completely melting down, barking and lunging at the other dogs in the area. The pittie is off-leash and bounds up to Iris and jumps up on her. She snarks at him (Iris is on leash) and he backs off. No big deal, neither dog seemed phased by it. It looked like a pretty typical "adult dog telling a rowdy teenager to knock it off" interaction. Meanwhile, the cocker is still melting down, and this woman has no clue how to handle the situation.

Iris, however, was being awesome. Because the cocker was on leash and this woman was walking away from us, I stayed by the pond and decided to work with a Iris a little bit. She was being so good, it seemed like a good chance to reward her for it. I'm still kicking myself for sticking around.

All of the sudden, the cocker is off-leash and running toward us at full speed, barking and growling. Great. The cocker gets right in Iris' face, but luckily both dogs just make a lot of noise and don't actually make contact. While poor Iris is fending off the cocker, the pittie shows back up and tries to hump Iris from behind. @*!&#(*#@!!! I pull the pittie off while the woman is yelling at her dogs. They both suddenly back off and go over to her. She puts their leashes on and leaves. She's yelling at her dogs the whole time, saying things like "Get over here! That's it! We're leaving! THAT'S IT!" Never says a word to me. Not a single thing.

Once I knew that Iris was completely uninjured, I really wanted to find a friendly dog to walk past before leaving. I did not want the fight to be the last thing in Iris' mind. It took some wandering, but we came upon a very nice woman with her two dogs - an Irish Wolfhound named Falkor and a Heinz-57 named Belle. Both were very polite, laid back, friendly dogs. The dogs all got sniff and the humans had a nice chat. I was so relieved I was able to end the night on positive experience for Iris.

At first I was really pissed off at the cocker's owner. What was she thinking letting her dog off-leash? And then not even asking if my dog was ok? Seriously? But after living with Iris, I have a lot more empathy for people with crazy dogs. The woman was clueless. Her dogs should not have been off-leash. But she didn't mean for them to go after Iris. What I think happened is she got far enough away from Iris for her dog to stop exploding. She thought it was safe to let her dog off-leash, but then he noticed Iris again and the shit hit the fan. When the woman got her dogs back, I think she was so shocked and embarrassed by what happened, all she wanted to do was get out of there.

Shocked and embarrassed? We've has those days too.