Full of Christmas Cheer, or channelling my inner Grinch?
One of the BIG joys about being a holiday home to so many dogs is that they are all so different.
Sure, we get big dogs, small dogs, dogs who malt enough to make it look like we have a carpet, dogs who sleep all day, dogs who run endlessly… the list goes on…
… we also have anxious dogs, reactive dogs, and nervous dogs…
… we have dogs who are leash-reactive, dogs who are antisocial and dogs who are protective.
Every dog is different.
(and every dog gets every ounce of our love!)
But, what this means is I have a serious problem with many dog owners whose catchphrase is “It’s okay, my dog’s friendly”.
It fills me with utter dread every time I see a dog bounding over towards us off-lead, just like I had today on our Boxing Day adventure. The amount of times I have seen a ‘my dog’s friendly’ dog attack or stress out another dog is insane.
“Oh, they’ve never done that before…”
Thankfully today wasn’t one of those times. Our Christmas dog ignored the intruder and our pack-walk continued on. But watching this dog ignore its owner like he didn’t exist bothered me.
If your dog doesn’t listen to you in a highly distracting environment, where there are other dogs, kids and wildlife then I would say with complete certainty they should not be off-leash. I understand no issues may have ever happened – you could have 1,000 walks under your belt where nothing went wrong.
But it just takes one.
We once had an off-leash dog attack one of our holiday dogs, a giant mastiff. Thankfully for the boxer, the Mastiff was the most gentle creature otherwise it may have ended very, very differently – and quite potentially with the loss of a life. If that happened, who would have been blamed?
(The Mastiff took no damage, thankfully, I intervened very quickly)
Again this was a “friendly dog” who had “never done that before” but also completely ignored the owner – and the owner completely ignored the signs of someone looking after their dog.
You know, moving off the path to make space, shortening a leash, moving in front of the dog. Instead, let their dog run up anyway and cause a huge issue.
The moral of this story is simple.
When your dog is in our care THEY are the only dog that matters and I will do all in my power to make sure they have the best holiday possible.
If that means I need to be short with another dog owner, then I will be short with them. If it means I need to command someone else’s dog, then I will do just that. Hell, I carry a spare leash just in case it’s needed.
Your dog matters most – and they always will!
