Yesterday while walking the 3 well behaved pom pom pups I dog sit for, I suddenly heard a little girl screaming. It was a horrible scream, one of pure terror. It continued and then another set of screaming and crying, paired with a deep gutteral barking of what I can only speculate was a large dog. My heart started pounding as I saw a little girl run towards me on the woodland path and fall heavily.
Her sibling and her Father arrived closely behind her, both panicked, as he scooped her up and ran toward me. At this point I had already got all three pups back on their leads and I was ready for a sharp exit into the trees.
The father looked worried, scared, and very disgruntled as he made his way past me, carrying his youngest tight and telling the other to run. The daughter on foot was in tears asking me over and over if my dogs were friendly, and despite me saying they were completely no threat several times, she was so frightened she couldnt listen to my words.
At this point I suddenly saw the culprit. A bouncy red Labrador carrying a tree branch....with his owner, a blonde lady who had him on a lead.
The dog looked happy and friendly. His body language loose and wiggly. I assessed this on the spot. But I wasnt worried.
We stopped for a chat. The pups and him played happily.
She explained that he had come bounding out of the woods with a tree branch and bounded toward the girls to parade his find and entice play. He had only barked when the father shouted "run!" and flapped his arms around which had scared him, which then made him protect his owner from the scary loud man who appears angry and threatening.
Which was a protective measure of the dad, in response to the dog looking scary and threatening when he ran up to his girls.
What a situation, and how it had escalated!
I understand these situations occur and could be avoided. I understand that strange large dogs running up to our children would put any parent on guard. There are so many things i could debate about who is right and who is wrong and how these situations could be avoided. But its just the story I wanted to tell and leave it up to someone else to debate.
I have no energy to argue on the internet these days. But you are welcome to talk amongst yourselves about it.
But if more people realised that shouting loudly, flapping your arms and telling your little ones to run away screaming....is only making it more attractive/confusing/threatening to the dog.
If more people trained their dogs a reliable recall, then he wouldnt have been close enough to the girls to cause an issue.
Obviously we need to keep our young ones safe due to the rise of dog attacks in the UK of late, but some situations could be dealt with more effectively or avoided altogether, if we just educate ourselves effectively.
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