Will try to keep this brief and would be very grateful for any advice.
We have a border collie X rescue dog who has been with us for just under three weeks. She is very sweet and gentle with humans and pretty timid. At the rescue we saw her around other dogs and she was fine. She has encountered a few dogs since she has been with us (on the lead) and been fine.
The other day I was out walking her with my DC in a quiet country space when a large, obviously young, dog appeared out of nowhere and bounded over to us. My dog was on the lead as we had been advised by the rescue to keep her leashed for the first few weeks. This big dog was bouncing all over us, shoving up to my dog, coming up to her from behind and generally being ill mannered. There was no owner in sight. I firmly told the dog to go away which it eventually did but not before nipping my dog on a back leg. My dog yelped but didn't show any sign of aggression. The DC and I were quite shaken up by the encounter as I have no idea what I would have done if things had got even more out of hand.
Following that, about 10 days later, some friends of ours came over and unfortunately brought their dog with them without checking with us first (we would have said no as we are settling in a shy rescue dog).
Basically they arrived just as I had set off to walk my dog - I was about 10 metres up the track from my house when I saw them get out of their car with their huge dog (she weighs 60 kilos). The dog was on a lead but dragged the 13 year old daughter (who had no control or authority over the dog) to us where she promptly jumped up at me, practically trampled my 12 kilo collie, got right in my dog's space, had me tangled up in her lead, etc. My collie was really afraid and of course bared her teeth and tried to tell this dog to stop being so rude. I was trying to calmly ask the girl to get her dog the hell away and get it under some kind of control. The dog was not being aggressive but was basically trampling all over us. My collie lost control of herself and as her warnings had all been ignored by this boisterous dog, she snapped at the dog. She did a couple of those really loud air snaps that aren't a real attempt to bite but the final warning just before.
Our friends hauled their dog back into some kind of control and I took my dog inside the house in order to calm her down and reassure her. After a couple of hours of keeping the dogs separate we took them for an on lead walk together as I really didn't want my dog ending the encounter with such a negative experience. The dad had the big dog on lead and we kept the dogs a comfortable distance apart but were still walking together. My dog was wary of the other dog but as she felt safe there was no aggression. I feel pretty certain though that she would have been aggressive if they had been off lead and the other dog bounded up to her.
I'm so upset for my poor dog. On two occasions she has been minding her own business and really big dogs have totally invaded her space and really upset her. I can't help feeling worried that at this stage in her first few weeks with us that this could make her nervous of other dogs and consequently aggressive with them. I feel very annoyed with the owners in both cases but what's done is done and now I just want to proceed in the best way possible for my dog.
Thanks for reading this massive post and for any advice.
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The doghouse
Really annoyed with other dog owners letting their dogs harass my poor rescue dog.
35 replies
Beachcomber · 05/05/2014 01:16
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