Once a week, my guide dog and I take my 8yo to her swimming lesson. To get there we walk along a footpath by a river, with some trees etc. It's quite a popular dog walking spot, and we often pass other dogs having an off-lead run around. DD and I walk along the path together and I let my guide dog have an off-harness, off-lead run around for 10 mins. Guide dogs need regular free runs too.
The last two times, we've coincided with an elderly lady with two very yappy, bouncy little dogs (not sure of breed). The lady looks quite frail and seems to have trouble managing the dogs. They jump up at her and pull and wind around her legs and bark continuously, so she looks like she is struggling.
This morning, she got cross with me and shouted that 'a dog like that should be on a lead'. My dog wasn't anywhere near her dogs, she was trotting along sniffing around the trees on the river bank. Admittedly, her dogs were jumping and barking and straining at their leashes. She said they were afraid of big dogs and mine should go on a lead.
Am I wrong to think that isn't my dog's fault? She wasn't bothering them, she was at least 20 yards away all the time. Usually she likes meeting other dogs on free runs, but she steered clear of these two. I did explain that my dog was a guide dog, which I think she took on board and perhaps found reassuring. I don't want to cause her stress or anxiety - but neither do I want to deprive my well-behaved dog of her free run (we are limited in where we can get to for these, for obvious reasons) because these other dogs aren't well controlled.
AIBU?