Really annoyed with other dog owners letting their dogs harass my poor rescue dog.

[Beachcomber]

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.

[subtleplansarehereagain]

"And of course they see little wrong in all this and think that we have the bad dog because she displayed aggression whilst their dog was just being "friendly" ."

I have fallen out with a friend for exactly this reason. My dog growled at theirs to ask it to keep away. She said he was "bullying" and had "issues."

[Beachcomber]

Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme - unfortunately they are French so MN would be no good to them, they certainly need it though. They are people we have known for a long time and they are very nice. Their children are very well mannered so I was quite surprised that it is such a free for all with regards to their dog. Some people just shouldn't really have dogs and I afraid these particular friends fall into that category AFAICS.

Owllady, your aloof collie sounds like a lovely lady, you must miss her - I think ours is a bit like that. She's fine with dogs who follow dog greeting protocol but not particularly playful and doesn't suffer rude dogs gladly.

moosemama thanks for sharing your experience. We are definitely going to try to find some training classes to go to with our dog once she has got to know us just a wee bit better. I just hope that being in France we will be able to find something positive - I have heard that France is quite behind the times WRT dog training and that dominance theory is still used by most trainers. I have friends who had a nipping dachshund pup and they spent ages trying to find someone local who wasn't insisting that he 'didn't know his place in the pack' as they only reason they gave for the nipping (in fact he started nipping because their youngest child was teasing him, rushing up to him, snatching toys, pulling his ears, etc and that had made him nevry).

We are very lucky in that we have a hotel near us that has massive grounds and they let you walk your dog there off lead as long you respect the place by picking up poo and not letting your dog run riot. We have been going there for about 2 weeks and have yet to meet another dog. This is giving us a great fenced off space in which to walk and play in safety and practice our recall. One advantage of my dog being timid is that she doesn't stray far from me (she regularly checks in and likes to know where I am), and so far has come back straight away every time I have called her. She has obviously been trained (or has trained herself as some dogs just do) as if I have let her build up a bit of distance between us, when called, she comes dashing straight to me, sits at my feet at looks up at me waiting for me to tell her she's good. We luffs her!

[Greydog]

my rescue grey is scared of other dogs as well, and regretably the only thing that works is "will you fuck off with your dog" I don't like it, but polite so very rarely works

[Beachcomber]

Thanks everlong for the reminder that there are lots of nice dogs. I think I need that sort of reminder at the moment. We met a couple of nice ones today, a big black lab and a wee JRT. They were polite and friendly and my dog reciprocated. Phew each positive encounter is doing both of us good probably me more than her . Am trying to be casual and relaxed about meeting unknown dogs, it's not easy though...

As it happens we had already arranged to go to the park with an acquaintance who has a middle aged "schoolmaster" type dog who is well trained and likes other dogs. We are going tomorrow and fingers crossed that it will be a nice experience for my dog. She really is a sweet lovely wee thing.

[Lifeisadancefloor]

I don't know if this has been mentioned on here - but have you heard of www.yellowdoguk.co.uk? Their website provides free yellow ribbons to owners whose dog needs space for whatever reason. It won't help in the situation you are describing but might be useful in the future.

We also have a rescue border collie who is a very shy and anxious little girl - she also has very weak back legs/hips and protection of family issues. On several occasions I have had to physically get in the way of bigger dogs with no owner visible trying to mount her. We also have a massive foxhound who is protectionist and doesn't like small dogs walking underneath him - I am totally amazed by the attitude of people who will firstly put their own dog at risk and secondly just won't put them on lead!

We never let our dogs off the lead when their are other dogs/people present - this stems from a time when I nearly miscarried my first son when my husband and I were set upon by people walking 5 dogs off the lead and they all (as a pack) went for our 2 dogs and knocked me over into a ditch. People don't understand the result of encounters like that and some are simply irresponsible.

[Fcukfifa]

We've had the 'oh she/he is friendly' line just as their dog started baring teeth etc lots of times!

I've got a lovely shar pei who loves other dogs, but has been attacked twice quite bad whilst on a walk (on a lead) and also snapped at 3 times by a passer by dogs.

I don't know if it's because shar pei's have funny faces?

The first time was a man who held his dog really close to him until we was close and then loosened his grip and the dog ran over and latched on my dogs cheek :((
I went crazy and was screaming at the guy who got aggressive and said ,send someone round to see me, I live down this street...not knowing my brother in law is very well known in our area. He went to his house and put the fear of god in him!

The other time was my best friends dog, we was chatting and someone threw a bit of a sausage roll on the floor which both dogs went to eat and her dog attacked mine and pierced his cheek!

Now sometimes when I get nervous of another dog I even pick mine up as we walk past which looks ridiculous (I'm only 5"3') but i just don't want to risk it happening again.

To the op, your friends seemed quite oblivious but I wouldn't lose a friendship over it, just tell them not to bring their dog to your house again.

[subtleplansarehereagain]

"Will you fuck off with your dog"

[Beachcomber]

Hah! We definitely won't fall out with our friends over this! I was just joking about the Xmas card....

Went for a walk with my friend and her lovely Fox terrier. Whilst in open space in the woods my dog was totally fine with her and they sniffed at things together happily. There was plenty of dashing past each other, etc with no probs. However when we got back to my friends and were in their small enclosed garden, my dog was less comfortable and she growled and air snapped at my friend's dog twice when she came close quickly. We definitely need to take her to classes and help her relax so that she won't be frightened into aggression so easily with other dogs.

We were out and about yesterday and came across quite a few dogs, some on lead, some off and everything went fine, all dogs were polite and friendly or on leads. We were in a natural reserve which lets you in with dogs but they must be under control and not allowed to rampage through protected plants. It was nice to meet lots of responsible owners.

Thanks everybody for your advice and sharing of experiences.