What the hell is going on?

[adogcalledbuster]

Over 30 years of dog ownership, I'm not a perfect dog owner and my dogs are not perfectly behaved all the time, but other doggy friends generally consider them to be very behaved and I put hours into making them very well socialised.
Both dogs have now been badly attacked by other dogs (lurchers) 4 times in the last 3 months. On every occasion mine have been on their leads minding their own business and been attacked by off lead lurchers. It happened again this morning and the lurchers owner actually laughed and said my dog who was screaming his head off once her dog had let go was "fine". Before this only once in 25 year.
Why?

Is it the same lurchers? Do pop round to your local police station and discuss it with them. They are v pro dog of course! If this happens again take photos/video on your mobile and report them to the briefed police. You could arm yourself with a water pistol too - they will no doubt suggest s'thing!
all the best

Is it the same lurchers? If so, the breed is irrelevant and it's just irresponsible dog ownership on the part of the other owner.

Lurchers do have a strange way of playing - they tend to grab the backs of necks and nip bottoms or tails, this is how they play with each other and is entirely play - not aggression. I am very careful who I allow my two to play with, as I realise this is probably not going to be appreciated by many other owners (although to be honest, most dogs do seem to 'get' the game and thoroughly enjoy a good game of Lurcher chase) and they have each other to chase if they want to play Lurchery games.

That said, mine would never be allowed to approach a dog that was on the lead and I always try to check with owners when the other dog is off-lead as well. Which is why I think it sounds more a problem with irresponsible owners than anything else.

Fwiw, it's Labradors around here. There are so many poorly trained Labs whose owners ignore them, stand on the other side of the park and let them charge up to on-lead dogs and leap on them, that my own Lurcher ended up fear aggressive as a result of it happening for successive days on walks when he was only just allowed to go down on the ground as a pup. He's 15 months old now and we are still dealing with the fall-out from those irresponsible dog owners behaviour.

Despite this, I don't believe this is a 'Labrador problem' - again it's just irresponsible dog owners and there just happens to be a proliferation of Labradors around here - so when there's a problem, there's a high probability that it will involve one.

Different lurchers/owners we've never had lurchers problems before in fact I'm just not used to this. Both my dogs are smallish 12ish inches to the shoulder, both have been grabbed by their backs as moose describesthe older dog whose a very long backed breed, and a breed that is prone to back problems, has now been attacked three times he probably started growling when he was grabbed by his back and this I guess doesn't help the situation but the younger just screamed the place down.
Originally as it's happened three times to the older dog I wondered if it was his age he's 10 and that dogs saw him as weak and that's why they did it although to my mind and the vets he looks very fit and healthy, two of the lurchers according to their owners have never ever attacked another dog before. The dog today was originally chasing ducks in the river encouraged by his owner he came out of the river galloped around like a mad thing then as he ran past my young dog who wouldn't hurt a fly just turned on him picked him up by his back and shook him hard, we all tried to grab him but I had no hands as I was holing leads but he eventually dropped him, the owner then failed to grab him he moved so quickly so he did it again twice more despite me trying desperately to grab my dog. It was the owner telling me that my dog was ok that really upset me, he was still screaming after it had let go.
He's been checked over by my nice neighbour a vet he's very bruised and very upset with a possible #rib but she said there would be no treatment for it. But when I walked him home he hid behind my legs shaking when ever anyone came towards us he's usually the happiest friendliest confident dog in the world.
I thought it was dog etiquette to put your dog on a lead if you meet other dogs on leads, mine were only on leads because we were in a field with cows who they'd chase not because they don't like other dogs but I thought it was just good manners.

You are absolutely right about lead etiquette - today's owner sounds horrendous and really irresponsible, especially as they were actively encouraging the dog's prey drive by getting it to chase ducks.

It must have been horrendous for you and your dogs.

If the other Lurchers in each case have been free running and were allowed to just run up to your dogs and grab/nip, then I'm afraid they all have irresponsible owners. I know a lot of people with Lurchers and not one of them would have let their dogs behave like that, in fact many of them only let their dogs off in a secure field when there are either no other dogs about or only other sighthounds to run with and keep them on a lead everywhere else.

I think I would have a chat with the Dog Warden about today's dog/owner if I were you.

Hope your boy is ok.