Can I ask for some advice from the collective experience of Mumsnetters who’ve had dogs for much longer than I have...?
I have a young male dog, just over a year old, had the snip a few months back. He’s a poodle/cavalier cross (please don’t judge this), and a super sociable happy wee chap. He loves meeting other dogs and is up for playing with anyone, no matter what size they are.
We’ve recently moved abroad to a place where dogs are generally expected to be on a lead. I take him to a big open space to run off-lead, and we often meet other dogs there. Usually they are quite big - German shepherds and similar - whose owners are also there because they need off-lead time. My dog wants to play with them, and usually is quite sensible about it - stops, gauges the reaction, comes to them for a sniff etc, and they start playing. But very often, and especially if the other dog is youngish (2-3 years old), the ‘play’ means he gets chased and the other dog tries to bite his neck, to roll him over and dominate him, mount him etc. My dog tries to go with it because he really wants to play, but because he’s smaller and not as fast he gets a hard time and it doesn’t look like much fun for him. Sometimes there are groups of dogs and he’s keen to join in, but there is always one who will target him.
This never happened back in the UK (well, maybe once) but it’s almost constant here. I’m a bit surprised because I’d thought that having the snip would mean that he wasn’t of much interest, but clearly not!
Any ideas on what is going on here, and suggestions on anything I can do differently? I can keep him in parks and on the lead much more, but he loves being able to run and sniff on his own!
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The doghouse
Dog being bullied
3 replies
Wimpling · 13/02/2018 12:40
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