Should I find a new walk?

[JeSuisPoulet]

Just had a rather nasty run in with a man and wife on our regular 3 mile dog walk. We've seen them before and even joked about our dogs being opposite colours only a couple of days ago, so the dogs have played and know each other.

Today we were on the last leg just as they were starting their walk. Recognising them I walked on with dd letting ddog loiter to play (she usually has a chase about and catches us up) and got about 3/4meters ahead when I hear the husband shouting at me "can't you f*&^ing control your bloody dog? Why hasn't it got a lead on for God's sake!" I was because their dog was also off lead, our dogs usually play and this man wasn't usually angry about it at all. So I try to call ddog over - no joy as they are rolling about and she is being chased by their dog through long grass, etc. So I have to go closer, realising I have no treats and can't get too close to the other dog's owner due to 2 meter rule. He's still shouting at me to "get it under control" and waffling on outraged about something whilst actively trying to stand between me and where the dog is! So I said "Look there's no point us standing here talking about this if you actually want me to catch my dog!" and try again to catch her collar and miss. I pretend I have a treat and ddog comes over to me and I get the lead on (took all of about 4minutes from his first angry bray at us) and I drag ddog away to my open mouthed dd who is in tears because "why did that nasty man shout swear words at you mummy?".

I'm pretty cross, not least because his wife just stood there and said nothing - at one point he said that my dog had jumped up at her, which I didn't see, and so I even apologised to her and him again as I was taking ddog away.

Now I'm thinking back on it i'm quite angry and shocked at their behaviour. What am I supposed to do; I can't have ddog on a lead at all times just in case we bump into them, especially now we only get 1 walk a day and she needs to run. Why is their dog allowed to be off lead and not ours? And yes they were definitely playing - both taking it in turns to chase, wagging, jumping in the grass - no growling, etc - they know each other.

Genuinely happy to be told if I did something wrong here. I know I should probably have had treats in hindsight but ddog is good with recall (unless she meets a friend, as she did today) so I sometimes forget.

Thanks everyone. The change of scenery will be nice.
Maybe he's done us a favour .

I think it’s a real shock when someone behaves so aggressively when it seems out of no where. He is an arse. The only person who should feel like avoiding that walk is him - he is irrelevant to you.

What a horrible experience, he was an idiot, he could have equally got his dog under control / on a lead and walked off .
Have you met them since lockdown? If not that might explain the sudden change in his attitude to your dogs playing together but not his rudeness. If he didnt want the dogs playing he should have put his dog on a lead and if possible tried to divert his walk slightly.
I dont always put my dogs on leads if I see someone, i judge it on case by case basis and I never bother if they also have dogs off lead. Given that the digs have happily played together in the past and he duydnt have his fog in a leas either you did nothing wrong, you may have walked a few steps on but you hadn't gone far.
I wouldn't change my walk but if you see them coming I'd put the dog on a lead ( and expect them to do the same!)

@Wolfiefan I wondered that.

I know you can't tell anything about a person from a single snapshot etc etc, but from what Poulet describes, it sounds like it could almost have been a show of power to intimidate his wife even more. Say she'd just pissed him off in some way - "Look, I can do this to a total stranger for no reason AND get away with it, imagine how horrible I can make your life if I want to (and by the way, you made me do it)."

Hope you're ok today Poulet, confrontations like that would always give me a terrible night's sleep

What an arse. Don’t change your walk for him, but if you see them coming put your dog on the lead. Then if his dog comes to play with yours you can tell him to get his dog under control instead! (I wouldn’t really say that, I’m too wimpy!) I’m keeping mine away from people I know have been friendly in the past but now aren’t taking risk of dogs touching each other, and there are others who used to pat my puppy but now don’t but let their dogs play with him (all off lead - if they were on lead I’d put mine on too), and then there are people we’ve met since mine was tiny whose dogs are good friends who do let their dogs come and play with mine and some of their dogs jump up - everyone’s taking different approaches and there’s definitely no consensus on whether there’s a big risk of passing the virus from human to dog to another dog to human again.