Was I in the wrong here?

[J371172]

Hi, I was convinced I was right but now I’m not so sure.

I took my WCS to the beach this morning and let her off lead to chase her ball.
My dog is not perfect, but she recalls well and is only interested in her ball when on the beach. She does occasionally chase seagulls but ignores other dogs.
Today a dog, bigger than mine, came bounding over. Usually my dogs runs away from them in big circles around me with her tail between her legs until they get the message and leave her.
The dog today wasn’t leaving, it chased her and chased her with it’s mouth open looking like it wanted to bite her backside. I tried to get between them and tried to shoo it away. I then tried pushing it away but it just wouldn’t leave. My dog was getting more stressed and barked at it a couple of times. I tried to push it with my ball thrower and I did lightly hit a couple of times with the ball thrower, really lightly honestly.
At this point the owners came racing over ranting and swearing at me to not dare touch their dog. I tried to calmly explain that my dog didn’t want to play and that they should keep it near them and not let it continually go at another dog when it was clear from my trying to get between them that we weren’t happy.

They said it wasn’t trying to bite her and it’s only a puppy (so is mine). I ended up just walking away and came home leaving them shouting obscenities and calling me every name they could think of.
I get that I shouldn’t have used my ball thrower to try to get their dog away but to be honest, I didn’t not want their dog to bite mine, but I also didn’t want mine to react and bite theirs (not that she has ever bitten before but you never know).

You weren’t wrong. My dogs have been ‘harassed’ by bigger bouncy dogs before and it’s clear they don’t want to play- it’s like the other dog cannot read my dog’s body language- one dog gets so fed up he snaps and the other is terrified as she is elderly and has arthritis and is worried they will jump on her. The owner is always too far away of the fog has no recall. I encourage my dogs to walk away and tbf the other owners have always been apologetic- not sure they would be if I let my younger dog just get in and but theirs!

You weren’t at fault. I have 2 WCS, 1 is totally uninterested in other dogs so is largely ignored by them

My other is happy to have a little play and invites it, however he got chased once by a larger dog who just wouldn’t stop, it wasn’t playing it was chasing, you know your own dog and it wasn’t zoomies either.. Owners couldn’t get it back and my dog kept trying to come back to me to save him and I tried to get between them with no luck. I was very polite that time, if it happens again I won’t be.

I am now hyper vigilant if dogs start a chasing game and call my dog off immediately although he has now learnt to turn round and snap when he decides enough is enough - good on him I say!

Snaplittledragon it's amazing though how adrenaline kicks in if you are on your own with a dog being aggressive to yours with no owner in sight. I am not intimidating at all to look at but in that situation my voice is loud and firm and my body language clearly goes into 'piss off' mode to protect my dog. Had to do that today when a dog that had been hounding mine after we walked off came back for another go with owner miles away and totally out of sight.

YANBU

If you allow your dog to get into a situation where another person feels they need to push, hit, scare it to stay safe then the responsibility falls on you, imo. Even more so if you've already had ample opportunity to get your dog back under control and have neglected to do so. You have to accept that you have allowed your dog to be in that position.

All dogs should be under control. Of course, dogs are not robots and so there are times where verbal control fails. When that happens and your dog pesters another person (or their dog) you genuinly apologise and seek to rectify the problem asap.

As well as walking away I find a nice sharp, firm yell of "get your dog under control" works well.

If that fails than "my dog is infectious!" can also help shift laid back owners a bit more quickly.

YANBU OP. I walk my dog off lead and he isn't a fan of other dogs trying to play with him, so if they come up to him he just ignores them and comes back to me until they piss off. If they don't I will shoo them away. It isn't on to let your off lead dog go up to anyone, ever. Other off lead dogs or not. It really pisses me off and gives everyone a bad name.

@Girlintheframe maybe the owner shouldn't allow their dog to get into a position to need to get hit by someone else. If they had it under control it would never happen

@Girlintheframe

Honestly, I would be livid if someone hit my dog.

Everything else I I think was reasonable but hitting, absolutely not.

You can be as livid as you like, but it would be your fault.

A police dog handler once told me that when he was walking his own dog he always carried a heavy stick. If another dog wouldn't go away he hit it along the centre of its skull! In any case, it's an offence for dogs to make people feel threatened by them, even if nothing happens.

I think this poster is excellent about dog etiquette. If we all adhered to these rules, our dogs would be much happier (and so would we)

I'm surprised any hitting was neccasary. I'd work on your big scary voice. People have successfully had wild animals think twice using just their voice, no physical violence needed.
I'd also buy some bite/training spray, it's certainly more humane than wacking it with a big stick as other posters suggested.

You were not in the wrong at all. If a dog is having your dog amd the owners can't control it, then you have every right to do something about it, unless your bitch is in season, in which case she should be on a lead and not taken to places where there's likely to be off lead dogs. Even the best trained dog in the world would struggle to ignore those instincts. If that's not the case, you were perfectly fine and if it was me they would have got a mouthful before they could even get a word out.

My dog is the same, especially when he has a ball. He won't go near another dog. So many dogs come and start chasing him around and I've now got to the point where I just let him react. It takes him a while because he's very docile, and he will put up with it for a long time, but eventually he gets pissed off and starts barking. He doesn't even bark at the dog annoying him, just barks as a warning. I tend to just stand and stare at the owners until they get the message. He's been attacked by bigger dogs quite a few times and I'm sick of owners excusing it as playing. He doesn't want to play, he's too old and uninterested for a start.
The problem is, so many owners think that every other dog is fair game for their dog to play with and socialise with. Usually selfish entitled people in most other aspects of life too.

Just had a similar experience OP. Happily throwing a stick into a flooded bit of a field for my dog when a big, soaking wet labrador runs over, jumps all over me, bites my hand twice trying to get the stick off me and won't return to its owner. I tried shouting at it to go away. Woman takes a good 5 minutes to get to us, still can't get the dog, and despite me not having uttered a SINGLE word to her then calls me a cow and tells me to get a life. Presumably because I didn't smile indulgently and tell her it was all ok.

I despair at the utterly awful behaviour I am seeing these days from dogs and their owners. All I wanted was a peaceful walk.

Nobody should be forced to interact with any dog simply because the owner doesn't have control. The entitlement of some owners is breath taking. If I'd had a ball thrower handy I would have probably done the same to be honest.

Obviously no one else here was there but I think people massively overreact to other dogs looking to play, it often looks like biting/mouthing but is harmless. Your dog needs to also learn dog behaviour in telling another dog to go away so I wouldn't be so quick to jump in and "defend" your dog, especially when it is very unlikely this dog was anything but boisterous. People always complain about playful dogs, but mine loves to play with other, bigger dogs and it can look quite rough.

@Mostlylurkingiam

Obviously no one else here was there but I think people massively overreact to other dogs looking to play, it often looks like biting/mouthing but is harmless. Your dog needs to also learn dog behaviour in telling another dog to go away so I wouldn't be so quick to jump in and "defend" your dog, especially when it is very unlikely this dog was anything but boisterous. People always complain about playful dogs, but mine loves to play with other, bigger dogs and it can look quite rough.

Yes, play can look vicious - I absolutely agree with you there. But unruly dogs with no manners (like the one in the OP) shouldn't be off the lead, especially if their owners can't recall them properly.

You also have NO idea whether another dog will be boisterous or aggressive until it's too late and your dog is terrified or injured because a fight has broken out.

Long story short - uncontrollable dogs should be on leads or long lines so their owners can get them away from others where necessary. Anything else is bad manners.

@Mostlylurkingiam

Obviously no one else here was there but I think people massively overreact to other dogs looking to play, it often looks like biting/mouthing but is harmless. Your dog needs to also learn dog behaviour in telling another dog to go away so I wouldn't be so quick to jump in and "defend" your dog, especially when it is very unlikely this dog was anything but boisterous. People always complain about playful dogs, but mine loves to play with other, bigger dogs and it can look quite rough.

Why should a dog who might be elderly, unwell, arthritic, have poor eyesight or hearing, be recovering from surgery, have been recently attacked, is nervous, worried or just uninterested, or is perhaps focused on their owner, in training etc... be forced into an interaction it doesn't want, such that it has to react with aggression? A properly friendly, socially-aware dog would not seek play like that.

@Mostlylurkingiam. My German shepherd is a rescue, she has been attacked and badly injured by a dog. If your dog tried to play with her she would become extremely distressed and probably aggressive if it refused to go away. If it jumped on her ignoring her signals it would be bitten. I have two other dogs at home who she loves, why should she have to play with your dog if she does not want to? She’s on a lead minding her own business and does not want to be bothered, if your dog can’t read the fuck off signals then clearly it isn’t well socialised at all.
She shouldn’t have to tell someone else’s badly trained dog to go away, that’s not her job or mine. One day yours might run up to the wrong dog and find itself in a bad situation and it’s such bad manners.

My older dog despite looking young has arthritis of the spine, hips and elbows. Being jumped on causes him pain for days.

My two big dogs are 70kg plus each and I don’t allow them to play with other dogs either. Some owners are sometimes that I won’t allow my teenage giant play with their chihuahua but I don’t want a squashing on my head.

Training wise it can lead to dog obsessed dogs to allow them to run up and play with everyone they see, bad for recall.

I do allow mine to play at home and they are all rough but I know my dogs and know when it’s tipping into going too far or someone is getting fed up. I don’t know other peoples dogs I’ve just met on a walk and don’t want to either

You did nothing wrong at all.

There seems to be an increase in this at the moment. I struggle to walk my dog in open spaces now because of off lead out of control ‘friendly’ dogs.

I always kept my staffy on lead, mainly because he was a rescue and terrified of the world so would run away from anything that frightened him. A neighbour had a chihuahua that would get through the fence and follow us up the street yapping and harassing him while we kept walking. The neighbour would run out of the house shouting stop stop - he only wants to play!! It finally stopped when I offered to let my staffy off lead so he could play back. I knew he was a softy - she didn’t.
If folk can’t control their dogs then they can’t complain when you protect your own.