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The doghouse

If you're worried about your pet's health, please speak to a vet or qualified professional.

Feeling a bit deflated after today's walk...

3 replies

Whitepots · 22/02/2021 18:23

Ddog is one now and obviously a lockdown pup (by accident not design) and a teenager to boot.

He seems to lack confidence in some new situations and this has been something that we've been working on with our trainer. He's been showing steady signs of improvement, or so I thought.

He's been much better about meeting other dogs on walks both on the lead and off lead/on a long line. He used to get very over-excited, and I would try only to walk him in quiet places. I now think I may have inadvertently contributed to the problem, and made other dogs too exciting.

Anyway, he was doing pretty well today and met a number of dogs calmly and moved on. Later we met another dog (Ddog was on the longline at this point), they greeted each other nicely and moved on, and then that dog came running back over to him seconds later, they sniffed again - seemingly friendly - and then Ddog growled, the other dog ran away, and Ddog started barking after him and was hard to calm down. There was no obvious explanation for his behaviour, and it seemed odd to me that they were capable of greeting each other nicely before mine took some seemingly unfounded objection to the other one.

Any insight or wisdom on what might be going on would be gratefully received and/or if this is just normal interaction or something I should be concerned about.

I can think of one other occasion when he has done something similar with another dog ie greeted nicely and then taken exception shortly afterwards...It would make more sense to me if he simply didn't like the look of it to begin with.

OP posts:
PopUpName · 22/02/2021 18:29

Ddog is just laying out his boundaries. I don't think dogs realise that they should politely decline an invitation to play from a dog they don't like! He didn't bite or threaten; you had him on a lead (hate long leads if you need to control a dog though). Just keep your sometimes touchy ddog under control.

sunflowersandbuttercups · 22/02/2021 18:52

It sounds like the other dog shouldn't have approached your dog for a second greeting.

I don't think your dog did anything wrong by growling to set a boundary.

Whitepots · 22/02/2021 19:59

Thank you both - that's reassuring.

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