Dog attacking ours

[shouldistop]

Looking for a bit of advice as this has happened twice now and I'm worried it will escalate.
There's a large dog along the road from us (won't say breed as I don't want this to turn into one of those threads), our dog is medium sized.

Twice now the large dog has gone for ours. Last night the large dog actually pinned our dog and the owner had to jump on him to pull him off.

Thankfully our dog isn't hurt. I'm worried he'll start becoming fearful though.

We were planning to walk the opposite way if we spot this big dog but that doesn't help if he chases.
We were also planning to give our dog treats every time he sees a dog for the next few days to try and 'erase' any bad feelings.

Any other advice on how we should handle it?

The first time it happens the owners young teen daughter had him on lead but couldn't control him. This time he was off the lead.

Do you think we should ask to work with the owners to introduce the boys nicely to each other or is that too risky?

I would report to the dog warden who will have a word with them, they sound very irresponsible. Definitely walk another way.
Attack is a strong word, was your dog injured? or is the other dog just rough and boisterous?

This happened to my dog and I phoned 101. Our constabulary has an initiative for this sort of thing and they sent an officer round to the owner who had to sign an agreement to keep their dog on a lead while it was outdoors, make sure it is registered with a vet and has a chip. If there are any further reports of his dog attacking another or the rules aren't followed then (I'm pretty sure) that becomes a criminal act

Their dog should be on a lead if it is acting like that repeatedly and frightening your dog. Have you asked them to do that? I really think you should.

If you're keen on the dogs becoming friendly you could try parallel walking on lead. So both owners start walking with their dogs in the same direction but at a distance where they don't react..eg 10m (depends on the reactivity of the dogs) then you gradually converge together whilst walking. There are probably YouTube videos on this.

But not all dogs get along and you don't want to put your dog at risk unnecessarily.

Attack is a strong word, was your dog injured? or is the other dog just rough and boisterous?

I couldn't think what other word to use. He's not injured thankfully but the other dog was definitely not playing.

@suggestionsplease1 thanks, i think we'll try that. The dogs are likely to be sharing walking space for maybe another 10 years so it would be better if the big dog could get over his dislike of ours.

Age and whether either / both are intact can play a part in this is as well if both of them are male. Intact dogs can find themselves on the receiving end of aggression more frequently I think, especially during late adolescence, and that usually diminishes after neutering - well it did for my dog anyway. Between the ages of 8-10 months was a pretty hard time for him.

They're both male. Ours isn't fixed, we're still deciding whether to. He's not showing any signs of aggression / marking etc and we're worried about him becoming anxious if he is fixed. I don't know if their dog is fixed or not.

Our dog is 17 months old and I think theirs is a little younger.

The owners seemed pretty sensible to me. I've seen them training him etc. I was surprised he was off the lead after the first time (unless their daughter didn't tell them, although she was very shaken up).

Yeah there's a lot of different ideas and discussion about neutering dogs, your vet can probably help you with a decision regarding your overall experiences with him.

That's good the other family seem sensible, hopefully it was just 2 bad occasions and you can work together to manage future interactions or work out how they can avoid each other!

DH said he'll go round for a chat later to suggest the parallel walking. I think it will be too hard to avoid each other so maybe best to nip this in the bud now.

Hopefully that helps. You might all just need to be a bit careful as I think hormone levels in adolescence can fluctuate quite a lot from day to day, so you might have good experiences on one occasion but it might not be a guarantee that there won't be a square-go the next time!

(But hormones during adolescence are just one possible part of picture, especially if the other dog has been neutered for a while it's probably more due to their reactivity)

I know, it's worrying as I'm assuming the first 2 times have been more of a warning. If the big dog really wanted to do some damage then we wouldn't be able to stop it.
Ddog has been extremely submissive both times and has just cried and yelped but I don't know if he'll maybe be aggressive next time too due to fear.
He loves other dogs and has a good group of pals that he meets on walks and romps about with so hopefully a couple of bad experiences doesn't put him off other dogs.