Really terrible time on our walk today :(

[fufulina]

Took out 1 year old, intact male shih tzu for his walk today. We'd done the woods and then DH headed off and I decided to do a longer loop home. In the space of 5 minutes, our dog was set upon by three dogs as we walked across the park.

The first was a dog I know, and the owner has been bemoaning that her previously friendly dog is now reactive. Someone else was walking the dog and he was off lead. I heard them call his name and assumed it couldn't be THAT dog, but sure enough, he clocked our dog raced over and started going for him. They are about 2 months apart in age. Her dog is older. I said that the dog is known to be aggressive and should be on a lead.

Second dog - they trotted up to each other, and then the small dog decided he didn't like my dog (or did our dog give off some doggy signal? I didn't see anything that would alert me), and small dog went batshit. His owner distracted him with a ball, I called my dog away; he came.

Then a third dog wouldn't leave us alone. By this stage I had put my dog on his long line ready to leave the park, and this dog (a miniature shnauzer) kept bothering us. I asked the owner to call him away - he started ambling over 'Oh - that dog doesn't want to play!' - it wasn't playing, I could see that his dog was getting antsy. As he arrived to put the lead on - his dog attacks mine. I got shirty.

Then as we leave the park - third dog owner obviously has let the dog off again because he comes racing up to have another go! I know you shouldn't do this, but I picked my dog up because I was worried. His dog then continued to follow us, out of the park onto the road while his owner walked behind us calling his name every 10 seconds - entirely ineffectual. I said that his dog was not under his control and should be on a lead.

The common denominator here is our dog. I have never seen him be aggressive to a dog, but is there something he or we should or shouldn't be doing to avoid this? His recall is excellent (finally!), and when he does approach dogs I think it is nicely. But this walk has really shaken me. Do we need to not have him off lead, although how would that stop other dogs approaching him :(

If all the other dogs that went for him were males, then the issue is most likely the fact that he's intact.

This isn't to say get your dog neutered - all three sound like poor management on the other owners' parts, but hormones often exacerbate this and once an intact dog hits adolescence they can become a target. It's the reason why most doggy daycares don't accept unneutered males past a certain age; some intact dogs are absolutely fine and don't instigate things (which sounds like your dog) but other dogs are intolerant.

Sorry you had such a crap walk today - ultimately it does come down to idiot owners that don't have full control of their dogs.

yep id get him neutered.

Instead of jumping straight to neutering I’d consider chemical castration instead and see if it makes a difference. No point doing something irreversible when a reversible option is available in case it turns out not to be the issue.

This kind of crap is the reason we now pay to walk our dog in a secure field. We have a park 5 minutes from the house but there have been a number of incidents recently where large, out of control dogs have attacked smaller dogs leaving them needing a visit to the vets. We started using local woods instead, only for our dog to be attacked by a huge dog running off the lead a good couple of hundred metres ahead of its useless owner. We later (after a £750+ trip to the vet) found out the same dog has attacked other dogs in the same place. It sometimes feels as though it's been raining fuckwits for the last 20-odd years.

I hope your little boy doesn't feel too shaken after today.

Thanks all - I really don't want to leap to castration. I've read so much about that potentially exacerbating problems by creating a fearful dog, although I hadn't thought about chemical castration - will explore that as an option.

Should have mentioned, our dog isn't intact, none of the dogs that have been attacked locally are intact or in season, there are just too many imbeciles ambling about with dogs they can't/won't keep control of.

I just had 15 month old castrated for this reason - he's not aggressive and non-reactive to other dogs but they were increasingly becoming hostile to him and I didn't want it to start causing reactivity in him.

Hes shown no appreciable difference since his balls went. In fact I don't think he's noticed

Other dogs are better thouvh

It's the reason why most doggy daycares don't accept unneutered males past a certain age; some intact dogs are absolutely fine and don't instigate things (which sounds like your dog) but other dogs are intolerant.

They don't blanket ban neutered males though, even though some are intolerant. Why don't they just say they don't take badly behaved dogs?

Thanks again everyone. Quentin - when did it start happening for you? Ddog has just tuned a year and I'd say it's been getting noticeable for about 2 weeks...

Blooming heck OP sorry you are being victim blamed here! There is no need to castrate your dog because of idiot owners who have not trained or do not have their dogs on a lead.

It's the reason why most doggy daycares don't accept unneutered males past a certain age; some intact dogs are absolutely fine and don't instigate things (which sounds like your dog) but other dogs are intolerant Total bollocks (see what I did there!) Castrated dogs show less sign of aggression than neutered males off to find the study to back this up if required. Day cares dont want entire males as they may mate.

Yeah same sort of age really - started when he was 1. I was in two minds about castration and then that was the decider

polly I think that poster meant other people's dogs were intolerant of entire males, even when the entire dog is totally non aggressive

I own an intact male who the vet has advised me is not suited for castration due to his lack of confidence. I did agree for a long while but am having to rethink as even when his energy/body language is relaxed, other dogs can take against him. And that is creating the situation where he is reactive to certain dogs/breeds and I don't want it getting worse. So investigating whether chemical castration will reduce this, but equally don't want him to lose confidence.
I'm confident I can manage him, through walking in quiet places, lead work, training - but I can't manage other people's dogs and I don't want his reactivity to get worse and progress into aggression, as he's a medium size dog but when he does react it is pretty noisy and scary.
Not really that relevant to you but what I am learning is that a)many of the signals between dogs are not noticeable to us, either smells, hormones or body language, so we can't always recognise things in advance b) once one incident has happened, he is on edge so more likely to attract more aggression/be more reactive, so if i even have one incident then I immediately avoid all other dogs & head home and c) if my dog is on lead, and he walks nicely on lead, I do have control over the situation and can be more relaxed.
I've also found that frequently other dogs don't react to well to brachy type dogs as they can't read the body language as well. Not sure how true that is but my trainer says that frenchies, bostons, shih tzu etc facial features can often create confusion in other dogs.
I think ultimately if I make the decision to keep an intact male dog who I know can trigger reactivity, then ultimately it is my responsibility to manage him properly, and if that means doing my utmost to avoid all other dogs I will do that. He's not fussed about other dog company anyway, apart from his 'friends', so it's no loss to him.

Thanks ihaventgottimeforthis - our dog loves other dogs. It would be a loss to him not to interact with dogs but I can’t be having walks like today! It was awful. As DH points out - he had seen about 25 dogs on his walk before these three (we live in North London; it’s full of dogs) and that had all been fine. And I take your point about unseen signals. It’s really worried me. I don’t want to have him on lead all the time (he loves off lead and is very good off lead) which wouldn’t solve other dogs anyway.

Certainly dog three today would NOT leave us alone. Even going so far as to leave the park without his owner.

As PP have said, some neutered dogs really take a dislike to intact males and can become very aggressive towards them as a result.

HOWEVER that is not a reason for you to get your boy neutered and you are 100% correct that it can cause more problems than it solved. Those owners you met should have had their dogs on leads and it's especially disgraceful that the last man let his dog back off again after he'd already approached you and aggressed.

Please don't feel pressured to get your dog neutered over this - you were doing nothing wrong, especially if his recall is good and he comes when called. I would maybe walk him in quiet areas where other dogs can be avoided for a few days so he can decompress. You don't want him to become reactive as a result of this, so it would be a good idea to let his adrenaline die down a little - lots of sniffing can help with this :)

My own dog can be leash reactive and if he's had a bad day, I find a slow, sniffy walk along pavements at his pace really helps calm him down as he's too busy sniffing and marking to worry about anything else!

Good shout on a sniffy walk. He does love the disgusting pavements around us!

I find that there are certain 'trigger' dogs - whether it is scent, hormones or whatever - that some dogs just get fixated, in a similar way to a bitch in season.
I wouldn't worry about picking him up to remove him from the interaction, as long as you're not putting yourself in danger!
I think that's the reality of it though - an intact male will definitely stand out to other dogs. If he's confident and friendly, like yours, he will be fine the vast majority of the time. If he's aloof and a bit nervous, like mine, that's not the case and that is my responsibility to manage.
I wouldn't feel you have to get him castrated just to avoid these issues, but I don't think you will be able to stop it altogether. Perhaps just getting more used to reading other dogs, speaking strongly to other owners, and basically being aware all the time so you can remove him from a situation. It's a pain in the arse but there are so many dogs around now, it's part of ownership, advocating for him and protecting him when he can't do that himself.
And maybe keeping some really juicy treats on hand to distract the other dog to give you a chance to move in and take him away?

@fufulina

Good shout on a sniffy walk. He does love the disgusting pavements around us!

I'm glad it's not just mine

I let him "choose" his walk too, within reason. So from the minute we leave the house, I let him pick directions, which side roads he wants to go down etc.

I can do that for 40-45 minutes and he's more exhausted than he is after an hour (or more) running off the lead.

As PP have said, some neutered dogs really take a dislike to intact males and can become very aggressive towards them as a result.

This. We have an intact male rottie and he's very placid in nature, barely even looks in the direction of other dogs, nevermind reacting to them. But we've stopped walking him in parks altogether, as virtually every time we'd have at least one off-lead dog running over and attacking him and he just wouldn't defend himself. We stick to pavement walking now and take him to an off lead field 2-3 times a week so he can run free/let of steam.

With intact males, I’ve noticed that dogs can get arsey with them at that one yearish mark... but it gets better.

I wonder if there’s a surge of hormones that some dogs will object to.

Mine actually had a bit of a barking fit at one the other day, it was very out of character compared to how he usually is... and no noticeable stress signals, literally, was quite happy to meet a dog, sniffed him and went...hang on, nope, woof woof woof.

They were on lead, so nothing worse that that, but now he’s done that once, I’ll be much more cautious and careful about him meeting dogs - which is what they should all be doing.

Your dog being intact may (it also may not be) be the reason the dogs aren’t happy, but their owners are the reason yours was on the receiving end of it.

I have two intact males aged 2 and 6. Both of them had the occasional incident when they were around a year old, but it passed.

They're both Sprocker spaniels and they're very good natured. I can't remember the last time they got aggressive behaviour from another dog.

I think the poster who suggested there might be a hormone surge when they reach maturity that makes them seem like a threat is probably correct!

Just to reiterate, absolutely not victim blaming here but at least where I live, the majority of daycares will not accept entire males, but accept unspayed females as long as they're not currently going through a season. Just from what I've been told, entire dogs can throw off the peaceful atmosphere, whether they just smell different because of the extra testosterone and some dogs take offense to it, who knows, but it must happen enough times that many places won't take the risk. Hormones absolutely play a big part in behaviour, they are still animals at the end of the day no matter how domesticated!

I used to have a lot of trouble with other males going for my boy before he was castrated. Never had any issue with any dogs going for my bitch however, before or after having her spayed.

And ultimately it all comes down to irresponsible owners that aren't properly controlling their dogs. But OP asked for reasons why those dogs could have taken offense in the first place, that was more of what my previous post was trying to explain.

There's been a surge of people getting dogs through lockdown. Some of these people to be frank are imbeciles and should have the common sense to put their dogs on a leash but don't. Don't blame your dog it's their dogs that have issues. My advice is to carry a stick just incase your dog is attacked. My dogs are leashed due to breed I've lost count of the dogs who have ran up to attack. Every instance was preventable if the owners had called their dog back. The last dog that did it My poor dog was sat and the other dog ran at him and jumped on him my dog bit him. I dont blame that dog but the imbecile that made no attempt to put their uncontrollable dog on a leash.