Pointless vent

[Tiredanddistracted]

As the title says, I just want to vent really.

I have a 3 year old dachshund who is reactive around unknown men. She has tried to lunge before, although has never made contact, or even gotten close, due to us being very diligent about managing her. She is always on a short lead around others and never even gets the chance to move towards whoever it is she is barking at.

We are working with a dog trainer and making progress. Anyway, today we were on a walk and heading down my street on the pavement. A man came down an alley a few metres away and began waking towards us. As I had no time to take evasive action, I followed our behaviourists advice for such situations, smiled and said 'I'm afraid she's quite reactive', shortened her lead, guided her to the wall next to us and blocked her with my leg. No time to pull out her ball to distract.

Man walked past and she growled and tried to pull towards him. She didn't get anywhere as I had her firmly corralled. However, the man reacted badly and subjected me to a barrage of abuse, with personal comments and swearing.

I initially apologised and tried to explain that it was fear and we were trying to train her out of it. However, he kept going, including raising his voice even more when she began to bark at him. I did point out, at this stage, that she was probably barking because a random man was aggressively screaming at her female owner on the street.

Eventually I'd rather had enough and when he shouted 'I was having a good day until your fucking ugly little dog came along', I told him that it said a lot about him if he was so fragile that a tiny dog growling at him could ruin his day to the point where he felt pushed to scream abuse at a lone woman in the street. I then left.

I know it's never nice being growled at by a dog, but I was so upset and felt his reaction was completely unwarranted. The dog was under complete control the whole time and the closest she came to him was around 3 feet away, due to the narrow pavement and the lack of time I had to cross the road.

Am I being a total cock here?

Nope. I’m glad you snapped and your response was on point 👌🏻

Well done!

Thank you! I wouldn't have minded an eye roll, or even a tut (well, I would but I would have smiled and apologised anyway) but this was such a huge overreaction and actually a bit scary. I was absolutely flooded with adrenaline as I walked away - really not nice, fight or flight stuff. Sounds silly but he was so verbally violent.

Is your dog muzzled OP? If it’s not then I have a fair bit of sympathy with him. Any dog that is reactive or aggressive should be muzzled - regardless of size.

He shouldn’t have been aggressive but tbh he’s likely as sick as many are at reactive and aggressive dogs that aren’t muzzled.

I’d also add that if you smiled (which you said you did) when you said ‘he’s quite reactive’ that will have not helped. It will have made it look like you find it funny - which many small dog owners do when their dog has issues.

I'm really torn here.

On the one hand, shouting and swearing abuse is absolutely not the way to handle to situation and I suspect he wouldn't have reacted that way if you were a man.

The flip side is if you're scared of dogs and don't like being around them, seeing one growling and lunging at you while the owner smiles and says "he's reactive" is probably going to really piss you off.

To non doggy people, reactivity looks like aggression and it's frightening, no matter how small the dog is and how well controlled it might be. I would have turned around and walked back the way you came from or apologised straight off the bat, not after the dog had growled and lunged. But that's easy to say in hindsight.

I also agree with PP that a dog who is that badly reactive to people needs to be wearing a muzzle in public. If the lead had broken or you lost your grip, you would be in real trouble.