Small dog rant

[Fireworknight]

What is it with small dogs, that the owners think it’s okay for them to snarl and jump up at your dog (with apologies to responsible owners)?

Had an incident this morning whereby a small french bulldog got loose from where he was tied up and was aggressively barking and jumping at my dog (on a lead). Fortunately, he didn’t get out of the fenced play park area - we were the other side- and a passer-by grabbed hold of the dogs lead to restrain him. There were only two kids with him until then.

if that dog had noticed the gap by the gate, and had got out, …, not sure what would have happened.

Keeping dogs on-lead increases the odds of problems as the dogs can't express themselves fully.

No. It does not.
It depends entirely upon the dog.
And here we are yet again @EdithStourton , the generalisations, the sweeping statements for the "average" dog. But not all of us have that average dog. Some of us have dogs with such an independent mindset that they need to be kept on a lead for their own safety.

When someone says that something says 'increases the odds' they're NOT saying that 'this always happens'. A 'generalisation' or a 'sweeping statement' would be to state that 'keeping dogs on a lead always causes problems' - which is something I did not say.

And it does look as if keeping dogs on a lead does indeed increase the risk of issues:
'Threat appeared twice as often between dogs on a leash as between dogs off a leash (P < 0.001).'
and
'Dogs off a leash sniffed one another more often than dogs on a leash (P < 0.001). '
('Factors affecting dog–dog interactions on walks with their owners'
Petr Rˇezácˇ et al, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 2011).

So it seems from this study, that, on average, not for every dog (<= this should not need saying, it should be obvious if you read carefully before jumping down someone's throat), threat displays are increased and normal interactions decreased by the use of a lead.