How has your dog embarrassed you in 2025?

[TammySue]

I’ll go first

• I wasn’t even there as my friend (fellow dog owner) was dog sitting for us. Our canine bin threw up one of my old socks. A red one, that had started to bleach into a tie dye pink shade from his stomach acid. He, of course, immediately tried to re-eat his treasure so she had to wrestle my fermented vomity sock off of him. What a friend. I wouldn’t have blamed her for letting him eat it and sticking me with the vet bill 😆

• This one was a repeat offence. Dog loves to swim and will make a beeline for water. More than once in summer he ran full pelt and took a running jump into our local duck pond, sending birds flying. He would be happy as Larry, obliviously swimming in circles whilst parents / grand parents / childminders glared with their bags of seeds. Oops 🙊
To be fair to him, despite being a gun dog, he has zero interest in the ducks so he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

All in all he’s a good boy really.

Mine is dog reactive so embarrasses me daily by barking at absolutely anything on four legs which resembles an adult dog. She's good at ignoring puppies and elderly pooches, interestingly.

My parents dog got bunged up on a raw bone he was given to chew on - totally constipated as it turned out but we all thought he was dying before they rushed him to the vets.... Shaking, crying, trying to squat all the time. Of course the moment they walked in the vets with him he pooped the "plug" and left a disproportionately large volume of diarrhoea versus his body weight all over the reception area 🤣. Staff were lovely about it, vet was very impressed with his efforts. Dog is fine, banned from future bones!

Not my dog but SIL’s dachshund humps everything that can’t get away fast enough.

legs, toys, furniture, post boxes, other dogs.

I no longer dog sit the beast

Mine ate raisins and cost me £400 in the vets to have a vomiting drug to bring them all up and then another drug to stop the vomiting. I had to sit with her on the floor of the vet while she gave me sad eyes and threw up her soul. The minute we got home she went literally back to the place in the kitchen where she had found said raisins and started sniffing round in case she had accidentally missed one.

Labrador, in case you hadn’t already guessed.

It’s nice that she is kind to the vulnerable in society at least!
We used to have a small, fluffy dog who hated everyone and everything. She did at least realise that she couldn’t finish a fight with anything bigger than her so we didn’t have too much trouble - except she had a really taste for puppies 🙄 the cuter and fluffier (aka weaker), the better.

Tell me you have a cocker spaniel without telling me you have a cocker spaniel

Mine is also dog reactive, so he's regularly found spinning on the end of a lead and barking like the Tasmanian Devil. I'm often mortified by him. He's very cute and looks like butter wouldn't melt - but looks are often deceiving.

Cockapoo I presume? They all seem to do that.

We need photos of these brilliant dogs or it didn’t happen. I’m still grieving the loss of our girl so please be kind.

Mine jumped onto the windowabarked at people walking by and made a small child cry ! I was mortified.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet Yep. To be fair, we know plenty of cockapoos who behave themselves, but ours is fearful of random dogs - I can't even predict which ones he'll dislike which makes our walks extra special. He's a dream inside the house and with dogs and people he knows and loves though.

Mine is a performative lead biter. We've tried sessions with a trainer and a behaviourist but both of them saw a perfectly behaved hologram of my dog, not the lead ragging looby. She walks beautifully with loose lead, until we get to open ground on a bit of parkland, then she kicks off. She grabs the lead and starts jumping backwards, head shaking, play growling. The worst part of it is that she likes an audience and if anyone is around she really hams it up.
We hoped she'd grow out of it, but now I think we're facing the fact that it's just who she is.

My 30kg mutt. No cocker or poo in this one, but plenty of husky.

She is LOVING the cold weather and can often be found lying in the garden refusing to come in. I dread to think what the new neighbours think 😂

My dog used to wait til we were halfway across the zebra crossing on a busy road on the way to (or from) the park to do her business. If I tried to drag her along a bit she just left a trail I’d still need to clean up so just had to stand there with a growing audience. And then have everyone watch me pick it up. Lovely.

Mine is reactive on lead to cockapoos and border collies for some reason. If she is off lead she is usually completely fine but on lead she will always go nuts if either of the above pass us. I am distracting with treats when I see them coming, it's a nightmare if they just appear though!

A friend has a spaniel which managed to present her used period pants to the gas man who did a boiler check the other day. She was mortified.

Mine ran onto a rugby pitch while a match was in play 🤦‍♀️

I have rescue podencos. One or other of them embarrass me on a daily basis, lol. Two are highly dog reactive and despite being large dogs are terrified of the neighbours Pomeranian (who to be fair has small man syndrome). We are working on their anxiety and they are getting better but it’s hard work, lol.

This is reassuring to hear. Our cockapoo (10 months) is exactly the same. A dream in the house and with people/dogs he knows but very reactive to random dogs we pass, especially if they take us by surprise.

We went away and stayed in a cottage for a family birthday recently and in front of a large audience of my family he put on quite the show humping his favourite cushion……..

Since the middle of December -

Visited a neighbour who insisted I bring dog. Should have known better as her house is very cluttered. One chocolate Father Christmas later, dash to the vet, £96 bill to make dog vomit and yes, all over their carpet because I couldn't catch it in the tray they gave me.

Out yesterday for a walk and pop in to local food specialist ingredient farm. There are loads of tasting opportunities with sticks to dip in and bins to throw them away once used. Dog went head first into every bin. I was distracting her one way, DS was herding the other way, friend was trying to pick up the bins. During this, a man complimented my PIA dog and wanted to give her a biscuit.

Also yesterday, a woman burst out laughing at my dog on a lead, walking towards her. Christmas jumper on, deformed face and tongue due to abuse. Happily snuffling away, tail wagging, old rescue girl. Hopefully I embarrassed the woman, I said 'I know, there are no words...' whilst looking her up and down.

I love the description as 'spinning on the end of a lead'. That describes our lurcher perfectly when passing another dog on the other side of the road.

My dog decided to be a drugs detection dog, and now sits in front of people and stares at the area of their body they have drugs. It is very difficult when going through a crowd and he does this

My small dog being walked by my mum, met one of their neighbours who was telling my mum something very serious. While small dog was humping his leg..

We had this once. Our girl, good as gold, great recall, got randomly spooked by some drumming in a nearby garage and made her way immediately to the centre of a grouo of very patient folks playing some sport or other.

Today our greyhound spotted another greyhound WAYYY off in the distance at the beach. He yowled as if he was being tortured and when we finally crossed paths with the hound and his people he got very excited. As did the other hound. We stopped to chat for a few minutes and the two hounds were so pleased to see another greyhound that they licked each others furry purses 😟
Now I understand where the term dogging originates.

Glad it's not just mine! Although you also have my sympathies - it's mortifying 😬

Got into a stranger's car boot and started to eat their shopping.