A bad ending to a lovely walk

I took Polo for his social walk today. He was a model dog, playing and interacting nicely. He recalled every time and enjoyed the run.

When I got back to the carpark, Polo was onlead before I put him away in my van.

Suddenly a group of yorkshire terriers came running into the carpark. Only two or three on leads, four off lead running at us barking furiously and buzzing around like gnats.

Polo did his best impression of a lunging savage maniac on the end of the lead. One yorkie was baring its teeth and barking and growling just out of range of Polo and another one came around me behind Polo. Before I knew what was happening, Polo turned and flattened it. I don't know if he bit it or just jumped on it but it yelped. The owner was flapping around shouting at the dogs and apologising inbetween times and bundled the dogs into the boot of her car and was gone.

Polo has been doing so well recently and needed that like a hole in the head. I hope the little yorkie that Polo reached was not hurt either - stupid woman.

Unfortunately as in driving you cannot control other dogs or drivers, you just have to accept you will meet idiots and make provisions..............

You did your best so did poor Polo.

She obviously didn't want to hang around any longer than necessary to be embarrassed by her unruly mob. Maybe she has learnt a lesson and will keep them all on lead in the future.

Very true - I can feel my bad knee flaring up. Will have to start using my walking pole again...........

Oh I hate it when that happens. Very similar situation with Kismet here.. She is doing so well overcoming her fear aggression of small dogs, we have been socialising with her muzzle on and she's just been coming on leaps and bounds, she played with two very lovely yorkies under the close supervision of their very understanding owner just a couple of days ago.. But it only takes one incident like the one you describe to set her back!...

We have been attacked by packs of little yapper dogs on more then one occasion, once requiring stitches for my poor girl... But never an apology from the little dogs owners.. Usually it's me with my on lead muzzled dog that gets the abuse... "If your dog's so aggressive you have to muzzle it, you should put it to sleep" being my favourite heckle from the owners of these little out of control monsters...

Poor Polo, hope you both bounce back.

Theres always someone to spoil a walk
I have 'yappers', but thats all they do...and I even apologise when they bark at other dogs!

Jeeeeeze Just what you didn't need Let's hope Polo's forgotten all about it. Flattening is good (as in better than grabbing by the neck, a swift shake and dog is gone!), my dog has done this with them in the past, she's had them in a frenzied ball underneath her and yet not a mark on them when I've yanked her off and they've scarpered back to their owners, so let's hope the yorkie is ok which I'm sure it is.

You never know, it could have actually been a positive thing for the future. By that I mean, Polo WAS confronted by quite a few of them, all showing him signs of aggression by the sounds of it, and yet he managed to ward one off, then the others were taken away, so to HIM, it could have left him with the confidence that no matter how scarey a pack of hooligans might appear, he didn't get hurt, and he scared them all off! It could well have taught him something (who knows what goes on in a dog's mind), you never know! I could be talking utter rubbish here, so you'll just have to see how he goes on his next outing. I hope it hasn't set him back though, as I do know how that feels myself, although lately, I'm on a roll here (hope that isn't the kiss of death!).

Do you know, it really - I will be polite here, NARKS me off completely when other dog-owners are so irresponsible and downright ignorant. Letting their dogs off-lead to bark and snap at other dogs (irrespective of their size) makes me so flaming mad.

I am sorry that this experience was such a crap ending to what was a very successful outing for you and Polo. Don't let it upset you, dust yourself down from this and go back to the training and I am sure you will make great progress again.

Morons like this make me so angry!

Thanks for the support everyone.

Apparantly, my OH has seen this woman there before same thing happening with them buzzing around the carpark barking at dogs and people and this woman puts her hand out to stop cars from running over the dogs! He had Lady, our dobe who can sometimes be reactive to dogs running up barking and OH had a few choice words to say to her.

As you say, Helena, a larger dog could easily just grab and shake one of those dogs and kill it. Thankfully, that is not Polo's style and I caught the lead short of him being able to do much more than what he did. The little dog just kinda yelped and went splat but it did get up again and run off to her car so seemed ok. Hopefully, Polo will bounce back again quickly.

I have two terriers and would not dream of allowing them to go running up harassing others. All it takes is a couple of leads.

I really don't understand why people don't put their dogs on lead in a car park. See this so often and it is an accident waiting to happen. Not nice to have dogs running up to yours like this, especially if yours happens to have "issues" around other dogs.