I think Mia needs a new PR agent (rant)

Last night at training (in a big field so lots of space) at the end I decided to take Mia out of the car, she knew all the other dogs and there was a new standard poodle puppy there I wanted her to meet

So I get her out of the car and she is all calm and happy
all the other dogs are offlead getting ready for a last wee walk - and Mia is onlead

A young GSD that Mia is friends with comes over and tries to play with her - she tries to play back but is on the lead so there isnt room for the crazyness they both want to perform - and I dont want to let her off with a new dog there

so I try and back off, and I say to the guy to get his dog back

Ben starts to get a little peed off with it all and starts pushing Mia out of the way himself - this makes the GSD more bouncy - I can see they are all getting hyper so I say to the guy again - he calls but of course his dog dosent come

and of course Mia gets trapped with the lead and the dog ontop of her so gets snarly barky - I end up with the GSD behind me trapped between my legs snarling at Mia - and of course I still have Mia out on the end of the lead as far away from me as I can keep her

The guy is laughing and saying to everyone how Mia has issues!!!
yeah its always Mias fault!! there is only 1 of us preventing this being a fight here!!
he finally grabs his dog, I calm Mia down and we walk round - I try and keep to the back - of course his dog is still offlead - Mia still onlead

A little later the GSD and the poodle have a fight as well - but that is pretty much ignored as 'what dogs do'

makes me sad/mad that Mia is always labled as the 'devil' while other people thing their dogs are angels and dont need to have them under any kind of control


- on a plus side even with all that negative energy she was calm and lovely with the poodle

Is this the agility club you run?

yup it is.

I think even the most chilled out of dogs can react badly when they're on a lead and boisterous dogs can't take a hint. I'd be really peed off as well with his snarky little comments!

I hate this, I have a rickety old labrador with sore arthritic hips. He's always been great with other dogs, not a bad bone in him.

Now though if a dog is jumping all over him he quite rightly tells them to go away, he starts off by moving away and giving of all the basic calming signals but invariably the owners are still too far away to regain control of their bouncy young dog who then pursues him. Eventually he has no choice but to bark at them, not aggressively it's more of an "ow, you're hurting me" bark.

I then get the owner informing me their dog is only trying to be friendly and I should keep my dog on the lead because he's clearly aggressive. When I point out to them that their dog pursued mine and jumped on him when he has sore hips and that I'm sure they would say something to someone climbing on them when they ache I've actually had people tell me tell me if he's in that much pain I shouldn't be walking him.

I always point out that he wouldn't have been in that much pain if their idiotic dog hadn't jumped on him and if they'd had some control in the first place!

I think the part I really hate is people looking at my lovely old man and thinking he's vicious! He really is the most gentle dog I've ever known, he just takes anything in his stride and now he's old I think he's entitled to tell youngsters where to get off. He's never been involved in a fight, except one sided ones where he just sits there. When I brought Scooby home and Scooby proceeded to defend me from Binky at every chance Binky just ignored him, never rising to Scoobs behaviour. He gets on with the smallest of chicks to the biggest of horses. He hasn't been around cats but recently he came with me while I was house sitting and I watched as my 35kg lab pretended to be invisible whilst a 3kg cat rubbed herself on his face.

I hate the way people judge others dogs and fail to recognise the problems with their own animals. I understand Mia has issues but atleast you are working on them unlike the person with the GSD who obviously has recall problems but fails to see how that is an issue! Get your own dog right before commenting on others

Well TBH if I was running the class I would have rules in place to avoid this occurring................ simples............ !

Its not a class I am running - its all the club members training together

Hes the club chairman

Well I would suggest that, as a committee, you have some suitable rules which protect everyone.................