I don't really have anything useful to add other than Zane has been one of those unruly dogs (big as he is). He is well trained but on one occasions when he was playing with a couple of dogs in the fields by the airport an ESS came bounding up.

The owner of the ESS called her dog away and Zane followed. I called Zane back but he developed tha selective hearing that all naughty kids develop. He was only about 100 yrds away but I have a dodgy knee so can only walk over to him. It must have looked as though I wasn't othered by him not doing as he was told. Zane didn't do anything. He was only following but the point was, his presence made the other owner feel uncomfortable plus he had ignored me.
I went right back to basic with his recall training after that and even now I stil do this every now and then just to reinforce what he already knows and is second nature to him.

The only thing I could do at the time was apologise and try to explain that 99 times out of 100 his recall is perfect. I don't think she believed me for one second but thankfully all the dogs there that day were very sociable.

This happened about 12 months ago and I've had no problems at all with his recall since; whether there have been other dogs present or not.

But as Helena said, we don't really know what dogs are thinking when these incidents occur. Polo is unharmed and I'm sure the Yorkie is OK too. Maybe going back to training again for Polo to reinforce what he knows may help so he doesn't bat an eyelid next time he's surrounded by the smaller/toy breeds.

Stumpywop - I have had dogs approach Polo when he is onlead plenty of times and just deal with it as it happens. I go to great lengths of walk in places where I am able to anticipate and make a sharp exit if necessary. I am pretty tolerant of people that have maybe just experienced a failed recall. It has happened to us all.

I get annoyed when it is not an accident. Having a bunch of unruly dogs off lead in a carpark is not a failed recall it is a complete lack of consideration for anyone else and dangerous.

When we had our lovely Cherry I had just strapped her and Parker into their seat-belt harnesses in the back of the car when a large dog jumped in to say hello to her! Another 2 dogs were queueing outside waiting for their turn! I did my nut as Cherry was dog aggressive/reactive to large dogs and partly blind too so could not read dog's signals and was wary of unfamiliar ones. Parker would take exception to another dog being in the car too!

I did have a bit of a shouty moment with the owner of the 3 dogs (who was the other side of the car park) to get his dogs under control. It was only afterwards when I got home that I saw the funny side of this situation!