one of those

On indies walk today we bumped into a woman with a 7 month old labrador. Indie and the pup immedietly ran toward each other and started playing. Anyway, the woman came over and was like 'oh thats one of those vicious dogs' , she mentioned she had met a few nasty ones, so i hope she has found from this experience that not all staffies r bad jus cos of a few bad eggs. But like, considering they were both playing im suprised she even said it.

typical why do people assume that all dogs of one breed are the same maybe now she will realise there not thanks to indie well done

I really feel for staffie owners listening to the same stupid remarks day in day out. The sad thing is these people have had the "devil dog" message drilled into them for years by our media, it will probably take even longer to undo this damage to the staffie reputation. My aunt has stopped walking her dog along the bike track in our town incase she meets "that pitbull" , this "pitbull" (probably a staff) hasn't done anything wrong, probably hasn't even came near her or looked at her, but she has been victim of this ridiculous fear culture surrounding bull breeds . She is genuinely terrified of this dog and no level of reasoning by me can alleviate her fear .

Jenny it is good you met her be glad you did, meeting people like that gives you an excellent chance to do little PR for your breed and to tell her a lot of people mistakenly think the wrong thing about Staffs, and that most are sweet natured and lovely like your Indie

it wud have been fair enough if indie was trying to attack her dog, but seeing as indie was having fun playing it seemed like a stupid comment to make.

..exactly the woman had preconceived views about your breed, you and Indie will have no doubt changed that view a little which is good for all Staff owners

its good that she has now seen a good staff and she may not think so bad of them next time

Do feel that some Staffy owners are just too sensitive, yes the Staffy does get a bad press, but as I said elsewhere the general public, police, dog wardens and RSPCA wardens do not know a Staffy when they see one. It is all badly bred Staffs and Staff crosses that are causing the general mistrust and IMO you who own the genuine thing should take every opportunity to help prove to the GP and others that well bred, well brought up Staffies are a delight and very friendly and not take umbrage. A friendly word will help spread the truth about the Staffy but not as quickly as a brush off will spread the reverse, after all it is not just the Staffy ask a GSD owner what a long fight they have had to try and improve the public image of their chosen breed, their task was not helped by careless over breeding either.

Many years ago, we moved out into the country to a little village,at the time I had 2 staffie bitches, my kids were just at primary school then. As soon as the neighbours found out we had staffies that was it, no kids were allowed to play with mine, I went to the local school and offered to bring one of my dogs in to let everyone meet her, to see she was not vicious, they would't let me. After 9 months of this we sold the house and moved right out into the country. We moved beside a farm, the farmers were great,once they saw my girls were livestock friendly,I had no problems. The people of the villiage believed everything they read in the papers.Some people just will not give a staff a chance

Sorry to hear of the negativity you received - having owned Rotties and German Shepherds I can sympathize with this, we get it a lot.

Best way of dealing with it is to have as well behaved a dog as poss and show people how wrong they are.