A nice surprise!

Hubby and I took Rupert to Belfast Castle/Cavehill Country Park yesterday as we had 9 hours to kill between marching out of our house and getting the ferry to the UK. It was a nice sunny day so obviously lots of people and dogs around but the place is big enough and wide open enough that we could easily avoid other dogs for the most part. Rupe was muzzled as an extra precaution but we only had one incident, someone hadn't seen Rupe lying down between us as we sat on the grass. He apologised and rushed over to get his dog, no harm done. Well, not to any dogs anyway, I look like someones tried to disembowel me with a blunt knife thanks to Rupert standing on my ribs

Anyway, enough waffle, at one point we were walking along a path and spotted a group of young, rough looking lads heading in our direction with an off leash Rottweiler. Assuming the worst (lets face it, 4 guys with a macho breed usually means trouble) I started looking for an escape route while Calvin got ready to fend off the Rottie. To my amazement one of the guys shouted "Tyson sit!", Rottie sat, guy ran up to it and leashed it Turns out the dog was friendly but had a tendency to go deaf when it saw other dogs. We thanked them, said how nice it was to see people who actually tried to keep their dogs from being a nuisance and had a bit of a chat (more of a shout really as we moved far enough that Rupe wasn't going mad) about dogs before going on our way.

Thought I'd post about this encounter as we so often hear about the bad encounters we have with people and dogs like this and rarely hear about the responsible ones.

Belfast castle, only eaten there, never walked there as I do not have my dogs with me when I go to Belfast.

We lived about a half hour drive away but never took Rupert before yesterday because of how popular it is with dog walkers and him being aggressive. We've gone there a few times for scones and tea without him though.

That's a really nice experience for you all - thanks for sharing