That reminds me of someone.....

Well you infer this from what she says which is not quite the same.

Anyway, I still do not see why it bothers you; will anything you say change her mind? Does her opinion MATTER?

Life is full of absurdities, if we objected to them all we would be knackered!

I am sure it does

[QUOTE=TabithaJ;2269972]"Oh goodness, you're the ONLY one whose dog is on a leash!"

Yes, he's in training

"Oh, decided to be brave today?"

It's his reward for his training going so well

I would just ignore her. There is a woman who lives a few doors up from me, who i meet often in the park and i cannot stand her. She has a rough collie who by nature is very timid, yet after a brief first meeting with Jake (where Jake was onlead and was sitting nicely beside me) she then told a few people that her dog is 'terrified' of Jake He acts the same with all the dogs. Then the other week, to prove how terrified he is, he followed me and Jake around the park while his owner was across the other side of the park, and started to hump Jake! Jake told him off, and after a while trotted away. Then, the next time i saw them (again, Jake was on the lead) she told her dog 'dont go near him, he doesnt like you and will bite you' and this was in front of other dog walkers! I was fuming so snapped back, i now either ignore her or avoid her.

i should imagine the "oh my goodness" bit does betray the inferance the lady is implying you are being unfair to your dog.
so i think you should follow yr instincts on that, they are probably right.

i think 2 points in yr story may be key:
- you are the only one in the park seen to be training yr dog
- and her dog is very untrained and uncontrolled

so i think she is masking her latent embarassment at the comparison being made public so is trying to neutralise this by trying to get you to do less training, thus stopping her and her dog from being the one that stands out.

so id say thanks for your interest, im training my dog.
why dont you join us if you are interested, i can show you how.

as regards the the other hearing, i think that's part of her strategy, as i have described it.
naturally, they will look in your direction if this lady is shouting out stuff in the manner she does.
but they will be looking and wondering who/why is this busybody lady that doesnt mind her own business?

Take no notice of them you are doing what is right for you and Dexter. She is the one who will be coming unstuck one day. I started to avoid the person who knew it all when I use to wak Ollie. They soon got the message and started catching up to walk with us and never mentioned again how I chose to walk my dog.

She might then ask about long lines.

I had something similar like this with my Moon. I was walking with a group of dog walkers in my local (small and overcrowded) dog park. Moon was happily trotting around as usual, totally ignoring other dogs. Aside from the odd sniff he always ignored dogs, didn't want to play, had no interest in them. We walked past a bench and a staffie shot out, snarling and barking and crashed into Moon's side. Quite rightly Moon defenses himself and a minor scrap with much noise followed.

Cue chavvy girl to turn up, grab her dog and say "oh, she never does that!", and which point a dog walker in thr group turned to her and said, "oh don't worry. That dogs always like that!". I was totally gob smacked. I'd never seen that dog walker before in my life, where did he get off making judgements about my dog? I grabbed Moon and stormed off totally fuming. Also the staff owner is a liar and her dog has a go at every dog it sees. I was livid and I really wish I'd had a snappy come back. It felt so unjust, Moon wouldn't have hurt a fly.

Now I get judged with Cain all the time, every walk. Walking a large GSD looking thing wearing a halti, sometimes a muzzle, always kept on lead. Well the old gossipy ladies and their yorkies just loved to follow us around the park, screaching loudly about my aggresive dog, despite the fact that it was their yappy little things who were making all the racket....

Do you know what I learnt? Sod them! Seriously, their opinion does not matter. I stopped walking in the little local park because it was was overcrowded, cliquey and bitchy anyway, and we've found far nicer places to walk. If it's strangers who I'll never see again, just let it slide. It's not work the stress.

I get all the "oh is he aggressive/will he bite/oh let him off lead he'll be fine/still on a lead is he/you must have your hands full/you could ride him...." the list goes on. I just let it wash over me.

Now if you see the other dogs owners regularly then they should know about Dexters training and will ignore her. If you don't know them, then does it really matter what they think? The only other thing you could do is explain loudly about the reasons he is ona lead is because he's in TRAINING and your being RESPONSIBLE.

Sometimes I feel like the only owner in the park who bothers to be responsible and control their dog. Unfortunately letting out of control dogs with no recall career around as they please is the norm in London, so we will both stand out a bit for taking control.

Stuff 'em! Well done for working with Dexter and just carry on and ignore her

(although pushed far enough I'd probably end up coming put with some snappy comment like "well at leastim taking responsiblity my dog and keeping him under control, which is more than can be said for you!" but then again I'm shirt tempered and it probably would t solve anything )

Ah, ignore it.

I was called cruel the other day for walking my three, while pushing the buggy, and then I was spiteful for allowing Pops and Mr Woo off the lead, and Kerrie was on her flexi. (if she had been off, she would have eaten his terrier!)

Personally , if it was me, and the next time she says something , I would come back with something like........ well it like this, I care about my dogs welfare and as I am not 100% confident in his recall, we are taking baby steps..........after all with so many restrictions and the DDA, I would hate for my dog to be deemed dangerous (and may have to be PTS) simply because he has no recall!!!!!!!!!

That might make her sit up and think about her own dogs recall!!