Yesterday, I went for another lovely mountain walk with the Labs and W&S's sister Annie. Where we went, and at the time we went, there is pretty much a guarantee of no other dogs. If Shadow wasn't a retriever, I would keep his muzzle on at all times now, but he loves to chase cones, dig for them and so forth, and that's an important part of his enrichment, so the muzzle is off when I am pretty sure we won't meet another dog.
And, we didn't for the whole of the walk, but as we walked back down towards the road, I saw a very pale GR in the road with a man. I immediately grabbed Shadow and put him on lead, but at that point I thought it was a female GR we'd seen the day before, who Shadow was fine with. In any event, the sight of another dog meant his muzzle had to go on, and then I choose whether he can come off lead or not. It pretty soon became apparent it wasn't the same dog - this one was slim, the other one was FAT - so it was just coincidence that we met two very pale GRs in the space of two days in exactly the same place.
It's hard to paint a picture of the scene, but I'll try. The bank down to the road is very steep, and the snow was very soft and very deep - what we like to call "elephant snot" when we're skiing on it. Basically, it's been in the sun all day, getting slushy, but still about thigh deep. I had my snow shoes on, but they make me unstable. My friend (Annie's mum) asked what she could do, so I asked her to take my snow shoes - this meant I would sink deeper, but was better balanced. I had to make my way down to the road. The dog's owner was sat on a wall on our side of the road, facing away from us and not paying any attention. He had looked up as I was putting Shadow's muzzle on, so he obviously knew that he needed managing, but then he turned back and ignored us as his dog sniffed around the girls.
The GR was very friendly, and the three girls were all totally fine with him, and my friend took them on a slightly loopier route around to the road while to let me take Shadow a more direct route to try to keep our distance from him, and hopefully get Shadow into the car (which was right where we got down to the road) before he met the dog.
Now, had I let Shadow off lead, he would probably have been OK with this dog, but I wasn't going to do that without getting his muzzle on. And in the time I did that, the dog had got too close and he had started to react. Nothing major, just huffing, but I know that he's gone "over" by that point, and if I let him off, he would have a go at the other dog.
So, here's the thing. I am the owner of a dick dog. It doesn't matter WHY he's a dick, and it doesn't matter HOW he's a dick. In these situations, I have several things in mind.
> I want to protect my dog. I want to protect him from getting so stressed he has to react - every time he reacts means he's more likely to react in the future. He reacts because he can't cope with the situation any other way, and that is my failure to protect him.
> I want to protect my dog from whatever the other dog or owner might do if he reacts. Both dog and owner might take offence to his behaviour (and I'm not saying that's wrong) and lash out at him.
> I need to protect my dog from any complaints that might be made against him. If he is reported as being a "dangerous dog", life would become SO much more difficult for us.
> I want to protect the other dog. Not from physical harm, because I know that's not Shadow's intent, otherwise he would have caused harm. It's all noise and show. But, this sort of event happening to Shadow again and again when he was young, combined with how I responded to it, is how Shadow ended up as Shadow. I want to protect the other dog from feeling like they have to become reactive.
During these situations, I don't have time or focus to give the other owner. I almost never talk to them; if I shout out, it stresses Shadow. I try to just go into management mode. This is not a time for counter-conditioning, this is a time for getting out of Dodge. I just hope against all hope that they are switched on enough to manage their dog so that the situation doesn't escalate. I certainly don't count on it, which is just as well, because it's really uncommon for people to have the slightest clue.
So, there we are, my friend and the three female Labs working their way down to the road as the GR mooches around them; me in very deep snotty snow shoving food down Shadow's neck as fast as I can get it through the muzzle. I gave it a short while for the guy to call his dog away, but it was obvious he wasn't going to, so I started straight down the steep bank to the road myself. The GR started up the bank towards us. At this point, I had no choice but to stress Shadow more - I couldn't have this dog come up to him while he felt vulnerable on lead. So I got in front, put out my "policeman hand" and said "NO!". This dog - a goofy youngster - ignored me and continued to approach. So, again, I had to go into management. I just hung onto Shadow's collar with both hands to stop him lunging - in this snow, if he lunged against the end of the leash, I wouldn't have had a chance of holding him, so I had to keep him in close. I couldn't feed him like this, and it was obvious he felt awful; this dog was invading his personal space. He started growling and snarling, an unpleasant sound, and at last, the owner called his dog away, throwing a snowball up the far bank.
This gave me the time to get down the hill a little way, before the dog came running back to us. Again, Shadow snarled; again, the guy threw a snowball. At last, I managed to get Shadow to the car and into the back, where he continued to bark at this dog who came over to say hi to me.
This dog was delightful. Two years old, a real softy. Obviously doesn't have a bad bone in his body, and doesn't realise that other dogs might like to cause him harm. That's great, I love his enthusiasm and joie de vivre.
I understand that the guy thinks that his dog is so "good with other dogs" that no other dog could possibly have an issue with him.
We got into the car, and my friend said, "I can't believe he didn't do anything! He saw you putting the muzzle on Shadow. He must have known there was an issue there. But he didn't do anything!"
This isn't a rant. The old me would have ranted. Now, I think how lovely it is for him that he doesn't understand. I can't blame him for not understanding. I don't have the time or energy to try to educate people in the moment; I needed to get out of there. He was nice, his dog was nice. In another situation, Shadow and he might have been OK together. As it was, circumstances didn't allow for that.
But the feeling of responsibility is just overwhelming. The feelings of shame that he's like that in the first place. The feelings of being unable to control a situation so he doesn't end up having to react. Feeling as if I have to protect the other dog from bad experiences that might cause him to become reactive himself. Trying to balance giving my dog the best life whilst protecting him and everyone else.
It's totally, and utterly exhausting.
I don't know what to say to help you feel better. A few things are formulating in my mind, but for starters I think from looking at happy Shadow on your video's, you give him a brilliant life.
