This is Fred. He's our dog. He was a stray for the first year of his life, and my wife and I rescued him from the Pasadena Humane Society.
Fred is a great dog. He's really funny and smart, gets into all sorts of trouble, and loves to boss around his best friend, a giant Labrador named Levi. Fred doesn't care that they're the same age and Levi weighs about 100 lbs. more than him. Fred is in charge, and Levi is too, well...purebred, to argue.
The one thing we've had to work on with Fred is his reactive behavior to other dogs. For those of you that have reactive dogs, you know this can be a bit of a struggle. Fred is different from some of the reactive dogs you see on The Dog Whisperer or other shows in that he isn't aggressive. He doesn't freak out when he sees a dog because he wants to attack. Fred freaks out because he wants to make more friends.
Still, this behavior shouldn't be encouraged in that it stresses out both Fred and the person walking Fred. When we see another dog coming our way on walks, we either have to turn around or cross the street so Fred doesn't get to barking.
Street corners are particularly tricky when another dog approaches as you can't determine where that other dog is going to cross, so you have to find a place to hold Fred back so he remains relaxed. You then have to distract Fred for as long as it takes until the dog and owner have moved on.
The problem with this strategy, however, is that the other dog owners in our neighborhood are morons.
Particularly in the last few weeks, my wife and I have encountered dog owners that aren't intelligent enough to care for a tapeworm, much less a canine. They can clearly see that Fred is reactive and barking uncontrollably, but instead of just moving on so the stress of the situation is removed, these things tend to happen:
- The dog owner stops at the corner and stares at Fred and I, or allows their dog to have free reign and sniff every freaking thing in the area before moving on. Meanwhile, I have a dog losing its mind on the end of my leash, but that's okay, let your worthless chihuahua sniff that patch of grass for 10 minutes.
- The owner walks DIRECTLY TOWARDS MY DOG. Now remember, Fred isn't aggressive. He wouldn't hurt another dog, but if you see a dog freaking out on the leash, why in the high holy crap would you make a beeline towards that hyperactive dog? What if Fred wasn't so friendly? What if he was really vicious and actually wanted to hurt your dog? Why take that chance? This happened over the weekend to me, where the owner of a dog saw Fred and I walking about half a block behind her, stopped, turned, and walked right towards us. When I took Fred into a small alley so he wouldn't freak out, she stopped right outside the alley and told me, "It's okay. Your dog just wants to meet us." First of all, how does she know this? Is she an animal psychic? And if so, why the hell isn't she marking this? I had to calmly explain that it actually ISN'T okay, that my dog is reactive and we are trying to discourage him from freaking out whenever he sees a canine, so one day we CAN approach other dogs calmly.
- The dog owner is on his/her phone, sending text messages. This happened to me last week, where Fred and I approached the corner, and instead of being aware of her surroundings and her dog's behavior, the owner just typed on her phone for a good 5 minutes. Meanwhile, her dog is running into the street sniffing around, tugging on the leash, which the owner is ignoring.
Emily and I just consider ourselves lucky that we have such a great dog, and that we, unlike the other owners in our neighborhood, aren't complete idiots.
