08/07/2025
I shared this to my stories this morning, but I feel so strongly about it I decided to put it on the grid too. As many of you know, we’ve got a reactive little soul, Maisie. She loves humans, not such a fan of anything with four legs. She isn’t leash reactive and is only reactive with other dogs if they interact with her (come up to her and sniff her bum, get in her face etc). So theoretically we should be able to go for nice walks with her on her nervous lead, knowing other people will have control over their own dogs and won’t allow them to bound up to her. But the reality is this just isn’t possible, because the amount of times people have let their dogs run over, despite Maisie being on a nervous lead, and despite us clearly shouting please put your dog back on a lead while picking up our own dog to try and get away from theirs. We’ll get the “don’t worry they’re friendly” or even people who argue back at us saying things like “ah let them, they’ll be fine” or “don’t worry our dog needs a telling off now and then”. It’s madness - but it’s literally what’s happening out on walks. Many many times, I’ve been that person who’s gone home and cried and had my day ruined. Until you have a reactive dog, it can be hard to understand how difficult this is and how much work and training goes into looking after them (and looking after everyone else around them just to add!). When we first moved to Cheltenham, I remember Maisie got bounded at a few walks in a row, with the third one being a golden retriever running full pelt across a field at her and barging straight into her. The owners were on a run and didn’t make any attempt to come over to take their dog away and didn’t say sorry. Maisie, on the other hand, had to have a few days off walks to decompress because she was on the edge of snapping turning into a bite - and it’s lucky she didn’t get physically hurt by the other dog (although possibly she did, but nothing obvious to us). I could go on and on about this, but the main thing I want to reiterate is to please think beyond your own friendly dog on walks and think too about whether your friendly dog is in control enough to be off lead around other dogs 🙏🏻
