Perhaps you heard me telling this story on the air today. If so, my apologies for the rerun!
If you are hearing it/reading it for the first time I would like to mention that I’ve never owned a dog (I know! What a sad existence!) and I haven’t spent a ton of time around dogs so if I get some basic dog owner etiquette wrong in this article, I ask for your forgiveness in advance.
Here’s what went down:
One of my besties and I decided to go for a walk on York beach yesterday (Long sands because, duh) She brought along her adorable Golden Doodle named Finn. Finn is typically the third party on our walks and I absolutely love it because he is what they call in the business a 100%, certified, good boy. Here is what he looks like so you can paint a picture in your mind:
So Eliza, Finn, and I are trotting along York Beach and it is not very crowded since it is now officially the off season. We notice that some people have their dogs off leash which doesn’t seem to be a problem, they have tons of space to run around and live their truth. All of a sudden one of the dogs who is off leash ran up to Finn. The two of them were sniffing around and then there was some growling action. The growling quickly turned into fighting and Finn let out the saddest most pathetic “YELP”! This dog was significantly bigger than him and he didn’t stand a chance. The fact that Finn was on leash and the other dog wasn’t, probably made Finn feel that much more threatened.
I believe (and again, not a dog owner) the right thing to do in that moment was to reach in there and pick Finn up but Eliza and I were scared to get a hand bitten off. All we could do was sit there and shriek which was absolutely not helping. The owner finally came over and tried to wrangle his dog (a few times were unsuccessful and then he finally did) He apologized profusely and that was that. We saw that he put his dog on a leash after that.
Walking away from that interaction I thought to myself (and then out loud to Eliza) that York beach is a public place and I don’t think that should have happened. If people want to let their dogs run around off leash they need to keep a close eye on them. If you know your dog doesn’t jive well with other dogs then they shouldn’t be off leash at all. If you know they don’t come when called, again, they shouldn’t be off leash at all. In the mean time my poor friend feels like she needs to pick her dog up every time she sees a dog off leash now. (this is not the first time this has happened) It’s not cool.
Anyway, if you have any pearls of wisdom to share or a similar story I would love to hear them. Feel free to drop us a comment!
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Does your loyal pup’s breed make the list? Read on to see if you’ll be bragging to the neighbors about your dog’s intellectual prowess the next time you take your fur baby out for a walk. Don’t worry: Even if your dog’s breed doesn’t land on the list, that doesn’t mean he’s not a good boy–some traits simply can’t be measured.