My husband and I walk our weiner and boxer dogs every night after supper. We set out with poo-pickup bags in hand (biodegradableones from PerSmart) with both Grace and Henry securely latched onto their leashes. We don't let them walk in other people's yards, and if they crap, we pick it up.
We are, in other words, somewhat responsible for our dogs and their behaviour when we're out.
We have a couple of routes through military family housing that we take, both of which are about a mile long. We know where houses that have dogs are, and we try to walk on the opposite side of the street from them because I get a little nervous about dogs jumping the fences that contain them to their yards. My husband thinks I'm silly for worrying about things like that, but he walks on the other side of the street with me anyway.
The night before last, when we were out on our regular post-chow stroll, we decided to take a detour and walked down a street that makes a semi-circle from the main drag through housing. We were almost back on our regular route when my fears about strange dogs getting loose were realized.
The first sign of trouble was the crazed snarling and barking that we heard. The culprit was a large Australian Shepherd that was standing on the other side of someone's screen door. I turned to look at it, just in enough time to see it hit said screen door hard enough to pop the latch open and come barreling across the street at us, snarling and snapping and barking all the way.
My first reaction was a loud "oh fuck"...closely followed by my picking up Henry and holding him up and out of this dogs' way. I got him up just in time; the Aussie hit me just as I was swinging Henry over my head. Dave was trying to keep Gracie behind his back and both of us were trying to kick and push this other dog away and protect both our dogs and ourselves. We were both yelling at the aggressor to back off, but it didn't do much good.
After what seemes like forever but was probably only about 30 seconds, the dog's owner came over and tried to grab him. She was yelling "stop it!! Stop it!!!" as she tried to get her finger under it's collar and yank it away. Eventually she managed to corral it and she hauled it off of us and away across the street.
And she crossed her yard, went inside and shut the door.
That was it. She didn't say a fucking thing to us. Not a damn thing. No "I'm sorry", no "Is everyone okay"...nothing.
Not. A. Damn. Word.
As it turns out, nobody got bitten. Dave and I were fine, as were Henry and Grace. 'Fine' as in not bitten I was shaken, as was Grace. That's not the point, though. The point is, her dog attacked us, and she never even acknowledged either the attack or us. We were doing everything we could to avoid a confrontation between our dogs and other animals and whilst I at first thought that it was sheer bad luck that her dog got out, her actions (and lack thereof) have since made me wonder if this hasn't happened before. (These houses that we live in are notorious for their poor construction and I don't think I've been in one of them that had a decent latch on the screen door. All of ours will open with not much of a shove against them.) Maybe she's used to her dog getting out and having a go at other people and their pets. Maybe that's why she didn't even look at us as she dragged her dog home...who knows.
I DO know that I was pissed, and not just at her lack of concern. We do everything we can to make sure that our dogs are well behaved around other people and aren't a threat, both when we're walking them AND at home. We NEVER leave the screen doors open when the dogs are uncrated; I'm paranoid about them getting out - just like I was paranoid about other dogs getting loose.
Neither of those fears can be attriubted to paranoia anymore, though. I've seen both of them happen.
