Lots of background, skip it if you want:
I was walking my dog this afternoon in an off leash park. It's not a very well used one, sometimes we see a few other dogs, sometimes we don't see any, especially during the winter. There are three other people I see there regularly with their dogs off leash. Two of them my dog plays with each time, the third he doesn't get along with, so he avoids. (I say hi to everyone in the park, this dog's owner never says hi back, so I avoid him too.)
My dog is not perfect. He's 2 years old. He's not bad, he just needs to learn more social skills, which is part of the reason why I take him to the park. He'll trot up, sniff other dogs, sometimes play with them, sometimes not. He comes when I call him 90% of the time, and this is improving all the time.
I take him to other, more busy parks too for socialization, but most often I go to this one because it's closest to home and because when I run 5k I know where to turn around at 2.5k and the trail is good for running.
The point:
So today I was walking in the park and my dog saw a new dog (leashed) and went to say hi. The owner freaked out and immediately pulled his dog up (it was a big dog, bigger than mine, by 'up' I mean he was hanging him by the leash but his hind legs were still on the ground), started yanking him around in circles, and started swearing at me to get my dog on a leash. He said, cursing a lot, that there are no signs saying that it was an off leash area. I politely told him where the signs were and called my dog to me. My dog didn't come right away so I walked over to get him (which, for the record, is much harder when the other dog is being yanked around in circles by his owner). As we were walking away he was still going on about the leash thing.
The whole thing took about 10-15 seconds. The whole time he was swearing at me about getting a leash. I guess he didn't believe me about the sign.
So am I wrong? Should I not take my dog to the park to socialize until he's 100% perfect already? Should I be shot for bad-dog-ownershipness? Or should this guy learn to read signs and not take his dog to off leash parks if he doesn't want it to socialize with other dogs?
I was walking my dog this afternoon in an off leash park. It's not a very well used one, sometimes we see a few other dogs, sometimes we don't see any, especially during the winter. There are three other people I see there regularly with their dogs off leash. Two of them my dog plays with each time, the third he doesn't get along with, so he avoids. (I say hi to everyone in the park, this dog's owner never says hi back, so I avoid him too.)
My dog is not perfect. He's 2 years old. He's not bad, he just needs to learn more social skills, which is part of the reason why I take him to the park. He'll trot up, sniff other dogs, sometimes play with them, sometimes not. He comes when I call him 90% of the time, and this is improving all the time.
I take him to other, more busy parks too for socialization, but most often I go to this one because it's closest to home and because when I run 5k I know where to turn around at 2.5k and the trail is good for running.
The point:
So today I was walking in the park and my dog saw a new dog (leashed) and went to say hi. The owner freaked out and immediately pulled his dog up (it was a big dog, bigger than mine, by 'up' I mean he was hanging him by the leash but his hind legs were still on the ground), started yanking him around in circles, and started swearing at me to get my dog on a leash. He said, cursing a lot, that there are no signs saying that it was an off leash area. I politely told him where the signs were and called my dog to me. My dog didn't come right away so I walked over to get him (which, for the record, is much harder when the other dog is being yanked around in circles by his owner). As we were walking away he was still going on about the leash thing.
The whole thing took about 10-15 seconds. The whole time he was swearing at me about getting a leash. I guess he didn't believe me about the sign.
So am I wrong? Should I not take my dog to the park to socialize until he's 100% perfect already? Should I be shot for bad-dog-ownershipness? Or should this guy learn to read signs and not take his dog to off leash parks if he doesn't want it to socialize with other dogs?