I was walking my dogs onleash a few days at a local park, when we were attacked by an off leash Chihuahua. Not surprisingly, my dogs were fine and the little dog was spared its life because, as I mentioned my dogs were leashed. Ironically, the lady bystander at the playground ran to see if the small dog was unscathed! Little did she know, I have spent countless hours training my dogs to not aggress and for the most part I can control them. However, I would never trust them off leash in a public place! Somehow, the owner of the aggressive small dog was not held accountable for not leashing his THREE small dogs in a public park. I on the other hand was feeling judged for my two dogs reacting badly to this holy terror.The bottom line is, if you have an aggressive dog, even if it is under your control and an off leash dog attacks you; you are still responsible for the damage your dog does! For this reason, I now carry pepper spray! Fortunately for the owner of the three off leash little dogs, who have repeatedly attacked my dogs (BTW: this is not our first encounter with him in out neighbourhood), I would never use it unless I absolutely had to. His dogs are very unruly, but not that big of a threat to me and my two 70lb Lab, Staffordshire Terrier mixes. I simply pulled my dogs into a sit and waited for the owner of the little dogs to come get his Chihuaha. A sitting dog cant fight!
Heres how I came to the decision to carry pepper spray. Not long ago, in a remote location, while my dogs were running off leash, we were surrounded by three Rottweillers. My female dog Holly, came running to me for assistance, or maybe protection. I grabbed her collar, turned my back to the dogs, as not to look them in the eye and held her fast to my crotch. At this point, I didn’t have a clue where my other dog, Miko was. He isn’t dog aggressive, so my main concern was to keep Holly calm and keep the dogs off her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man emerge from the bush. He was frantically calling his dogs, who were now circling me growling and sniffing, to no avail. Suddenly out of no-where Miko came running up. He circled the crew of dogs and lured them off into a playful chase. The three big dogs were no match for his speed, or his size, as he ducked and dove through the trees. I called to the owner of the the three dogs to continue walking and call his Rotties away from me, instead of back toward me. Thankfully, Miko was un-effected by the entire attack. The larger dogs followed him in a game of chase until I was safe to release Holly and heel her off in the opposite direction. Miko followed shortly thereafter, happily and quite proud of himself. I was so proud of both of them!
