Hi

What a shame that your lovely walk with your dogs in the field turned out the way it did! I hope Fergus is OK after the kick he got from the owner of the other dogs.

Some sighthounds play rough - I know that Vegas does! And it's often misunderstood by owners of other dogs who think he's being aggressive. Not so, as he only wants to play. He runs up to other dogs and barks in their ear to invite them to chase.

From what you say, Fergus had the other dog pinned down, and the owner has weighed in thinking his dog was in trouble. It takes an experienced dog owner to know the difference between rough play and outright aggressive behaviour: to know when to step in and when to leave them to sort things out without blood shed.

It may make you feel better to muzzle Fergus when he's off the lead in the field. Lots of greyhound owners not only muzzle their dogs, but also never let them off the lead either because they have such a strong chase instinct.

Let us know how Fergus and Trinnie are getting on.

Christine

It is so difficult when you have to make this type of decision and confine your own dog simply because another owner does not quite understand the situation.The only thing about muzzling a dog is if another dog attacks the one muzzled then it has no way of defending it,s self. So it a bit of swings and roundabouts on this one. Hope you are all O K and do not let it spoil your walks. 

what a shame for everyone involved. i hope fergus is ok and that you have all recovered from the scare.

Scotty wrote:

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I think I need to work on making him come back everytime when he is ahead of me, he seems to have selective hearing.  Trinnie is the complete opposite, she always responds, maybe because she's never been trained for racing or coursing.

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This is an odd one for us. Both our two, Harry and Pearly, were trained for racing, and we suspect that Harry was used for coursing once his track racing life was over. Pearly was on the tracks for a relatively short time compared to Harry. The odd thing we've found is that she is much more independent when off-lead compared to Harry. He likes to stay close and check out where we are, but Pearl is much more easily distracted and would be off in certain areas to do her own thing, eg, there's no way we'd let her off-lead in the woods as we might never see her again.

Just shows how individual these doglets are!

Glad to hear that Fergus wasn't hurt at all. The great muzzled/unmuzzled debate will no doubt rumble on for greyhound owners for years to come. I suppose all we can do is what we feel is right for our dogs and our own situation.

Scotty,

          Have just read your post and know how these kinds of situations can unsettle you for a few weeks. I hope that before long you are able to put it behind you and remember all the uneventful walks you have previously enjoyed without a difficulty!

I know with my own two that I would never even dare let them off the lead because they would probably run off to be never seen again (and I am not willing to try it to be proved right or wrong!). My previous dog did go off the lead but as we live in quite a built up area and there are limited country walks (with plenty of small dogs also enjoying the space)he always wore a muzzle. I think that if you have a space that rarely has other dogs in it, then it would be a shame for you to allow one incident to ruin your future enjoyment.

As far as on the lead is concerned I do not muzzle mine as you and others have said it leaves them defenceless.In my opinion if I have my dogs under control and I give others every oppotunity to get their dogs away (by holding mine really tight until I hurt my wrists on some occasions) I don't see the need for a muzzle. I may be contraversal here but if others do think that their dogs can come up to mine and snap out in an aggressive manner while the owner stands at the other side of a field ignoring the distress that my dogs and I are in ,as has happened on four occasions, two with the same dog recently, then it is their problem if an accident happens. I liken it to a man in a bar and another male comes up to him nose to nose in an act of aggression- it is not really very fair to have the first man in a straight- jacket (muzzle) to boot -defenceless.As you can probably tell I have just about had enough of this particular dog and it's equally annoying owner!

P.s I would also like to say how great your avatar is (what lovely dogs) Em, Tig and Chad x

Scotty, clearly your dogs can read minds!!

-- Edited by rebell at 14:23, 2005-11-15

...well they do have their own bedsit under the stairs so who knows!!??

I have done a lot of socialisation with my two rather feisty rescue lurchers...but.... Friday...walking them on lead   unmuzzled on land owned by someone I know ....where they should have been safe? Won't go into details but we were the subject of an attack.... my lurchers on 6ft leads were more than a match for three people and an off lead aggressive dog. As I had nothing to hide I went to our local police station saying that there might be complaints made about injuries inflicted by my dogs?

Policeman ... fellow dog owner ...said that for my own safety to avoid being badly bitten I would have been better just letting go of my lurchers' leashes. Had to say to him.... if my dogs weren't rescue lurchers I wouldn't have given that a second thought..... but risking a headline in the local paper "  Out of control lurchers savage pet mongrel and injure man" ? Bad PR for rescue lurchers and rehoming prospects... something they do not need. ..... The cop saw my point.

Back to the muzzles for my dogs?......I don't know....I will have to think about it....but thanks a lot for "Listening"

Eleanorxxxxxxx

Eleanor,

          How awful for you, I agree it can shake you up pretty badly. I think you will know my views from a previous post, but I am glad you are ok and you did the responsible thing. Good on you. Em Tig and Chad x

Thanks for the replies. I was a bit miffed as Leo and Flash have been coming on quite well and were walking along minding their own business when wallop....nasty off lead dog. These types of incidents do give me a bit of a fright. Thank goodness they don't happen often.I sometimes wish I was a huge  man with no teeth a shaved head and covered in tatoos. Then people might keep their dogs away from us

Christine I was  surprised myself when the policeman said that I should just have let go of the leads. However we just talking "off the record" and I don't know wherether I read it or someone else has said it in the past but the advice was familiar. I think it is if you have an on lead dog and it is involved in a serious dog fight with an off lead dog there is a good chance of your getting bitten if you keep hold of the lead? Probably one of these ghastly grey areas where you could be damned if you "do" and damned if you "don't" Me? I would rather take the risk of being bitten than letting go of the lead but I don't know what I would do if my dogs were getting the worst of a fight and I felt that they would have a better chance if they were free. Hope I don't have to make that choice.

Think I will give that path a miss for a very long time.

Love to all

Eleanorxx

 

 

Sounds a bit scarey, glad that Dave and Daisey are unhurt. These kinds of incidents are happening more and more in my area and I am always left with a racing heart afterwards, I sound like a right wimp don't I! I hate it, today it was two huge alsations running off lead.(yikes) Luckily my son had Tig and I only had Chad to worry about and the owner did get hold of them fairly swiftly, but my son did say 'Mum I'm scared' as they hurtled up - which left me a tad uncomfortable for him too. I had begged him to come, even though he wanted to stay inside but luckily we had an excellent view of a kingfisher which made it worthwhile.

Em, Tig and Chad x 

Hi scotty

It's awful when these things happen (as you thought the coast was clear and didn't know the other dogs were still about) and it was very wrong of the other owner to kick your dog, but having said that, your dogs did approach his (not the other way round), so working on the recall is a good idea, but the problem is if they don't see many dogs, it will probably be too much of a distraction the next time one comes on the horizon.

I really don't know what the answer is - if you feel that Fergus is not a danger to other dogs, then I can see why you wouldn't want to muzzle.

With foster dogs I've had that would have had no recall in these situations and would have made a bee-line for any dog, I've only let them off either in places where I knew there were definitely no dogs (e.g. small enclosed field) or in areas where I knew it was very unlikely there would be other dogs, but with a muzzle on, just in case. This worked OK and we never had an 'incident'.

I've recently seen a new behviourist for my dog-fear aggressive greyhound Oscar and have been advised to muzzle (in addition to lead) on walks, which I feel is a bit unfair as other dogs running up to him cause the problem (plus, he has good bite inhibition and has never done any damage, but 'air snaps' when frightened sometimes). I was pretty loathe to do this, since I felt he was under control being on a lead, but I am muzzling anyway, since it will give me more peace of mind and helps me to stay calmer in pressured situations when other ppl's dogs run up to us. He hates it though

-- Edited by Amber at 17:01, 2005-11-22