And I appreciate you teaching your child how to greet dogs! It makes going “walkies” so much easier for everyone.
I don’t want to make it sound like Danny was a problem dog-- he wasn’t. The rescue he came from thought he was abused by a previous male owner, so strange guys didn’t always get a friendly reaction, and I knew it. Women were good, he loved children, and other dogs were fine, unless they played a little too energetically-- and at the first hint of growl I’d swoop in and pick him up. So I was very choosy about who got to pet Danny. But he was already leash-trained, and I put in extra effort to make sure he knew how to share a sidewalk. If someone approached, I’d steer the dog to the opposite side of the walk, or have him sit and stay and “look nice” as people went by… and he did. In five years of daily walkies that was the only incident we ever had. (Sorry for the slight derail, but I miss my poor boy and couldn’t resist the story.)
So (steering back on topic) rules can help everybody, people and dogs. And yes, that poor dog did look kinda uncomfortable. And heavy.
You didn’t. Even the most gregarious and always-loved dogs have bad days. When I was a kid, we had a dog who was so friendly to everyone- except men wearing baseball caps. He was abused too. His reaction was to cower, pee, and then run instead of aggression. But it could have been and wouldn’t really be his fault.
Sounds like you were a good dog owner and good to Danny- you knew your dog, you knew his particular issues and mitigated them as best as possible.
We’re teaching our kid both for her safety and for the dogs who have issues through no fault of their own. I would hate for carelessness on our part to result in someone’s pet being killed because it felt there was no other choice but to bite and freaked out.
I’m not entirety sure how heavy the dog was- that is an awful lot of floof!
We have some trouble with people bringing in pet dogs to the library; I’ve evicted a couple who weren’t well socialized, but since we get little backup from admin on the matter, we’ve had to develop a rather laissez faire attitude towards them. Technically, only trained service animals are allowed in the library, not comfort animals or therapy dogs.
This seemed funny to me because I commute daily on the subway, tram, and bus with my mix breed Russel terrier… in Munich. There, the rule is the first dog is that the fist one is free, every other dog you take with you requires a child ticket.
And here’s a video they have on rotation in the newer subway cars:
