I have a male samoyed that is almost a year old now. He is going through puberty and gets very excited when seeing other dogs. We are working hard on staying calm while seeing other dogs every day. It has vastly improved but our biggest challenge is still meeting another dog (that is walking straight towards us) because my dog Acta gets very excited and wants to play. I try to teach him that he does not get to play or say hi to dogs when he is on the leash.
Today we walked our usual round. Something spooked Acta from behind, as we were walking next to a busy road that leads to the highway.
As he just started to calm down, an old lady with a senior dachshund comes out in front of us. I try to get Acta with me, but he was already too tense and they were too close, so his emotions escalated very quickly and he made an effort to pull to the other dog.
I am staying fairly calm and do what I always do, which is to say "nu-uh" and turn so he knows that pulling only takes him farther away from where he wants to be.
The lady did not stop but quickly walked up to us which only made Acta more excited. And like many others I have encountered throughout my years of owning dogs she just tells me "he (her dog) won't do anything!" as if that was my concern.
I told her "I can see that, but we are training to leave other dogs alone"
and she says "but your dog also just wants to say hello"
To which I replied "yes, but he should listen to me before getting to say hello".
Whenever a situation like this happens it makes me feel like my opinions don't matter to these people. That I'm a cruel person in their eyes for wanting to train my dog to not bother others like this lady bothered me.
If I see someone having their dog on a leash and their dog starts to get excited, I do not approach. I either wait or even walk away if they're struggling. What pissed me off the most was not just that she had no sympathy for our training, but that she put us in danger since she was squeezing past us on a narrow sidewalk with busy traffic on one side and a deep ditch on the other side with my dog pulling hard.
Is it really that hard to just take 10 seconds to let us back away from them? Or for them to wait for us to walk past instead?
What do you guys think? Feel free to write in german. I'm just not so good writing in german yet 😅