You may start it, but the terrier is going to finish it

I’ll be the first to admit that Larry was not on his best behavior for this incident, but it still made me mad.

We entered the dog park, and sitting right next to the entrance was a man there with 2 dogs and 2 kids. We met the first dog while we were still on leash, and everything seemed fine. Our dogs were let off leash.

Instantly, they started chasing and playing with the first dog. The second dog, however, was apparently protective of the first and came charging in, very aggressive. He got Larry on the head. (Not that we noticed at the time, but this is the only time Larry cried out, so we’re assuming its when it happened.)

The owner yells at his dog and smacks him, and we are moving away.

Larry, however, is a terrier, and terriers don’t let things go. Suddenly, he turns around and makes a mad dash for the aggressive dog, grabbing him by the tail and pulling him down. This started a new round of not quite attacking.

We were yelling at Larry and trying to move in to separate the two. The other owner decided to start yelling at Larry, too, to leave his dog alone, and didn’t make a single move to intervene.

Now, if this other dog had been even close to Larry size, maybe I would have more sympathy, but his dog was a good 3-4 times bigger, and was definitely the more aggressive of the two dogs. We were risking getting hurt by his dog. No way could Larry have hurt him.

I finally get ahold of Larry and carry him away from the area. And all would have been good, except then the owner of the other guy started telling us we should punish our dog, and that we should train our dog the way he has his trained.

At that point, C felt the need to tell him that yes, Larry continued, but his dog started it with behavior that was way too aggressive. That was followed by the statement that we should have just avoided them.

C did not point out that we could not have known to avoid them, but did mention that it was impossibly anyway – they were camped out 10 feet from the entrance to the dog park.

It was just annoying, the man trying to justify his dog’s behavior (she got rolled once, its good for them to get rolled). If his dog had just been trying to roll Larry, no big deal. He’s gotten rolled many times. But his dog didn’t come in trying to play, or even roll, his dog came in snapping and growling- aggressive.

Now I get that sometimes dogs just don’t get along, or that sometimes play goes too far. And, I certainly know that you can’t always predict your dog’s behavior. (Larry had never done anything like this before.) At the same time, this man knew that dog 2 was protective of dog 1. KNEW IT and based on his reaction to the start of the incident, this was not the first time his dog had ever started something.

It was, apparently, the first time a terrier had decided to finish it, though.

So Larry has had his definite “not good” day at the dog park. And I know that the continuation of the problem was all him. But still, he’s been appropriate (if sometimes a little rough) with all other dogs- including dogs we met minutes after separating from this situation.

And I can work on his recall during distractions, but adrenaline is a different story, and I won’t purposely put him in risky situations just to try and train him not to protect himself.