[mobilekat]

Sorry, have a slight rant I need to share!
We live on the edge of a small town, and its mostly good, has the basic shops and a good Indian restaurant.

But....
We have 2 lurchers, one (Ash) is very well behaved, and Jenkins our newer rescue is pretty good, but when we got him had 'meeting skills issues'- he had lived with an aggressive dog and thought the right way to great other dogs is to bark and leap around excited because he may get to play!
We have been working hard on his 'interpersonal skills' and he has made great progress, and now walks past other dogs, or sit quietly most of the time and he really just wants to play with everyone!
But, our local town seems to have a massive collection of aggressive dogs, so going for a walk is a real pain, last night I went past 8 different dogs, and all but 1 lunged and barked growling at my pair!  :blink:
Its so hard to teach Jenkins to relax and walk past other dogs, or sit quietly, when they leap, barking and growling and the owners just laugh, or say 'Oh he does that' Small dogs are the worst (and I totally blame the owners!!)
Ash has been attacked a couple of times by loose dogs, and I now always carry training discs (mini-cymbals) as these tend to work well at putting most dogs off when they go for our dogs!

I get really worried, as Jenkins is a staffi cross, and if there was a fight he will be judged on his breed, with people rarely looking at who attacked first!

Is this an issue people are seeing everywhere now, or are we just unlucky?
The trainer that we use has a theory that this is really on the increase as people are not walking their dogs enough and socialising them when they are young- or don't notice or care that they are aggressive! She also recons that when people used to let their dogs wander more the dogs learnt how to act around other dogs a lot better- not that she wants to encourage 'latch-key dogs' but attacks were less common!
I try to avoid walking the dogs in town when I am on my own, but especially as autumn heads in, I dont like wandering country roads as it goes dark on my own! And unless I use the car there are a couple of nasty bits of main road between me and the best lanes!

Sorry for the rant, just really annoys me, and stops walks being fun!

[Oliveview]

I know what you mean, we are rural but with houses close by, and most of those houses have dogs who go crazy when dogs go past (as our three do, but they are in the garden not outside) on the road/track.
Some of the houses we pass, well most, are holiday/weekend homes and the dogs can get out under the fence etc.  Our friend was chased once and nipped on his ankles by a tiny dog, me and his girlfriend did laugh though, it was so funny watching him hop about with a pint sized dog attacking him!    The wall where they escaped from has now been fixed, so friend is safe.
I sympathise with you.

Pamela

[compostqueen]

A dog that I walk lunges at other dogs which is annoying as he is so heavy and difficult to restrain. He is very friendly and wants to play but tiny breeds don't usually like being flattened by over zealous bigger dogs.  I always try and keep moving forward and ignore other dogs but it takes a lot of practice and patience. Like you say I think many owners don't do the right thing

[Dawnuss]

I know exactly where your coming from my dalmatian and chinese crested were both attacked as pups its took me 2 years to be able to get them to a comfortable state of being able to walk past dogs themselves. It made them so nervous that if a dog on a walk lunged at them even if it was to play ours would go a bit loco  . We now have the husky that is so care free even after being attacked on several occasions (one of which was at a show a week ago by a lab) but he has helped the other 2 with there confidence issues. It was very upsetting when the others got attacked making them unsociable as i used to do a lot of obedience,agility etc but had to stop so i could work on building there nerves back. I tended to walk them mostly at night as i was scared of what might happen if a dog lunged at them. Since I have studied dog psychology and soon realize that i was the reason they were reacting. I have to forget that they were ever attacked and go back to believing they are the dogs i did agility with etc and now i can walk them past a lunging snarling dog and they don't bat and eyelid.The little chinese crested took a lot more training than the dalmatian but weve got there. Its so annoying that people allow there dogs to do it and ruin the lives of other dogs.  And the ones that have aggressive dogs on retractable leads dont get me started 

[evie2]

We must be lucky, we have a nature reserve nearby we walk Pip on and he meets all manner of dogs breeds.  We've only had a couple of occasions when owners have put their dogs on leads to pass us, all the others have, like Pip, been off the lead and have a bit of a play before walking on.  I have noticed though there has been an increase on 'back garden' dog who just bark all day and most of the night

Retractable leads, don't get me started on them

[mobilekat]

We have noticed that there are places where people with 'nice dogs go' and then the rest of the world- where the badly socialized dogs are- eg the town we live in!

The only frustrating thing is the 'good dog's walking places' all require us to drive, and until we have Jenkins calmer with his 'meet and greet' taking 2 dogs is a 2 person job, so a weekend treat!

He is improving and his weekly 'meet and greet' classes are really helping- he is learning that running up at 100mph and barking with sheer joy will get your nose slapped (by the other dog not us!), but trot up polity and sniff bums etc and dogs will be your friend.
This has been important for him to learn after we lost him (more than once ) out walking because he heard a dog 1/2 mile away and went to say hello!
He now goes on a long training line (Not an extendible) and is learning to resist the urge to say HELLO to everyone!

The joys of a rescue, we love him, and he is worth the hard work!