To leash or not to leash....

I'm so glad to see that re Ruby. It could so easily have been my Holly during the bank holiday weekend when she did a little runner herself.

I've always loved dogs, but now I find myself eyeing bigger dogs with a jaundiced eye. We were in the park one night- Holly was still on her lead. This girl was walking a very tiny Jack Russell, and a loose collie- walking with his family, mind!- ran for the JR (which was still on the lead), picked it up by the scruff of the neck, and tossed and shook the poor thing. Owner managed to detach it. Then it saw Holly, and dived for her, trying to do the same thing. Being larger, Holly crouched, plus we'd seen the JR incident and I'd been just about to pick Holly up when the dog attacked, so my dad was there. Strange thing, though- Dad said that the dog wasn't vicious at all to humans, it permitted itself to be detached without so much as a snarl. Must have had a bad experience with tiny dogs, or something. All the same, he should have been on a lead!!!

Then there was the boxer that ran off with Holly's favourite ring. That was funny. It was an overgrown pup and could run very fast. Watching it's owners run after it in a big park trying to retrieve Holly's ring was hilarious!

That must have been so frightening for you and Ruby, I am glad to hear he is OK!

My dogs are never ever outside without a leash, they are always on the leash. Also, I will never go to the dog park in our city either, there are too many large viscious dogs and nothing seems to get done about the irresponsible owners of these dogs. My friend has a very large mixed breed dog that she takes to the dog park, and her dog has been bitten twice now by aggressive dogs at the dog park just this summer, luckily her dog weighs in at about 85 pounds so is able to shake off the other dog more easily than a 20 pound Cavalier. But, my dogs will never go to the dog park, and I always keep them on a leash. However, it's really getting irritating when I am out with my two dogs and someone else's dog is running loose, or perhaps someone else has their dog loose and is with their dog and lets their dog come up and climb all over my dogs.....what I do is gently push the intruder dog away with my foot and move on and tell the other person that I don't think it is a good idea to let strange dogs just climb all over some else's dogs. There are a couple people who live in my area that have small dogs, and they repeatedly let them run loose, and I just wish that they would wake up and keep their dogs on a leash, it would also be much more safe for their dogs too, there is a fairly busy highway quite near here.

Re the original topic of leashing on this thread, I've been trying Holly on the Gentle Leader Easy Walk and I'm very impressed. I don't think she's quite so impressed- she trots along quite happily and then stops dead and looks at me- but then, she's taken to doing that on her ordinary lead too, even sitting down and not moving! If you stop for a minute, she'll happily move on, or if you pick her up for a sec and put her straight down, she'll move on then too.... but no circle dances on the harness which is nice