Here we go again.

There we were out for our morning walk, we'd had a lovely long stroll around the fields and were on our way back.
Then up ahead a were two women chatting at the side of the road with an off lead small dog.
I could see at a distance that the dog's body language wasn't friendly, tail straight up and staring at Dodge. I decided to stop to give her a chance to put a lead on her dog, but no, she waited for the damn thing to rush, all teeth into Dodger's face. She then said those immortal words "oh he doesn't usually do that, sorry," how many times do we hear this from idiots who never use a lead?
Luckily neither dog was hurt, but a horrible way to end our walk.

Glad Dodger was okay!.. but this is something I've also recently heard with hank last week, luckily he just had a few cuts on his ear and leg and nothing more serious but I have said since we got Hank that no matter how much we want to treat out dogs like kids/ humans they are not, they are dogs, they can go for years and year showing no signs of aggression or anything then one day just not like the look of something/someone or another dog and go. Hank shows no signs of aggression and is a big ball of daft but he's only off lead with me or dogs we know, and when approaching other dogs I will ask ahead if their dog is okay with others so I can either move hank to the other side of me or they can have a polite "sniff hello" to each other. People are so dumb they are still dogs and even though Hank is a little diamond I don't want to test it and find out otherwise!

Had exactly the same thing with an off lead Jack Russell a few weeks ago. Walking Misty down the road obviously on lead when suddenly this horrible jr comes running out of his garden barking, he ran straight across the road and started nipping her neck. She was scared and tried to twist and turn away from this dog. I couldn't grab hold of it to get it away, eventually the owner runs out of the house and picks it up saying oh he's never been that bad before. She then puts it down and it immediately runs back for more. Poor Misty was frozen on the spot. Stupid women, I can only imagine her reaction if Misty had retaliated.

And that's the thing isn't it? If it was one of our dogs off lead and attacking other dogs, we'd be getting a visit from the police because of the dangerous dog act!

I really hate that "My dog's usually friendly" or "he doesn't usually do that", especially when they obviously can't read their own dog's body language!

It's really about time that people learn that Staffies are actually more often the victim rather than the aggressor. So so many times my Flo has been victim to other dogs and whilst she will tell them off, she has never ever done any harm.

I think it's really more about the owners than the dog, if a dog, any dog, is trained and socialised they are happy to be around other dogs. Those that are just treated as an accessory have no social skills, and social skills do need to be learnt by all dogs, large or small.