On Leash Aggression - Human version.

Not a brilliant day - decided to take Phoenix rabbiting to wear him out, and he managed to run out of view down a bank, and get himself entirely tangled in brambles and blackberries, and sat yelping for us to get him out. Hmm. D managed to find a place to climb up to him, and eventually got him untangled and removed all embedded thorns, whilst I found a lovely patch of stinging nettles and landed in them, with my usual utter grace. As we were walking back to the car after washing our various cuts in the Yarra, what can only be described as an arrogant twat and his family came walking towards us, so I attempted to put Phoenix and Sahara on leash. Just as I was slipping the collar over Sahara's head, she side stepped (cheeky thing!) and trotted up to the mans Lab pup, and gave him a good sniff, to which the wife made a strange squealing noise, jumped backward and the man started yelling our dogs were clearly out of control, and should be leashed as we had no effect over them. Now, I've never seen D yell, or really even particularly mad - his defense mechanism is to simply apply the silent treatment. So it's fair to say I was completely and utterly shocked he offered to rearrange this guys face, as he was so unimpressed with this guys blatantly out of order comment. Sure, Sahara should have listened and let me leash her without skipping off. True, she was pretty wet and got close to this dog. But... she's a pup; she's real, she is not a robot and I understand she makes mistakes, and doesn't always listen. It was my fault I wasn't prepared, but having said that, it was an off leash area of the park, and I was, to be honest, only leashing them because we were coming to the end of the park. The dog was at least 5-6 months old, a solid Lab, and wasn't looking remotely unhappy with some doggy attention. Thinking back, I wish I had of let them play like anyone elses dog in the off leash park, and this guy would have actually had a reason to scream insults at me.