[lengel]

I took one of our labs to an agility seminar today. There were eighteen teams and two instructors. One of the dogs was a border collie/australian shepherd mix. She was dog aggressive and twice when she was off lead for exercises, she went after our dog, Fran. The second time, I had stationed us all of the way across the room to remove the temptation. These were snarling, snapping attacks that did not resemble herding in any way. In fact, they reminded me of our neighbor's dog who used to roam the neighborhood getting territorial with every dog she ran across.

There were only two hours left in the seminar and we stayed but I wish we hadn't. The woman was running two dogs and was supposed to alternate dogs with exercises but after her dog went after Fran and no one did anything, she actually started running both of her dogs in all of the exercises and saying things like "Twenty inch jumpers get out there. Let's move this along!" I was appalled. The final straw was when I decided to leave at exactly 4 pm instead of staying for overtime. I had loaded Fran into the truck and was bringing our puppy Rottie mix through the yard when the door bursts open and this woman comes out with both of her dogs on lead. I picked up the pace and opened the gate, trying to keep Zooey away from her dogs and she sped up as well, hustled her dogs through right behind us and said, "Thank you" - for opening the gate. For her. I don't think so.

I am very disappointed with my trainer who was running the seminar and have no intention of attending another group session of any kind with this owner. Am I overreacting? This woman's control seems to consist entirely of running after her incredibly fast dog and catching her. I didn't even hear her call the dog's name. Is she just waiting for her dog to draw blood before she stops subjecting others to this behavior?

What would have happened at a trial or show if this had happened? I thought this wasn't tolerated.