Venting~Advice?

[Gracie H.]

Last week was Addy's first day of Obedience Training since she's been with me.
(Addy - 2 year old Rotti -- adopted nearly 2 months ago - joy of my life)

We have class again tonight (Tues) and I'm getting a little nervous.

Last week we arrived about 30 minutes early and walked around the facility and on the fields adjacent. When 7:30 rolled around we saw the other dogs going in and headed towards the door. I stayed back about 20 yards as Addy is fear aggressive and I wanted to feel her out and also to practice a little NILIF with her and have her be the last one in to class. (it seems to help in similar situations)

The problem was that a puppy came out of the building on lead with his teenage handler. (parents still in the building) The puppies are all supposed to be out of the building (7:15) before any adult dogs go in. The kid started walking up to us and as he did I said, "Please keep your puppy right there. My dogs isn't very good with other dogs." Still walking towards us he said to his pup, "Ohhhhh!! Let's say hi to the big puppy. Maybe it will like YOU!"

Again I told him that he needed to stop walking towards us. His pup starting wrapping it's leash around the kid's legs and the kid said, "Sorry, but I can't pull him away - I'm a little tied up right now." Right after that the parents came out of the building and laughed and pulled the pup away. I said nothing - blank stare. Shocked.

When it all sunk in -- I was ticked!

Thank goodness Addy was pretty mellow that night (we had also walked for 45 minutes before the car ride there) ... and after that the night went GREAT - she was perfectly mannered.

How SHOULD I have handled the situation??
How should I handle things differently tonight?

[Storm]

I would first go to who ever takes the class, trainer etc. and discuss this issue with him or her and ask them when is the best time to bring the dog out and what approach is necessary from there. This way they are informed of various things regarding your dog, your concerns, issues etc. and it would be expected that they value your concerns and are aware that the whole reason why you take your dog there is so that you are not only able to train but also address certain areas where necessary.

[spidey]

I would have used "God voice" on the kid ("STOP WALKING TOWARDS MY DOG RIGHT NOW PLEASE!"), if that didn't work, I would have calmly walked away, while explaining LOUDLY that responsible dog handling means keeping your dog away from people who don't want it near them. I don't think you did anything wrong, the puppy's handler was in the wrong (likely because of ignorance, not malice). I might discuss this with your trainer and suggest that s/he could talk about responsible dog handling to his/her students - it's a useful thing to discuss in class anyway, people should always ask if it's okay to approach a strange dog.

I wouldn't worry about tonight - you could either keep your dog in your car until class time, or just be prepared to be VERY firm with that kid if you see them again.

[nynewbie]

Early in our recent session of obedience classes with Nash, which we were attending mainly to work on Nash's aggression towards little dogs, an elderly lady dropped the leash of her young, jumpy border collie and as fate would have it, out of the other 9 dogs in the class, the dog comes running directly at Nash. Why do little dogs always run for the big ones? My son Jeffrey, intercepts the collie by stepping on it's leash! The lady comes over as quickly as she can, apologetic, scrambling for the dog. I asked her to please just get her dog and hang on to the leash. She had a habit of putting the loop of the dog's lead on the toe of her shoe while she put her coat on! After that, she held on to the lead all the time!