Loose Dogs and Set Backs

I love idiot little dogs that are allowed to run loose. Probably not as much as I love their idiotic owners that let them out in the first place. Don't get me wrong... I understand fences break, or latches fail... management always fails. But when people don't even bother? I don't think they realize just how much that pesky little dog can damage months and even years of work in one day and one encounter. And it's beyond frustrating for the person behind the leash of a dog they've spent months getting to a semi-normal state.

We'll see soon enough just how much damage the loose dog today did. I'll take a break from walking Toby around here for a while and let him have some breathing time. You see, we set off today rather confident. Yesterday's success just blew me away. We'd just set out when I saw there was a loose Shih Tzu running around - and she gets loose a lot - but we just crossed the street and I fed Toby as I passed. Worked brilliantly. He was a bit distractable this walk... but I could see all the cats that were out last night. I was impressed I was getting at least some check ins while he sniffed down all the cat places.

The entire walk went rather smoothly and we even took the long way back and still there were no problems until we were half way down the block and saw that not only was the little dog still out, but his owners were sitting in their yard a half a block down watching the dog run the entire length of the neighborhood. How nice of them. I had him nibbling for a few seconds but then the dog spotted us, started jumping up and down and barking. Great. There went Toby. He hit the end of that leash and the dog took off (mind you, the dog was across the street from us... but that much movement/barking from the other dog pushed him over threshold). Instead of continue I stepped us back a few feet and moved behind a car to let Toby cool down. He did and although scanning his surroundings wanted his cheese. Stress reliever? I don't know.

We talked with the guy whose car we were now hiding behind but he started shaking his head. I'd known from the barking that they hadn't taken the dog inside and instead the dog was darting back and forth the street and sure enough... heading back for us. I stood up to get a look, told it to get but that only made the dog yap more. Thankfully, unlike the dog's oh-so-helpful owners, the man by us chased the dog off back towards it's owners. They never once moved. I thanked him and headed Toby home. We were heading down my neighbors drive way (not risking trying to get to the gate in my front yard) when I could hear the dog barking it's way back towards us. We made it in fine... but come on.

Toby did fairly well, all things considering. I just wish people would keep their dogs under control. And I really, really can't wait until my Direct Stop gets here. But here's to hoping that this doesn't set us back very far... we've worked so hard to get to this point. -sighs-