Saturday, December 26, 2009

A walk in the woods


Minos is way faster than he looks.
We saw lots of deer tracks.

It was a great walk until a loose male siberian husky decided to join us. With no owner in sight we fortunately saw him rushing down the hill towards us targeting Jack before he reached us. Once upon a time this would have given me heart failure. This time I calmly stepped in front of him, to be between him and Jack, and started yelling NO! so he at least slowed down. (A dog charging up to another dog to say hello is considered very rude in dog language so never let your dog do this if possible.) He still came up to Jack and there was a small scuffle until I gave Jack a "leave it" command and Jack backed off. Then it was a more normal greeting with the sibe deferring to Jack but then targeting Minos.
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We tried catching him so we could read his tags but he growled at us so we ended up shooing him off instead. I hated doing that but our options in the middle of the woods with a growling unknown dog were limited. We scrapped the rest of our walk not knowing if he would come back. Once we got back to our vehicles we noticed an unattended van nearby with a dog related license plate. Maybe the owner? Of course I didn't think to take a photo of the dog at the time. (I was clearly thinking about other things in the moment.) Hopefully they found their dog if he was missing or at least caught up to him on their own walk. It was somewhat aggravating.
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On the upside Jack and Minos had a great time before that happened. I was also very proud at how well Jack listened to me. Normally an unknown male dog being pushy with a male akita won't have the best outcome. Akitas can be known for same sex aggression towards other dogs if not super socialized when they are young. Even then some will not get along with all other dogs. Jack is actually pretty good if introductions are done properly. I wouldn't walk him off leash otherwise.
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If it happens again I will try to think to take a photo of the dog. Or even video of him in action. At the very least this can be proof of the problems he was causing if the owner won't be responsible. (and maybe they are and the dog simply got loose) I sincerely hope there won't be a next time. It takes the fun out of the walk for me.

2 comments:

Jan said...

Every Sibe I've known who is unleashed in the woods is going to play "Call of the Wild." I hope the owners learn something.

Hannah said...

Argh! I'm sorry to hear that your walk was ruined by a stray dog. This has happened to me a few times, and it's so stressful. I have to force myself to remain calm because I don't want my dogs to pick up on my anxiety. Thankfully the encounters have always been pretty uneventful, but aggravating nonetheless!