I am a Professional pet sitter so dog walking is a must. When I ask my clients ‘how are they with other dogs’, most of the time answers go from, wonderful, no problem, to a more thruthful, “not good”. When I am walking a dog through a neighborhood and I see another dog approaching, I just gently cross the street., or change direction if I’m not sure. After all, these are my clients dogs (make that children). What I am always careful about are driveways and alleys. People who live in their neighborhood think they own the place which is another reason why I hate extenda leashes! In an emergency situation, you cannot “reel them in” fast enough! Thank god it’s not happened yet. I usually stop before a driveway, or watch for the garage door opening, then I know the car will come speeding out. The same with alleys. And then there are small children who come running at your dog, arms waving madly with Mom saying nothing. I don’t know about you, but if someone came at me in that way, I “charge” in the other direction too. I am so passionate about dogs I could be with them forever. I’ve been in the business for 35 years and love every minute of it.

ArOOOO, Stuart

The best piece of advice that I took from this is to apologize. It’s so important to acknowledge. In the past, I would get angry when someone would start yelling at me and it was hard for me to swallow my pride and apologize, but it’s amazing how quickly something can be diffused when we put our dogs first.

Now, having been on the receiving end of two actual attacks when I was the one walking by with my dog on leash – the way you handled it made all the difference. A dog shoved it’s way out of the front door once and got into a fight with Leah, and the owner came out and was apologetic and helped break the fight up. Although I brought Leah to the vet to get looked over because I found a small wound on her, I didn’t even ask for compensation, because hey, it was an accident and the woman was so sorry.

Toby, however, was also attacked by a dog because the guy had it loose in the front yard and said he was “about to put on leash to take for a walk.”That dog just barreled down the drive and started biting Toby (who didn’t even fight back) while I was trying to shove the dog away with my foot and the guy took his sweet time getting down the drive to call his dog off and when the dog broke off he was just so flip about it like shrugging it off as if their dogs and these things happen – it really steamed me. Luckily no vet visit was needed, but I was so upset about how he handled it, had Toby needed vet care I would have been pounding on that guys door.

Yes, that’s true–but legal liability has a lot to do with today’s society. If you want to put yourself at risk, that’s fine but it should be a personal choice and not a recommendation to your readers.

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement. 🙂

1) If I’m wrong, I’m wrong and legal liability has nothing to do with doing the right thing. and 2) Studies show that admitting mistakes and trying to resolve them makes someone less likely to be sued. The doctors who are most likely to be sued for malpractice are not doctors who are bad doctors but the doctors with bad bedside manner.