I had a blog all set in my mind tonight but something happened when I was walking my dog and I need to vent. We have neighbors that live across the street and two houses down that have three Italian Bulldogs, once they attacked my neighbor’s dog and once while Chet was walking Sampson one of them attacked him. Tonight their target was Delilah who happened to be walking with me and who also happens to take no shit.
The truth of the matter is that Delilah has become a little aggressive with dogs when she is on the leash and I have been taking her to obedience class and trying to learn how to stop this behavior. Delilah is a chocolate lab, while she probably only weighs about 30 pounds more than the bulldog, she is MUCH taller. Now normally if she becomes aggressive with no provocation, I will correct her, but I am not correcting my dog while she is being attacked.
So Chet and Sampson are ahead of us and Delilah and I are walking slowly up the street, literally two driveways away from our home. From the left side of me, I heard the neighbor yell for his dog, there was a car coming down the street and as I looked to my left I saw these two Italian Bull Dogs running at us, they ran in front of the car and I guess that is what really made me freeze was thinking that these dogs were running in front of a car. My dog had been sitting because we make our dogs sit when cars approach, so we were just waiting. Well these two dogs are attacking my dog and I am doing my best not to lose her leash, but still stay out-of-the-way of three snarling dogs, because oh yes my dog is defending herself. I heard the neighbor as he was approaching and shouting for his dogs, say something about the dogs and I said, she will not take it, she will let them have it. Well he managed to get to us and get one of the dogs away, but the other one came right back at her and again I did nothing. Finally he got his dog under control and said, “Sorry.”
As soon as I got her back to the house I checked her out and she has a little irritation on one of her elbows, but otherwise seems fine. Here is my big gripe, why doesn’t this neighbor keep his dogs on leash, especially when they have gone after three different dogs? These dogs don’t even have collars on them. To top it off these neighbors are related to one of my daughter’s friends so I don’t want to rock the boat. But I think I am going to have to say something to them about their dogs as nicely as I can, before I have to call the dog warden.
OMG – that is HORRIBLE on MANY levels. It appears that the owner of these dogs just doesn’t really care about them. Never mind them attacking, which is BAD, but apparently they don’t care if their dogs get run over by a car. I’m thinking you would be doing these dogs a favor by calling the dog warden. On another note, I’m very impressed that you have taught your dogs to sit when cars are approaching. I’m going to work on Candy with that one. PS – I would have SO let loose the leash . . . you are SO much better than me!!!!