Asking Dogs to Read Your Mind Never Goes Well

If you don't care about dogs, by all means skip this post. This is my crank rant:

There are two women who walk their dogs regularly around the neighborhood so we cross paths from time to time. One has a superb Springer Spaniel (a rare sighting in our neck of the woods) and the other has some sort of Border Collie mix (total guess here). And both of them have the exact same idea about how to get their dogs to do what they want them to do - which is to say they both haven't a clue about dog training or behavior. 

Springer Spaniel lady (SS for short) was walking her dog by the fence the other day and my Akita mix likes to take exception to those effronteries by growling and barking. We're working on getting him to stop after he briefly, though gruffly, says hello to passersby. No more than three barks and we're done. Well that's the theory on our end anyway. That day I was too far away to get to him in time to remind him to stop growling and I heard very distressed yipping coming from the other side of the fence. Thinking a dog was in trouble, I ran out in my jammies to take a look (not a pretty sight for passing motorists, but what the hell). SS lady was smacking her dog on the head and nose (!) to get him to stop yipping in response to my dog and kept yelling NO! 

And here were her 3 mistakes: 

1.  She honestly thought she should have a dog in the first place.

2.  She wouldn't tell her dog what TO do so the poor thing was expected to read her mind.

3.  She wouldn't bloody move on, prolonging anxiety in both dogs. 

So I called out - "Is everything OK?" to which she gave me the stink eye. I then called out, "Perhaps it would be best if you moved on," to which she gave me the evil eye. So then, throwing out all my customer service training (I'm on vacation doggone it), I said harshly - "Move on and quit abusing your dog." to which she said something uncomplimentary in response, but quit hitting her dog.

Today was Border Collie lady day (BC for short). Now her beautiful dog is very young and still gets hyper-distracted on walks. Upon viewing us, the dog naturally wanted to challenge my big baby to a duel, or at a least a meet and greet, and got excited and jumped and yipped. BC swung into action. She pulled up sort on the leash yelling NO! Then, standing behind the dog, yelled Sit. Now, even well-trained dogs need to know you are talking to them, so it helps to have their attention when giving commands. Her poor baby's attention was definitely on us and not BC. Finally the dog just sat out of sheer luck and she's still tugging on the leash and trying to strangle him so I called to the dog, "Sit. What a good sit. What a good job," and the dog is beginning to relax while BC is shooting daggers at me. I am walking on the entire time to minimize tension. At no time does BC try to reward her dog for doing what it was told to do, or give the dog another command so they could walk on. She just froze there, sending hate waves my way, and nearly falling off her ridiculous shoes. 

It makes me so sad to see animals who are just doing what they do naturally and want to please, but have idiots for guardians who don't even bother to find out what they need to do. Sigh.