On or Off the Leash?

So I am back after a whirlwind three city four day book launch extravaganza and discovered, upon my return, that my dog walker fell while walking two of my dogs and broke her ankle! It seems that Sam, the largest Golden Retriever known to mankind, was pulling her very hard and started barking at some dogs in a neighbor's driveway. She did not see a pothole in the street that was covered with leaves and she fell and twisted her ankle, which turned out to be a hairline fracture.

She is fine--never mind that I told her Sam was a handful and that she should take him to the park and let him walk off leash as I do--and I am lucky that she said it was all her fault, but the point here is that most dogs, who might be excitable around other dogs, are much better off the leash than on. Which is what I told her in the first place, but I already told you that.

It turns out that I am right not only with regard to my dog but with regard to other dogs. A recent study, soon to be published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, has demonstrated that leashed dogs were twice as like to act aggressively as off-leash dogs. This is based on nearly 2,000 dog-to-dog interactions in 30 popular dog walking areas in the city of Brno in the Czech Republic.

Lisa Peterson, spokesperson for the American Kennel Club, agreed with the findings. Most dogs, she points out, like to run around each other when they first meet. "They can't do this run-around behavior when on a leash and they likely feel more threatened." she explained. "They are also more inclined to resource guard, with the owner being the resource. It's as though they re communicating, 'He is my owner. I don't want you to have him because he feeds and cares for me.'"

While it is true that Sam has a few dogs at the park that seem to get his nose out of joint, we have learned to avoid them or at least walk quickly past and he will stay put, off leash, if I see them coming in the other direction, until I tell him it is OK to go. If I have him on the leash, all he does is bark and pull me. I end up dropping the leash if he happens to be leashed in these instances and he just stands there.

The only way I can walk Sam on a leash is by himself (she had Amos with him and the two just rile each other up) or let him run off leash in the park, which I can do with everybody in tow.

All of which the dog walker knows, but sometimes people can be as stubborn as those leashed dogs.

FOR MORE DETAILS, INCLUDING PHOTOS, ABOUT THE COMPLETE LAUNCH TOUR CHECK OUT THE CULINARY CANINE BLOG AT: http://theculinarycanine.blogspot.com/ I post every other day.