I live in a a small town, but there's still a good amount of foot traffic and people out and about. Today on an hour long walk at lunch we saw 8 other dogs on the same path.

It occurred to me though, if another dog came up hostile, I am not even quite sure what to do. Like there was some nice old lady out walking with two pomeranians and one of them was off-leash even though signs are posted everywhere that leashes are required! She was walking a ways away, all happy like this was typical, and even waved once I got a little closer. But I was seriously freaked out as if that little pomeranian decided to come sprinting at my husky and barking, I get the sense she would have treated it like a squirrel.

Then later in the day saw a homeless man with like a chihuahua also not on a leash! Thankfully the homeless guy saw me approaching like 50 feet away and instantly called his dog over and held them, as it started barking like crazy. Makes me think there's probably homeless people around that may not even have a proper leash or collar for animals they take with them. If he had been sleeping or not paying attention it would have probably been quite the issue.

Then I was walking through a neighborhood and passed by a house, where down the side, without any fence or gate there, could see a full-size boxer breed in the backyard. It looked up and saw my husky and I, thankfully my husky didn't see it nor respond, and I quickly just walked past the edge of the house out of line of sight. But also made me realize, at some point someones probably thinking their dog is a great off leash dog, all except when when another big dog also walks by outside and responds as husky's do and something gets aggravated.

Made me think, should I carry like animal mace or something when going on walks? I know it'd be terrible, but I feel that'd be bother me a lot less than have to physically kick or hit the other dog if it ever came to that. I don't know if I have it in me to physically hit or fight off a large aggressing dog.

Try pet corrector or, a cheaper version, a can of compressed air like used for cleaning keyboards, other electronics. You don't point it directly at the dogs face, it's the noise that gets them. Your job is to protect your dog so if another dog is coming at yours, do what you have to do over on occasion, with my scaredy cat old guy chased off other dogs, big and small. Usually just by making myself big waving arms and hollering in a loud, authoritative voice, pointing and saying no or go home. But. That was a few years ago when I was more vigorous, less lame. But it's usually the little ones that are the problem. Happy little things they are.

Its a huge problem here and actually i started a small war about the same thing but in a very specific situation on the local facebook page. Lots of people will carry a stun gun or a handgun here.

I drive about 50 miles to an area that has and enforces leash laws to walk squirt. I can walk my other 2 with less worry locally fully aware spider can defend herself and splinter much better then me. Both my girls are horrible on leash for different reasons. Spider is super reactive but not in an aggressive way. Squirt is non reactive which leads people to yell "its ok my dog is friendly" as thier loose dog runs up to my other animal killer squirt. Usually in that situation i pick her up. But when i take her out in the forest i take my airgun. It only holds 1 shot but its as loud as a shotgun and that usually stops just about anything from random dogs to mountain lions and bears to creepy mountain men. Also at 11 lbs with a solid wood stock it would work like a club.

So the war was about if the owner of the friendly loose dog had the right to shoot or hurt an extremely aggressive dog thats on leash, especially after owner of leashed dog has yelled a warning. Had nothing to do with squirt but we have a group that thinks that thier dogs should be loose and anything not dog park friendly shouldn't ever be in public. I happen to know all parties involved personally because its a really small area and the one guy i feel bad for because someone is going to end up shooting his dog in front of his kids because of his own entitled ego.

If a dog is explicitly aggressive and always in attack mode, barking and lunging, and disrupting, I'd question that going into a public dog park that has lots of dogs myself. But if the dog is perfectly fine and controllable on a leash with all the other dogs staying 10 feet away, then ya that would be okay in my book. It seems like a good percentage of dogs I come across get semi-hostile and barking if you get to close.

Also depends on what is a "Dog Park" too? Like is it a closed off fenced area where dogs are supposed to be able to play without leashes? Or where many dogs are intended to be close proximity? I'd question bring an aggressive dog there, it just depends on if their presence will always disrupt the other dogs fun.

But in my case, the place I ran into leash-less dogs were like on walking trails with big grassy areas along the side of the streets. Not dog parks at all. Just grass areas with benches in a busy city. Like cars are probably more dangerous than an aggressive dog. I guess if someone lets their dog be leash-less there they must really trust the dog though.

I'm not actually so much worried about my husky getting explicitly aggressive, but I think I have inferred she likes to play rough. I think that's typical for husky's too? Like some small poodle or pomeranian just probably won't be able to play with most any husky?

I've also inferred, she seems more friendly to other huskys. Like if she sees a small floof dog, she gets on guard in a little more standoff-ish way. But if she sees another husky she gets

Yrah we dont have actual dog parks. I was just using that as the type of dog. Blm is one direction rio grande national forest in the other 3. Everyone walks or rides atvs on the irrigation ditch and it happens to be my property line . Loose dogs on my property running up to my fence.

We have a town park/sledding hill. I live in a major rocky mountain tourist town. And @aljones ive decided i like the texans... they tip better. But the town is so small we dont even have a traffic light. Im a few miles out with a rural subdivision on one side and a rance/gravel pit on the other.

Now i did walk spider with tucker today and that went well but like i said she is a nervous wreck and we went to tuckers neighborhood and i swear we passed about 50 dogs, mostly on leash. She went nuts every time. Its annoying but it snapped her out of the jerry and splinter missing in a new place with a new dog panic attack.

And what i mean with squirt is i can walk by another dog withing 2 feet of it and no reaction unless the dog reacts to her, and then i have about 30 seconds to pick her up or redirect her and whatnot. She goes to durango, pagosa springs all over colorado with me. It took a massive amount of training to get a dog as other animal aggressive as her to be non reactive. And we did it using dogs with extremely good recall loose around her. Bit o also know given the opertunity she would kill everything with fur that crosses her path.