Hello, lovely Terrier people!
Welcome to Terrier Talk. This week, I'm going to reflect a little bit on a walk that I went on with my dogs early in the week, where I made a little balls up. I ended up with Elvis — who's the difficult one out of my two — reacting at another dog.
You know, I want to talk about the things I reflected on after that, as I went around the rest of the walk.
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The Backstory
So, there's a little bit of a backstory here. The dog that he reacted at is a Border Collie, owned by a lady who was involved in the incident when Elvis was attacked about six months ago.
She's a local lady who walks her dogs in the area all the time. Previous to them getting this new rescue Border Collie, our dogs had always rubbed along okay. Whenever I'd meet them, I would leave my two off the lead. I wouldn't say they were chummy best mates, but they’d have a quick bum sniff, walk on through, and we wouldn’t have too much of a problem. We’d pass the time of day and off we'd go again.
Then, when they got this new rescue Border Collie a while ago, I saw them coming and did as I normally do — just walked up, said hello, and was going to pass by with the dogs.
Because they already had a collie, I didn’t realise that this was a *different* Border Collie. It came shooting into the middle of the group where all the dogs were — we’re talking six, seven, eight dogs here — because between these two ladies that walk together, they’ve got about five or six dogs.
It shot in and kind of bit Elvis — not badly, but nipped him a little bit. I was like, “Oh dear, I thought your collie and my dog got on.” She said, “Oh no, that’s a different collie.” And I said, “Ah, right, okay.”
So, I just took Elvis by the collar and walked on, didn’t really think too much of it. Every time we passed them after that, I kept Elvis on the lead because I thought, “Well, that collie doesn’t like him, so I’m just going to keep him on lead and walk through.”
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The Attack
It would react to him — bark at him. It was a young, adolescent male dog. I don’t know what it is about Elvis, but unfortunately, he’s always come off on the wrong end of other young adolescent males. He’s entire, so whether he just carries a lot of testosterone, I don’t know, but that’s always been the case for him — and it’s led to a lot of our issues.
Long story short, a few months after that first incident, I saw them approaching quite a long distance away. This particular collie was a long way out in front of them. I recalled Elvis, put him on the lead, and took my two well out of the way because I thought, “This isn’t going to go very well.”
I could see that their dog was approaching. They couldn’t recall it. They didn’t have control over it. It ended up actually getting hold of Elvis and leaving puncture marks on his back.
Now — not that I’m especially proud of this — but myself and the lady (not the owner of the dog, but the other lady she was walking with) ended up having a really large stand-up row. She basically blamed it on Elvis.
I said, “Look, he was here. I know he can be difficult, I know that. But we were here, he was under control, he recalled away from your dog and was on a lead. Your dog was the one that approached, and my dog’s the one that’s been attacked. By the time you got here, he was giving back because he was defending himself — but I’d already recalled him and put him on the lead. You weren’t able to recall your dog, so I’m afraid I’m in the right here.”
Unfortunately, we had a very long stand-up row because she accused me of not knowing anything about dogs — and as you can imagine, that didn’t go down very well.
I wasn’t particularly proud of the way I behaved in those moments, but that’s what happened. I understand what it’s like to have a difficult dog — nobody wants their dog to attack someone else. Normally, because I’ve been that person who’s made the mistake, I can let it go and just go, “Look, it happened, don’t worry about it.”
Ever since then, every time I’ve seen that lady, she’s avoided me — and we’ve mutually decided to avoid each other.
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The Recent Incident
Basically, what happened this week was: this lady was coming across a bridge with her dog into the car park where I’d just got my two out of the car. The collie she was with — I don’t know if it was *the* collie or another — went into that classic Border Collie stalk.
Now, in that moment, because I don’t particularly like this lady, I just thought, “Right, fine,” and walked on by.
Unfortunately, Elvis locked eyes with the collie and had a bit of a pop at it.
The reality of the situation is that I’ve got perfectly good control over Elvis — I could have stopped that if I’d wanted to. I could have got him under control, turned him the other way, put him on the other side of me — a whole multitude of things to prevent that.
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Reflection
As I went around the walk, I thought: it was my own attitude — “I don’t care about that dog or that person” — that allowed Elvis to react. I don’t think he’s scared of that dog. I think he was just telling it to get out of his face.
I think he recognised the lady. Normally, he wouldn’t bark like that anymore. He felt my tension. Her dog felt her tension — she came running up behind it to grab it, clearly worried. She was stressed seeing me, and her collie went into an extra level of stress — locked, tense, and starey. Elvis sensed it too.
The whole thing went downhill.
It was one of those situations where we, as humans, let our dogs down — both myself and the lady. I could have done something about it. Whether she had control over her dog, I don’t know. But her dog started that eye-lock, and Elvis reacted.
I walked away thinking, *I could have stopped that.* That was my bad. I put too much responsibility on him. Given his history, I should have supported him more.
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Another Encounter
Further around the walk, we met two Border Collies again, behaving just like Border Collies — stalky and intense. Elvis saw them, stopped, and I recalled him. He came straight back.
That showed me it wasn’t a regression in his training. It was an *isolated* incident.
He recalled beautifully, went on the lead, and we stood aside. These two dogs came past barking, screaming, lunging — the owner struggling to hold them. She said, “I’m very sorry, they’re very active. Thank you for recalling your dog.”
She was clearly grateful. I know how she felt — coming round a corner, seeing off-lead dogs when you’ve got reactive ones. Your heart sinks.
But Elvis behaved impeccably.
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Takeaways
It really made me think about how our behaviour transfers to our dogs. While you don’t *cause* your dog’s behaviour, you’re absolutely part of that trigger picture.
Even the best dogs have moments. Elvis, at the end of that walk, recalled perfectly — despite being barked and lunged at. Yet at the start, he barked at another collie doing far less.
It just shows: dogs have good days, bad days, and trigger situations — just like us. It’s up to us to support them through those.
You can improve behaviour, build confidence, and reduce reactivity, but a dog that’s been through trauma might always have traces of it. Sometimes, we have to step up and support them.
I should have helped Elvis behave better in that situation. That was my responsibility.
So, yes — I could easily say it was her fault: her dog attacked mine, she was horrible to me, etc. But in that moment, I let my dog down because I didn’t take responsibility.
Even though her dog started it, I could have done better.
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Closing
That’s it — my little experience of the week and the reflections it brought up.
As always, if you want any help from Terrier’s Corn, you know I’ve been there and continue to go through these things day to day.
Book a 15-minute chat via the website if you’ve got a problem or just want to talk it over. We’ve got coaching — and now the community’s up and running, which I’m super excited about!
We’ve got a great bunch of people in there. This month, we’re working on *Play*. Everyone’s really getting involved — posting videos, doing challenges — it’s great.
So if you want somewhere to come with your difficult terrier, where you’ve got me on tap for advice and a huge community of people going through the same thing — that’s the place to be.
Jump over to the website to take a look, and we’ll see you soon on Terrier Talk!
