Adventures in Dog Walking

I am the proud owner of a miniature schnauzer named Inga VonUnderthebed. I got her from a rescue place when she was 6 and she's been the best dog ever for almost three years. Now, I don't claim that she's the most well behaved dog (she'd never been on a leash before I got her), or the smartest (she's afraid of her own farts), but she does love to cuddle. As an added bonus it turns out she is absolutely fantastic with my niece Ella. I'll admit that I had my doubts about her before Ella arrived, but Inga loves, loves, loves Ella and basically lets her do whatever she wants.

When Inga first came home she clearly hadn't been socialized with other dogs. Cats she loves, but dogs she could do without. She barks at every dog we see except, oddly enough, one large stray dog that likes to follow us on our walks. She also hates car rides, well to get technical she hates going away in a car, the trip home she's always totally cool for. She gets daily walks around the neighborhood but i don't really take her out and about with me. We have made one trip to the library park and she did great so today we decided to take her down to the Augusta Canal. The canal is a great place to walk, and they have a playground that Ella loves. As an added bonus the city of August has drained part of the canal to do some work on it and I basically wanted to see the big muddy hole in the ground. So, with my pockets full of bags to pick up poo off we headed for an afternoon to enjoy nature.

I was a little nervous when we started because I wasn't sure how Inga would react, but when we started off she was great. We passed lots of people on our way to the walking path and Inga was to busy smelling all of the great smells to even notice them. We crossed the bridge to the actual walkway and that's where the trouble began! There was a 20ish young girl with her dog on the path. Well when that dog saw Inga she literally dragged the girl over to Inga, and she was NOT friendly. I suddenly found myself in the middle of a dog fight (although it was pretty one-sided since Inga was just trying to get away). Luckily Inga wears a harness and I literally picked her up by the leash (while spinning in circles) trying to get this dog off of her! I was freaked out! I managed to get Inga up into my arms before the dog could bite her, the dogs owner was apologizing a mile an minute, and Inga was fine. Of course poor Ella was crying "black dog hurt Inga" but she also recovered. Unfortunately the same can't be said for my left hand which is currently swelling up.

Once I stopped shaking, and Ella stopped crying we continued our walk and saw many, many other dogs and dog owners who were all perfectly well-behaved. But seriously folks, if you're going to take your dog out in public you need to be able to control it!!!! I'm thankful that no one was hurt, but it could have gone a lot worse. Needless to say we're going back to the library park next time....it's a LOT less crowded.