Tonight while I was walking the girls we had stopped to meet a little girl and her dad..... I spotted two girls in their early twenties around the side of the lake (not very near us) with three small dogs off leash. Two Chihuaha's and a Yorkie. As we finished our conversation with the little girl and her dad, they started walking toward the pool, I had my back to the area where the girls and their dogs were. All of a sudden we hear this crazy, high pitched barking and I turned around to see all three dogs running full force around the lake straight toward my dogs and me!!!!! Well, my hackles went up...... my dogs are just standing there like, "What the hell????" But I could tell they weren't sure what to expect and neither was I. I braced myself and was ready to do whatever I had to do to protect my dogs and myself. I stepped in front of my dogs and held my breath.
The girls were yelling to me, "It's okay, they're fine!" I yelled back at them to put their damn dogs on leashes, it's the law and it's NOT okay!!! Then I felt like an as*, but I had to say something!! I seriously thought these dogs were going to do some damage and would have kicked their asses into the lake..... I hate to say it because I love animals so much, but it would have been in sheer defense of the three of us.
Well, the dogs came within about 10 feet of us, stopped for a few seconds and turned around..... I was staring them down pretty heavily and my posture was that I meant business. I was furious!! This is not the first time it's happened (this is at the property next door where I'm scheduled to move at the end of the month). There's a guy who lives on the first floor who routinely leaves his screen door open and the sliding door open and he lets his Yorkie run out whenever it wants to and the same thing happens whenever we walk by. My dogs are so friendly, I wouldn't say that they ever act truly afraid, but it startles the crap out of all of us and sort of ruins our pleasant walk for a few moments, not to mention getting the heart racing and the blood pressure going through the roof!!!! The next time it happens with this guy I'm not going to be nice about it. I've met some really nice people on our walks over there, some with pets and some without. I just think these people are ignorant and asking for trouble. If it happens again I'm going to contact the property manager who I know.
There is a leash law in Sarasota and, while I would love to be able to walk my dogs off leash all the time, I know that if I want to do that around here, I have to take them to the park. I don't want my dogs running off and getting hit by a car or a gator coming up out of the lake and getting them ( a very real possibility especially now during mating season) - I'm not worried about my dogs attacking anyone (and clearly these people feel the same way about their dogs) BUT, as we all know, dogs don't always like other dogs and will react for no apparent reason *to us.*
Thanks for letting me vent..... I'm just so tired of it happening and am amazed how stupid some people really are! UGH!!