Pug Terrorist!

[mbc1963]

About a week ago, it was snowing out at 5:30 a.m. I took Buddy down the street and around the corner. There's a black pug who lives down that way - he's generally tethered out in the front yard, and we just avoid him. (Buddy shows no desire to invade the other dog's space.) This particular day, the dog was out loose. I'm guessing the owner couldn't find the tether in the snow. So we were walking down the street, and suddenly this little black dog was standing a couple feet from us, staring dead in Buddy's eyes and growling at him. If you've never owned a reactive dog, let me tell you that this is the equivalent of a 98-lb weakling walking up to a gangsta and saying, "You're a sissy!" Buddy was OK, because the dog didn't get closer than a couple feet, but he was definitely on alert. I swear, it took me five minutes to get the little dog away - we would walk a bit, and he'd follow us, snuffing and snarling.

 

So today it's snowing again (is it ever not snowing!?) and I took Buddy down that way. We didn't turn onto the street where the pug lived, because it hadn't been plowed yet. No sign of anyone being out and about. We walked down the other street a ways, and suddenly Buddy jumped and wheeled around, and I was in the middle of a snarling, snapping dog fight. All I can think is that the pug actually charged at us, running - neither I nor Buddy had any indication he was there until it was too late for me to prevent a fight. Snow is a great sound absorber.

 

Buddy had the pug pinned pretty quickly - it looked like my boy was out for blood. I pulled him back, and the pug threw himself at Buddy again. At some point, I was able to get Buddy's collar and hold him back, but it still took a few minutes of "Git!" and "Go home!" and "Scram!" before the pug walked off, disgruntled. At that point, the owner came around the corner and called the dog back.

 

What the...?! What doesn't a 14-lb dog understand about taking on a 43-lb dog? I'm nervous that Buddy's all hyped up about this dog now - that if he sees him again, it's going to be a pain in the neck to keep him calm and non-reactive.

 

Yeesh!

 

Mary

[1sheepdoggal]

What the...?! What doesn't a 14-lb dog understand about taking on a 43-lb dog? I'm nervous that Buddy's all hyped up about this dog now - that if he sees him again, it's going to be a pain in the neck to keep him calm and non-reactive.

 

Yeesh!

 

I can answer that!

What can you expect from a breed thats had its poor little nose bred so far back into its head that theres no room left for a brain? Its poor little eyes are already bulging out from all the pressure.

[JohnLloydJones]

What can you expect from a breed thats had its poor little nose bred so far back into its head that theres no room left for a brain? Its poor little eyes are already bulging out from all the pressure.

 

There's probably something in that, but I know a basenji -- bigger that that pug, but not that much bigger -- who will go for any size (intact male) dog; GSD, Great Danes, you name it. In the dog world, attitude is more important than size.

[Liz P]

It has been my experience that most pugs have a Napoleon complex and think they are much larger than they really are. They can be very sweet dogs if taught proper manners, but they have no sense of their own size.

 

I used to work at a dog daycare. It was usually the pugs that started the fights, acting like they were the big dogs in the group. They would literally harass the other dogs by constantly biting their legs (all they could reach) and trying to bully them. The other dogs, who showed amazing restraint and patience, would eventually have enough and put the pugs in their place. The pugs usually came out worse from these scuffles and the larger dogs would be dismissed from the daycare for being aggressive. I constantly tried to tell the management that the pugs were the ones always starting it, but they never did listen. The company that owned the daycare was a large corporation and I became so frustrated and disgusted by the way the place was run that I was planning to quit, but I broke my foot before that happened and they fired me for not being able to work (could have sued them for that, I didn't exactly plan to break my foot).

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

Small dogs are the worst! (Not to offend any one with a small dog) But all of our REALLY bad encounters have involved small dogs who thought they were the "sh*t". Could you imagine what a 40# pissed off dog could do to a 5# yorkie??? And Daisy does have an issue with small dogs now, so i would keep an eye on Buddy and maybe walk the other way, if you can, for a while. It could take a couple of days for him to come down from that incident. I don't know if you have any leash laws in your area, but I would also talk to the lady about it if you do. I would not have a problem confronting someone in my neighbourhood if their dog was running free!

[esox]

We have a pair of Dachshunds down the road and they are terrors. They'll come after any other dog. I was walking Elwood (70 lb. Lab) and Alex (43 lb. Border Collie) and they charged. Their owners always thought they were amusing. My dogs and I started to cross the street, although my dogs did stay attentive, and one of the dachshunds ran up and bit Elwood. Elwood flipped one and Alex pinned the second. Thank God all the dogs were fine. Now the owners are always out with the Dachshunds and will get them under control before they chase.

 

Esox

[Ooky]

*I* just had my first weird dog out-in-public experience with a small dog and its owner yesterday. This girl and her Pom approach me and the two dogs meet. Small dogs are not Odin's forte but I had him on leash under good control and the meeting went well. Then her Pom (which might have been mixed with long-haired chi, it was awfully small and foxy) rounded Odin to come over to me. I was sitting on a park bench and dropped my hand from my lap to its level, NOT trying to touch it but offering a hand to sniff in case it wanted (remember the dog approached *me*). The Pom immediately started growling and was instantly hyped to being within seconds of biting, I could tell.

 

"Oh!" I said, and removed my hand and tried to control Odin, who was skittering away to my left and stepping on my best friend's feet. My friend was holding her 3 mo infant so I had to make sure he didn't bump her too hard or the baby trying to get away from this little monster. And I've got at least 125 lbs on the thing, and Odin's 43lbs too!!! So first off, IME toy dogs do NOT necessarily use any sort of mass calculations while deciding whether to try extreme force to attempt to control the situation.

 

But what killed me was the girl chastised _me_, saying I should know to never approach a dog that way. "No, I don't mean to insult you, but dogs can get jealous, you know, if you pet them while they're meeting each other." Ok, but she approached me and then most importantly her dog approached me and was done with the initial meeting with Odin (the Pom seemed to just kind of imperiously dismiss him, which I had thought was funny as Odin does lack a certain dignity still). The girl was all of 13 so I didn't get into it with her but tried to politely let her know I had no further interest in meeting her dog at all. She did ask to pet Odin, which I give her kudos for, but then she bent down and stuck her face directly in his face and loved on him like they'd known each other forever. Odin seemed sort of confused but I know I can trust him to always meet in a totally friendly manner, if I give him signals he should. That's the thing - if Odin had growled at her for *any* reason at any point in the meeting, he would instantly have been 10 feet away getting an understanding from me that what he just did was unacceptable. But a lot of small dog people just sort of let this and all sorts of other annoying behaviors go and make excuses for the dogs.

 

Did the pug owner apologize for or even acknowledge her little kamikaze warrior to you?

[sleeping]

My roommate has a pug and it's about a year older than my BC Charlie. When I first brought Char home at 12 weeks he was a little smaller than the pug despite the pug being small even for a pug. We had 5 incidents in a row, 3 I saw and 2 I didn't. Of the 3 that I saw all of them were started by the pug. Unfortunately the last incident culminated in the pug needing 7 stitches in his ear, but they finally made peace and have lived together incident free for more than a year. And a good thing too since Char has at least tripled in size since.

 

My neighbor also has 2 pugs, and they've come over for play dates a few times. For the most part they bark at Char and chase him around the yard till they tucker out. At which point Charlie slowly manipulates them to both lay down in the corner of the yard he's preselected for them, conveniently usually right by the gate to leave. It's really quite comical to see him egg them on if they retire outside the zone he wants them in.