I'm dogsitting two dogs this weekend, a 4yr old Cavapoo and a 7 yr old toy Australian Shepherd. On Saturday I met my SIL for our monthly coffee date at a community park so I could take the dogs with me and let them get some exercise.
We walked the paths for an hour and then found a bench in the sun for the last hour of our coffee date. During the walk we passed a few other dogs and knowing how the Australian gets around other dogs I would step off the path, shorten the leash, get control of her and she would bark/growl until the other dog passed by.
While sitting on the bench we had a few other people pass with dogs and I would again, get control and they'd pass by quickly or even go out and around away from us since my dog was barking at theirs.
About 30 minutes into us sitting there talking an older gentleman started coming up the path towards us with a small dog on a retractable leash. The Australian started to growl and I knew some barking was about to start so I got my arm around her and grabbed her collar so she couldn't leap out of my arms. She started barking and carrying on as they got closer and closer. The Cavapoo barked alittle because the Australian was.
The guy then stops and says something about his dog not getting along well with other dogs too. My Cavapoo and his start sniffing each other and it seems like it will be okay but then his dog nips at the neck of the Cavapoo. I pull the Cavapoo back and he pulls his back alittle but then let's the leash out as his puts their paws up on the bench and tries to sniff at the Australian.
The Australian settles down occasionally but was trying to get out of my arms the entire time and was barking during most of the interaction.
He let his dog again come near the Cavapoo sniffing and then his nipped at her neck again. The Cavapoo can't go anywhere because I pulled her close to me and shortened her leash to have greater control.
The interaction lasted about 2 minutes and then he moved on.
My SIL thinks that we were in the wrong because "our" dogs were the ones being noisy and "misbehaving," but I think he should have kept walking seeing that my dogs were not happy about another dog being so close and him knowing that his doesn't interact well with other dogs. So... AIW?