[matese]

Owners letting their "friendly" dogs off leash. I have had several of these encounters with my past girls. My last girl was traumatized twice by loose "friendly" dogs, poor thing was SCREAMING from fear and shaking . Owners said he's very friendly, I said yeah but my dog don't know that, just look at her. One was huge Husky, another was a huge Belgium Sheppard, that was years back in MY community, I never walked my dogs after that. I walk Cody in my community because should he ever get loose he will know the area and come home (I pray) but, Cody is a challenger, a stare you down dog, this is dangerous for his safety. But I like to walk him but am so scared, I keep looking over my shoulders to make sure a dog is not sneaking up behind us, checking the wooded area in case a dog comes out. Thankfully nothing tragic has happened to Cody on these walks so he prances on, sniffing this and that. But if he ever sees a dog, he will lunge at it. It is very sad that we have to have such fear when we walk our dogs. I have wasp spray that sprays 25 feet, I have bear spray but does not spray that far, I would rather spray at 25 feet distance then have a dog closer that will cause Cody to go into Cujo mode. I have used wasp spray many times and know about wind direction, I don't advise anyone to use it unless they have worked with it and know what they are doing. And I would be very happy if there is a owner with the dog that I would spray, let them get mad because their dog got sprayed, may teach them to keep dog on the leash.