Dog owners please enter . Am I wrong about what happened today??

[DirkGently]

28. Sounds like you were being responsible, BUT

It's understandable where people can be anxious encountering "loose" dogs. Yours are friendly and under your control, but plenty of people who think those things about their dogs are wrong about one or both. Yours are biggish dogs, I'm guessing?

For example, I was walking our tiny dog at night a while back, when I hear a car door close behind us, and see a largish (60-80 lbs) black pit-type mix jogging down the sidewalk toward us. I think I have a fair grasp on canine body language, and I was getting a "Hey, hello there!" rather than, "Here I come to eat you!" vibe from the dog. But a dog's attitude can also change instantly, especially when it comes to strange dogs meeting.

So I stopped, picked up Ms. Precious Perfect (not her name )and addressed the big dog in friendly tones, while looking past her at the owner, a young woman who clearly had just fumbled the leash getting out of the car. I did not yell at her, but I did ask in a loud, clear voice, whether the dog was "cool" or something like that. The owner just stood there ignoring me and sort of fecklessly calling her dog, but it did eventually turn around and return. She never commented on my inquiry as to whether her huge animal was "cool" or not.

I wasn't mad to begin with, and was friendly to the owner the whole time. But had that big girl reached us, I would have had only a split second to figure out whether she was a "nice doggie" or whether I was about to be in a fight where I was either going to hurt a dog, get hurt by a dog (or likely both) and / or see my dog maimed or killed.

Going through all that just because the young woman was careless about how and whether she had control of her large dog DID make me angry, a bit. If it had gone badly, I would have blamed her 100%, involved the police -- the whole nine yards.

I guess my point would be that if you are in the woods in good control of your absolutely non-aggressive dogs, you're not doing anything wrong in my book, and I don't understand why anyone would be nasty or start screaming, but I do understand why someone might be startled or upset until you establish you're there and in control and the dogs are no threat?