Seren - Fear

[doglets]

 

And the rest of the world hasn’t been good to Seren. I have to remind myself that for all the hundreds of people we pass without incident, the anti-dog ones are the minority. But Seren is only absorbing the bad times. She has a wilful personality and can be demanding, but a lot of her behaviour is now coming from fear and a series of bad incidents

On a walk, a man came rushing out of his house, one of those front doors that go directly onto the pavement. He narrowly missed us, started yelling in my face and glaring at Seren, who fear-barked back at him. The more he got in my face about my fkin rottweiler, the more Seren reacted.

In the park, an off-lead bouncy staffy ran up gleefully but unexpectedly behind her, sniffed and pawed her back, totally spooking her out. Seren turned and growled. The owner was yelling over “it’s ok he’s friendly, he’s only playing” The first rule of dog-park life is that both sides have to agree on-lead and at distance to the “only playing”. It’s not fair or helpful to let an off lead dog run, however cheerfully, at a dog who has no escape. Seren wet herself, then tried again to defend herself, so this was a clumsy struggle of me clinging desperately to her lead and trying to politely keep the other dog away. The owner offered to put her dog back in the car because he wasn’t giving up trying to get Seren to play and apparently wasn’t good on a lead....

But the damage was done, Seren was now edgy and feared. I half dragged her back to our car with the staffy still trotting behind us. He was a friendly, happy soul and in another dimension I might have happily let Seren play with him. 

Seren’s relationship with other dogs and people is tense. Walks, now, are us playing the Pink Panther, tip toeing along, hiding behind lamp posts and diving up alleys. This isn't good for either of us.