02/04/2026
Off leash experiences can be wonderful for dogs, or they can create problems.
Off leash access is earned. Training your dog will give them more freedom.
This morning we were rushed by a dog who was, in every meaningful sense, lovely.
He was also enormous, fast, and entirely on his own agenda. He came in with that big, cheerful confidence some dogs have. No malice, not there to "start something.” Just a giant social meteor. And this wasn't our first encounter with him.
Juno handled it beautifully. He was more interested in me than in her, which took the pressure off. She was actually fine with him joining us for a moment or two on our walk.
And then the part that changed the whole feeling of it happened.
His caregiver was calling him, but he was not responding. We tried to keep walking, but he followed us. Which meant the man followed too, yelling, stomping, closing distance quickly, hands reaching, frustration spilling out into the space.
In that moment I felt cornered by the logistics. Either I keep walking and have a frustrated stranger tracking behind us AND a large dog following us, or I stop and let him come right into our bubble so he could leash him and risk Juno feeling pressure to interact.
I stopped.
This is what I wish people understood about “rushing dogs.” For many dogs, the dog is not the worst part. For many dogs, the rush is already a lot, yes. It is sudden. It is too close. It is a loss of choice. But the added human invasion can be the second wave. The fast approach. The yelling. The reaching over bodies. The grabby urgency. That combination is what turns “a slightly chaotic greeting” into a moment of complete uncertainty.
Dogs do not just learn from dogs. They learn from sequences.
When a dog barrels in, some dogs start to anticipate the frustrated human arriving behind them. Juno is case in point. Fortunately she has enough experience now, and enough skills, that she can absorb those moments without unravelling. But part of the work we have done is exactly this. Helping her stay present when the scene includes more than one kind of intensity.
I am grateful for her competence. Not because she is “fine with everything” (she isn't) but because she can exercise agency in these interactions. She can negotiate. She can communicate. She can keep moving, change routes, make rational decisions based on previous learning. And that agency has widened our world. We can go to places we could not have gone a couple of years ago.
Which brings me to the bigger piece I have been thinking about.
I love that our parks and beaches are off-lead friendly. I love seeing dogs run, play, sniff, choose their own routes, be dogs. Off lead access can be a gift.
But off lead does not mean entitlement.
These are shared spaces. The freedom of one dog cannot rely on the loss of freedom for another. A dog being granted time off lead is not the same thing as a dog rushing over to whoever they want, ignoring recall, and then having their caregiver charge in like a rescue mission.
And I get it. Things happen! Dogs are excited. Learning is not linear. Sometimes your dog makes a choice you did not ask for or anticipate. And I expect that, it's life. Dogs are their own beings and have their own priorities.
But if “my dog rushes other dogs and I cannot call them away” is a regular feature of your walks, it is not just a nuisance. It shapes who feels welcome in shared spaces.
Right now we have this odd social story where the overly “social” dogs, (and I put that in quotes because rushing is not social in my opinion), are framed as the "good," friendly dogs. They are treated as if they belong everywhere. Meanwhile, the dogs who struggle with being rushed or react offensively/defensively are framed as "bad." As the problem. As the ones who should be taken elsewhere, usually to the few strictly on lead areas, which often means fewer options, less enrichment, and a smaller life.
I do not want to start a debate here about labels, or whose dog is good, or whether off lead should exist or not exist or blanket bans or blanket bylaws. I want something more practical and more generous than that.
I want us to remember that off lead access is a shared privilege. It asks something of us. It asks that our dogs have at least some ability to disengage, to come back, to be called out of someone else’s space. It asks that we do not solve “my dog is not responding” by throwing our frustration into the scene and hoping the other dog will just cope.
Because the goal is not to banish the lovely, enthusiastic dogs or the ones who struggle. The goal is to make shared spaces genuinely shared. Spacious enough for the dogs who are "easy," and the dogs who are learning, and the dogs who find rushes overwhelming, and the dogs who are doing their best to be brave in public.
That is what I saw in Juno this morning. Skill and coexistance and resiliance. And a reminder that the world gets wider when we protect it.
