Arthas is a good boy. He may not be consumed by wanting to make us happy, but he doesn’t want us unhappy and he does listen fairly well. He does pretty good on his walks too (which he is starting to ask for) so long as he doesn’t get rushed by another dog. I’ve gotten good at crossing the street and distracting him and he is actually easier to handle at this age than Jessie was when she got riled. Of course she wanted to go say hi and he wants to avoid saying hi, but you get the point.

So it amused me today when we were out for our morning walk when I saw a dog coming up the sidewalk. We crossed to the median until they could go by since I like to avoid problems if possible. Arthas took a second tug to get him to cross but he did fine (this wasn’t our usual route so he is slow and not as confident as he is on our usual route – you know being mostly blind and all). As the lady with the dog went by she started yelling that I “would never have control” of Arthas with a harness and I should “never use a retractable leash.” I was a little irritated I told Arthas to sit, which he did, and just looked at the lady as she continued to berate me for my choice of dog walking kit. Her dog then started barking at Arthas, who growled in response but didn’t move and then it ran – and almost toppled the lady who continued to tell me that I didn’t have proper control of my dog. I just looked at Arthas, looked at her dog, looked at her and say, “I’ve got this” and went to the other side of the road. I was so proud of how well behaved Arthas was that I may have given him another cookie.

Seriously, does he look like a problem dog?

I think we got this.