I had a bad experience walking my 18 month patterdale today, due to her behaving extremely badly.  I always walk her on a lead, as I don't trust her recall yet so when walking through fields she goes on a large extendable lead so she can have a play.  She's a really well behaved dog, a big softie with children and if we see another dog she usually goes into a submissive crouching position and let them go to her.  To be honest it's frustrating because she won't move she just crouches there. 

Anyway going back to this morning, I was walking her to school with my 9 yr old son, when we saw a couple walking their westie on the other side of the road.  Bess pulled on her lead as usual which was on the short leash setting but managed to break free as my son had attached it mistakenly to her dog tag and not to the collar, (I know I should have checked after he put her on the lead but he usually does it ok).  Next thing she crosses the main road ignoring my shouts to come to me and runs up to this westie barking like mad.  The woman scoops her baby into her arms but Bess was jumping up at her trying to get to the dog.  Both her husband and I tried to get Bess but she kept dashing out of the way all the time jumping up at the lady and barking at the dog, eventually he managed to pick her up and hand her back to me.  We were all shaken, I really felt for this couple and I apologised profusely and made sure they were ok before I carried on but they just wanted me gone.  What really shook me up was that how lucky we were not to have a complaint made against althought I guess there's still time for that, I don't know how the complaints system works and also the fact that Bess would do this in the first place because it's totally out of character for her.  To be honest whilst walking her yesterday we came across two westies and Bess just lay down all submissive in the grass while they sniffed at her!  I know she behaved like this once when she discovered my two rabbits which are out of reach from her usually, but since they are her prey I wasn't surprised by her behaviour and they are now securely out of her reach. 

I  just can't believe she was like this.

Her recall needs some extensive work, but don't beat yourself up over this, these things happen, I have attached the lead to my girls tags a couple of times myself, easily done. I'm sure that others have done that too. I'm sure you will always, double check now that it is in the correct place especially on roads, it is a mistake nothing more, your not a bad dog owner, your dog was not hit by a car, no-one was hurt, the Westie was fine, it is a one off occurance.

The worst thing anyone can do is pick up a dog, it encourages an untrained or excitable dog to jump up. She wasn't running to the Westie to fight was she?  Just barking? Which is a typical terrier response.

She plays the submissive stance out on normal walks, very common for young female dogs of all breeds, so I would think she was just being yappy, and would not have bitten the Westie, only the lifting up of the dog caused her 'bad' but understandable behaviour.

It was I expect very frightening for yourself and the Westie owner but let it go now, lesson learnt, it won't happen again will it?

Keep practising with the recall, when on her long line you need to keep recalling her with a treat, she is young and at that stage where she is being rebellious, just take control of her and keep practising and practising.

I doubt that the Westie owner will complain and realised it was just a terrible accident, so stop worrying about that, everyone can forgive an accident. I dare say it affected you more than anyone else.

Agree carrington, i have done it too i always double check now

How many times I have done that!!!!! My worse experience was collecting my SIL dog  (a large working breed nutcase) from kennels where I clipped on the lead to the wrong ring and she was off just as I was putting her into the back of my car. She then ran into the road causing a few cars to brake suddenly and anyone trying to get out of their cars to help me catch her was greeted by high pitched barking!. After dying of embarissment a thousand times I finally got her on her proper ring and into the car. So we have all been there!

Believe you and me most of us have been there, done that, got the t shirt so to speak.

One thing you could do is swop your dangly tag for a tag that fits on the actual collar which is what I have done (I do agility so cant have dangly tags).  They are really good, I used indigo tags.  The beauty of them also is that you can fit loads of information on them, we have surname, address, home number and mobile number.

Make sure you get a strong enough lead as well.  Copper goes nuts at other dogs and has snapped 2 leather leads and a cord extendable.  There hasn't been a serious attack (he's muzzled) but its obviously distressing for other owners to have a dog coming at theirs hell for leather.  I now use one of those tape leads, 3/4" wide, non slip grip, large dog size!  Never take any chances.

CG

Done this myself very briefly until I realised the lead wasn't hanging right!

Edited as just re-read the post and realised I didn't make sense!

Our friend had the same thing happen recently and her dog was hit by a car and his back left leg was badly badly fractured, shows its sensible to take the extra precautions to make sure our dogs and their equipment is safe and durable, and I absolutly hate it when people let their dogs out of their cars unleashed and they just run straight into the woods etc what if their was a cat the other side of the road or just something that wasnt expected?
I have never had any snapped leads or accidently off lead out of control dogs and we have staffords, think its about quality of leather etc as our leads cost over £10 each and they never brake We use Rogz.

Attaching to the tag ring is easily done, I've done it once and double check now.

Just a thought, if your girl is on her lead I wouldn't let dogs pester her, especially if she's on the ground. I feel that when I put the lead on my dog and take away their freedom to react with normal dog language and body movements, or to move away then I accept responsibility for their safety and comfort. That means I don't let dogs eyeball them, get over sniffy with them, hump them or most of all stand over them while on the ground handing out appeasement gestures. If she's crouching down she doesn't sound comfortable. I would calmly shoo the other dogs away politely. If a dog looks a bit uppity, you know, one's that approach on their toes and up for it I just take a step forward and send them on their way. Off lead is a different story. My dogs have good dog manners and communication so I don't interfere as much (still see off the uppity ones if they get too intense)

Hi there, I have a Patterdale bitch too, 10 months old, and given the same opportunity she would have done exactly the same thing!  She's never broken free, luckily, but I've seen her shoot out of the front door across the main road after a cat (into the owners garden, how embarrassing), and it did elevate the old heart rate a little.

I think we have very typical terriers from a working breed - they have their lapdog moments, but can be full of confrontation if in the right frame of mind.  They were bred to chase down prey, then stand their ground when the prey turns to fight (patterdales won't continue to chase ad infinitum).  For whatever reason, your dog took a dislike to the unfortunate westie.

Nell was very submissive up until a few weeks ago when she took exception to 3 dogs in a week - she absolutely flattened them, to my horror.  It seems to have passed, she is happy to ignore or appease most dogs, or just have a quick sniff hello.  I remove her or distract her before she gets any ideas though!

Done it too!! And my Rottie broke her collar in a Horse Show and thank god for training to distance SIT or she could have caused mayham. Stong collar, securely fitted and strong lead. Patts are really strong terriers and I wouldn't let a child hold any dog (if thatrs what happened) too much responsibility for them (Done that too!) Don't worry too much, big unharmed lesson learned, we have all been there.

Glad your girl wasnt hit by a car she was very lucky!

Like the others said, typical terrier behaviour, it was an accident but it will make you double check in future when you go out that you have the lead attached to the correct part of collar and I echo what one of the other posters said, always use good quality collars and leads! I know my nan years ago was walking her Jack russell and the lead clip snapped the dog ran into a busy road and was killed.

I always buy a lead for the quality of its clip not its fancy colour etc.... In fact I bought 3 leather leads from crufts four years ago with really heavy solid clips on them, they werent cheap around £20 each but they are still going strong and will be for another 4 years yet Im sure.

I too wouldnt let a child hold any dog when walking down a road just wouldnt trust them not to let go or become distracted.

Just sigh your sigh of relief and feel glad your girl is ok!

My dad was constantly doing this so we replaced the large split ring on the tag with two much smaller ones and he hasn't done it since as the ring is obviously much smaller than the one the lead should go on.
We use training leads for our dogs (thick black tape, advertised as police training leads) as the normal leads we could find were much too short.

Think the OP said her son attached the lead to the wrong ring.Doesnt appear the child was holding the lead when the incident happened.

I use the rope type leads for one of my dogs, the type that you slip over the head, like a choke chain, i find that this problem obviously never occurs with this type as it does not attatch to a collar.
Having said that i have a halti collar for my other dog, as he pulls and the other day i thought that i had attatched the clip to the ring on the halti and i actually put it on  his collar and it was on his tag ring and he pulled and the ring stretched and snapped luckily he didnt even want to run off but it happens to us all.
I actually lost the tag unbeknown to me and some children found it over the park and brought it back to the house, I didnt even notice it had gone.

How scary! I would be wondering why the silly Westie owner couldn't have caught hold of your dog's collar or scruff instead of waving her own dog all over the place making your one more excited - not very helpful! I'm glad everyone was ok - and surely a fellow terrier owner will understand it was just excitable youngster behaviour!