This all comes back to the title of the Barbara Wodehouse book (or maybe it was just the title of a chapter in one of her books) of some twenty-plus years back . . . "No Bad Dogs, Only Bad Owners" is how I recall the brief title, but it speaks volumes.
I subscribe to her argument. Shepards are shepards (as opposed to shepherds, who, in the main, walk on two feet and are generally not as fuzzy!)
The best dog I ever had was of another proscribed breed, an English Bulldog, Lady Elspeth de Dubhglas (Elspeth being Elizabeth -- all of her litter were named after English princes and princesses). As a breed, there's not a mean or ugly bone in their bodies. But the insurance companies list them as a breed for which they will not provide liability coverage.
I believe I raised her right, but go on to say that I never saw a mean one, and would add they that they have a temperament to withstand the occasional, unintentional/unknowing rough , or even cruel, handling that a child might dish out, as mild inconvenience. In fact, my biggest challenge with Elspeth was introducing children new to her.
Bulldogs are a brachycephalic breed. Big word. It applies to bulldogs of any sort, pugs, Boston Terriers . . . Their necks are so short and compact/dense that they snort, wheeze and snore (ask me how I know about the snoring!) a lot.
Bulldogs are also gregarious. Unlike Shepards (and not impugning the nature of those fine dogs -- again a difference in the purposes for which they are bred), thier first regard of a stranger is of a new friend. I watched Elspeth most around small children when they were about. That brachycepahlic thing . . . Bulldogs are dense. Elspeth was mid-weight as her breed goes but made 55 pounds. If she were to ignore my commands (as others have said, a dog on its own mission will ignore a command) and go to greet a small child, she could easily knock him/her down. The next act, without physical intervention, would be Elspeth doing nothing more harmful than licking the child's face (not that it ever got that far) but making bulldogly snorting noises of happiness, that might soudnd to a child who has just been decked as a snarl of a dog about to rip his throat out.
My pre-emptive move, once the child was about, was to first make introductions. Then to get down and the floor, play and wrestle with Elspeth a bit, so the youngster could see that her sounds were harmless and not to be helped, and that she was playing. That paid off more than once when some of the less-well-behaved kids (not mine, I don't have any) got to rough-housing with her.
I could walk Elspeth at or around home without her leash and she'd obey every command I ever gave her. Away from our immediate environs, though, I'd leave the leash loose but on. As good and obedient a dog as ever was in environments I'd anticipated and trained her in. But she was still a dog, prone to parts of her nature that I could not know, and she was on a leash away from home . . .
I'm a firm believer in "No Bad Dogs, Only Bad Owners" and will either train, control or leave my dog home as the situation calls for,
You ran into someone to whom that has not occurrred. And the result is on them, not the dog.
