Tried to give me a "heart attack"

[Celt]

Well, went to the dogpark and had an almost incident involving my pup as the trouble. When we arrived we were all alone, nobody in either sides. Perfect, right? Blaise and Scotty had gotten into their normal bodyslamming, wrestling run when a couple arrived with a little chihuahua. Now, Tiny (yup, that's his name) was wiggling around in the woman's arms like a fish on a hook. My 2 stopped their play, as we got closer Tiny came running up to them. Not a problem yet, Tiny and my 2 do the meet and greet thing. Tiny and Scotty start bowing and bouncing around each other, having a grand time. Blaise was being his usual aloof self. Tiny starts running around Scotty while Scotty was trying to "pounce" on him, both still having fun. Well, Scotty had taken a break from playing to come check in with me (normal for him). Tiny was running around like a little whirlwind, he comes running by us. Next thing, I know Scotty is chasing after him. At first, it seemed a game until I noticed the focus Scotty had on Tiny. Thank God, Tiny liked to twist and turn while running as well as running behind/between people and things. It gave me enough time to block Scotty. The couple were all "oh, don't worry Tiny loves being chased." which from Tiny's behavior seems to be true, but I've seen that focus looked once before (on Blaise that time) that almost ended with a death (being fluffy can be a good thing). After the "incident", I worked with my glazed eyed pup til he stopped focusing on the little whirlwind and stayed focused on me. Seeing him chasing down that little chihuahua with such focus, dang near stopped my heart. I really hope that I never see that "lights on, no one home" focused look again.
Sorry for the long babble, just had to get it out.

[catahoulamom]

Is Scotty your italian greyhound or golden retriever?

This is the reason I don't like dog parks... I trust my dogs around dogs that they know, but not around strange dogs. They're animals, and animals have instincts... it's just too much of a risk for me. Plus I have catahoulas, and they don't really enjoy the dog park anyways (when they were younger I stupidly tried to force it on them, I thought in order to be a good dog owner you had to take your dogs to the dog park).

Sounds like you handled the situation as best as you could... but that is a reason I don't like dog parks.

[MollyWoppy]

Yeah, you must have almost xxxx yourself when you saw that look in his eyes. Isn't it funny how hard it is to take the instinct out of a dog? Good on you for being on the ball and knowing your dog well enough to be able to pick it up before something possibly happened.

When Mol was a wee pup, we would run into these people walking their 3 rescue greyhounds every night. Here I am, la de da, oh goodie, lets be friends, let's all socialise away. But then I will always remember the husband saying that they have to be careful because Greyhounds like small furry things. And, at that stage Mollie was a small furry thing. So we were very careful to read the body language of all the dogs from that point on. :D

[Celt]

catahoulamom-- Scotty and Blaise are my Italian Greyhounds. It wasn't the dogpark or strange dogs that triggered this. Just Scotty being a sighthound. The first time I ever saw this focused look was with Blaise. My niece has a pom pup that's the same age as Blaise so they got to play together a lot. We got together at a park, found a baseball field that we could close off, and let the pups off leash. After a bit, we decided to have puppy races (in hindsight, a truely enormous stupid idea). So we took the pups to the fence, Dal was over by homeplate (kinda a quarantee that the pups would go straight there). Well, my niece made the comment that her pup should get a headstart since his legs were so short. She let her pup go and when he was about 1/2 way, I let Blaise go. Blaise raced after him, passed him, the looped back around and bounced the rest of way with him. It was so cool to see how fast Blaise could go and the giant doggie smile on his face was just great, so we decided to do it again, but this time I was to give Booboo a longer headstart. So when he was about 3/4 of the way there, I let Blaise go. Blaise took off, about 1/2 way to Booboo, his body languaged changed. He caught up to Booboo, passed him, looped around, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and slammed him into the ground (a vivd example of how IGs could hunt rabbits). My stomach dropped and I know I stopped breathing for a minute. Luckliy, Booboo has a thick, heavy coat and instead of actually getting hold of his neck, Blaise had only gotten a mouth full of ruff. So instead of a snapped neck, he only had the breath knocked out of him, stunning him. Now, I make sure to keep an eye on them and to only race them against each other.
MollyWoppy--I definitely almost needed a change. It felt like my heart just about jumped out of my chest when he "locked" on. That instinct is the number 1 reason I will never trust these guys off leash outside of a securely enclosed area.

[Maxy24]

I'm glad things didn't turn out badly for anyone! I must suggest though, that you stop going to the dog park or at least leash up and go if smaller dogs arrive. I know it stinks if they love going and socializing but all it takes is once and someone's dog could be dead, just sounds too risky to me!

[Celt]

Maxy24-- I am very careful around other dogs because of how easily mishaps can occur. Most of the time the other dogs are all "bigger" than they are.

[Caty M]

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you do lure coursing) IGs and other sighthounds generally have VERY intense prey drives.. most larger sighthounds I see are muzzled at the park. There are very few dogs that could get away from one, too. Maybe a dog park isn't the best situation, leashed walks might be better?