Strangers do not keep dogs under control on walks

Dear Miss Manners: I just started walking a friend’s three dogs in the evenings while he’s at work. They are very sweet animals, but one of them has difficulties interacting with other dogs. Even if she seems excited, she can snap and get protective when another dog gets really close.

I’m strong and calm enough to hold her in place safely, and we specifically try to walk at times and on side streets that won’t have many other people out with their animals. The problem is a single path through a local park.

Usually when we go, it’s more or less abandoned.

It isn’t a dog park, or even fenced in. It’s not very wide, and it’s the only way back to the house that doesn’t involve a main road with sometimes-dangerous traffic. Despite all this, there have been a couple of occasions when someone has had their dog off-leash and tried to engineer a meet-and-greet. By “engineer,” I mean their dog was already much closer to us than the owners, and they called out cheerfully to let us know that their dog was friendly.

What is the polite way to approach this situation?

The last dogs I walked were very small, so when someone else was being unsafe about letting theirs charge off-leash — or giving me incredibly dirty looks when one of “my” dogs started barking because they saw someone else’s approaching down the street — I could just pick the dogs up and carry them around the nearest corner or in the opposite direction.

Gentle Reader: The approaching owners communicated that their dogs are friendly. You need to communicate that yours (really, your friend’s), to your regret, are not.

Please send questions for Miss Manners to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com