I guess the community you live in has a lot to do with how people perceive your pets. I don't receive negative attitudes about my huskies at all! In fact I get quite the opposite. 99% compliments and smiles. Every now and then there's the rare Ah! WOLF! Reaction, but only once in a blue moon. They inspire so much happiness that I would like to get them trained as therapy dogs. They have been well socialized since day one and are the most tolerant, loving, gentle souls I have ever had the pleasure of being around. I couldn't fathom people treating my babies like they do yours!

As far as any one breed being worse then others, I've been bitten by countless chihuahuas, and I was attacked by a black lab when I was a kid. I also know someone who was attacked by a golden retriever! People need to realize that ANY animal, even your neighborhood "Buddy" is capable of causing harm if not trained right. You can avoid pitt bulls all day and it won't make you any safer for it if you aren't wary of every other breed.

Silverfoxkit, your pic of your Husky is beautiful... what a stunning dog!

Silverfoxkit now that I read your post I have been bitten by a golden retriever. It was actually my neighbour's dog it had a small pill bottle in its mouth so I went to take it out(I was afraid he would choke on it) but when it let go of the pill bottle, he clamped his mouth on my finger, I was very surprised he would do this because he's normally a very calm dog, now if he has stuff in his mouth I just leave it there. This can sometimes prove difficult though because when I'm playing catch with rex he comes over and takes the toys, and so I'll be standing there saying drop it and my dog will be in back of me barking at him to drop it, sometimes I can just throw a rock and he'll let go of rex's toys but not always. Oh and sweetdee I'm not so young I'm 16, although rex is solely mine, he is registered under my name.

I know I wrote this question I while back but it still bothers me how some people are afraid of rex. There was a woman in town the other day who came up to him and asked to pet him, I said yes and got him to sit down, however when she came closser he gave the trademark husky hello howl, and unfortunately she saw it as a warning growl. I tried to explain to her that it was the way they said hello but she didn't listen.

A good thing though is that rex is getting better around other dogs, he was never aggressive but he was the type that would ''woo woo'' and pull towards the other dogs, now however it seems he can walk by them without any reaction except for alertness, he just watches them pass by, and the other dogs seem to react more to him then he does to them, I find it helps also if I say hello to the owners of the other dogs, before they say hi to me.

I think bigger dogs tend to get a worse reputation because if something does go wrong there is a much bigger potential for damage. I remember reading somewhere and it made sense to me that you get your pit bull, Alsatian dogs top of the dog bite polls because those are the ones that get taken to hospital and therefore reported and make the polld. All the smaller breads which can be just as nasty if badly trained/provoked just don't inflict the same damage/ are easier to restrain.

It does annoy me though that some people (usually the type of want an accessory not a pet) allow their miniatures to get away with aggressive behaviour.

I was taught an important lesson about asking to pet a dog when I met a drug sniffer dog. It was a lovely looking cocker spaniel- much like my own so I assumed it was tame. I leant in to pet it and one of the soldiers shouted, "watch that dog had somebody's ear off last week!" It turns out they are no allowed to discipline them because they need to think everything is a game. I'm lucky I didn't lose an ear or nose too!

As for the people staring- it's there problem! Sad individuals with nothing better to do!

Although sometimes it is easy as a stranger to the dog to mis read their body language. I was scared of my friend's Alsatian for a long time because I thoagth he was barking aggressively because his ears were pinned back. It turned out the poor thing was just the runt of the litter and they never stood up. All that time I thought he was going to kill me he was just saying hello.

He always suffered form a bad reaction by other dogs because of this too. They assumed he was being aggressive like I did. We always had to watch out on wlaks because he got attacked a lot.

Why would people be afraid of rex if he's a sweet dog?

Some people around here are just like that. Even when we went up to my cousin house, and rex came with us one day me and my cousin went in town, I walked rex and she walker her dog(a small about 30 pounds mixed breed) we were waiting outside the mall(for my mom) and people were walking into the mall and one guy came up passed by rex and went to pet my cousin's dog and it growled at him. And most people did that just passed by rex and went to pet my cousin's dog who didn't seem to want the attention. There were some kids though who walked by us asked their parents if they could pet(the husky dog as thy called it) but the parents told them no, so when they were driving away they wound down their winow and said ''Bye puppy'' and I told rex to speak and he did the whole howling thing and they got a kick out of it they thought it was so cute.

It IS so cute when they howl. You can make your dog do that? That's cool.

I make my Shepherd talk, it's a more whiney sound... like in the old movie, K-9 with Jim Belushi. LMAOOOO!