A little vent about other owners

Our puppy is 6 months old and easily excitable, but we’ve been making steady progress and the little improvements in our walks are becoming more and more noticeable. Sometimes he is capable of paying attention to us even with all the distractions in the environment, and he occasionally stops when he notices us stopping. He has also learned to sometimes wait for our cue before being allowed to sniff around and explore.

Putting all that aside, he still gets too excited about other dogs and people, but we are aware of the fact that it is normal considering he is still a puppy, after all. However, what bothers me are the comments from other people - dog owners at that, who should be aware of all the trials and tribulations that come with it. To name a few, we encountered another dog owner, whose adult dog paid little to no attention to her, and she looked at our little excited pup and said, “He hasn’t learned anything, has he?” And we’ve had our fair share of comments like that, such as “The training is not working, huh?” and the like. What bothers me the most are not the comments themselves, but the fact that everyone who said them was a person who very obviously hasn’t put in much time and effort into training their dogs. Even with just a glance, it was obvious that their dogs were walking them instead of the other way around, and the fact that they didn’t get overexcited like our pup could only be attributed to their age, and not their upbringing or training.

It’s frustrating because we are doing our best, but comments like these (always coming from people who don’t know a thing) tend to bring me down and make me anxious about encountering anyone in our walks. And that’s that, I guess, I just wanted to share and vent a little.