One of the things about having Lylah is that you are constantly outside and exploring new areas to make sure that she gets the appropriate amount of exercise. The other day we went to a greenway area to walk and go to a dog park. The whole greenway is just a little over three miles there and back so it's perfect to go out and just have a stroll. We get out to the greenway (which is new for us both) and we walk and start doing some small training exercises to get her used to the area. We get a mile in and you have to go under a bridge which Lylah is timid of but seemed to be ok going under it. 

We get under the bridge and on the other side and immediately her tail is down. Over to my left, there are some teenage girls dancing and singing to some hip-hop music near a soccer field. I look over and observe while slowing down to try and see if Lylah will give me any sort of attention. She is trying to focus on me but the girls are loud and at some point, there are screaming and pointing at me. I didn't hear what they said but they were making a point to be obnoxious. I keep moving and choose to ignore them. It's not a bad area in town and for them to scream and yell only made me roll my eyes. 

So Lylah and I keep moving and I see up ahead that someone is coming our way. Lylah stops and goes to the side and lays down on the grass staring as the person comes closer. He is on a skateboard and lylah is terrified of skateboards. We haven't had much of a chance to work with them to ease that fear since I no longer own one so I let her get her distance and watch her closely as the guy goes by. He then yelled at me too. I pull out my earbud and look at him 

"What?"

"You should take that dog out more so she not so scared"

I raised my eyebrow at him and scoffed. 

"She's scared of your skateboard so keep moving".

He stared at me and eventually kept going and we made our way to the dog park. Lylah hasn't been to one since she turned one and she seemed ok there but wasn't interested in the other dogs. She tried to play but couldn't find a good buddy to play with so we left. The whole walk back all I could think about was the people screaming at me. It's been a while since someone felt entitled enough to try to tell me what to do with Lylah and it annoyed me a bit. Nobody has a right to judge on what you do with your dog and Lylah has gotten out more than most dogs. She's not comfortable with cities like noise and that's because she hasn't really been around it and we are working on it. So if you feel like judging someone for how they are with their dog maybe think about that before you say anything. Most of us are just trying to do the best we can for our pets.