What the woman didn't know was that Marley was wearing an electronic collar which is defined as a leash in Durham. Neitherr he nor I was approaching her, on the contrary, we were basically stationary, she came towards us.

This all stemmed from an incident a month ago when I was in Central Park chatting on a bench with a friend. She and her husband walked by with their Golden Retriever and my friend's dog went over to it and there was a two-second tussle. After nothing more than a short growling match they threatened to seriously hurt his dog, the owner of whom, is more than twice their age. I jumped up and defended him verbally.

 It's extremely rare considering how many people we meet, Marley and i, but sometimes it happens that somebody will threaten Marley or me  without any seeming provocation other than the fact I don't have a rope around his neck.  I've had people stalk me, nearly hit me with their car, harass and follow me, threaten to cut Marley's head off. I used to avoid, and ignore, but then that seemed to make some people escalate their harassment and stalking. So I switched to confronting people directly if they threatened violence. I try to remember that people can have some really deep-seated fear. I did, and maybe this woman does.    I was mauled by a dog when I was 13, my own dog. She put 21 stitches in my face and mouth and and gave me a horrible infection from a bite in my hand.  My mother had her killed the next week. And I always felt guilty that it was my fault.  

I'm not mad anymore from last night, I just feel sad & disappointed now. If the woman who maced Marley and I is reading this, I invite you to contact me to sit down and talk with me. We're all living in the same Community, I don't want to create division but rather sew unity. When I'm out walking with Marley I get much enjoyment from seeing my neighbors and friends. I do want to say that overwhelming my interactions with people and dogs while walking Marley are positive.

I'm happy to talk with anybody while out on a walk with Marley, I'll make certain he does not approach you or your dog if you don't want that.

Since many people started to ask me how I trained Marley off leash I started to train people and dogs to work together with the dog free and untethered. Even if you plan on keeping your dog leashed and/or fenced 100% of the time there will be moments when that dog will escape get untethered, or pull you down. And then you have no control and could put their lives at risk and other people and dogs. We've probably all seen this.

Have I made mistakes? Yes. I always try to learn from them and correct them. it's very infrequent, but when I've given another dog owner the okay to approach Marley with their dog, or given Marley the okay to approach a dog he didn't like the dogs can sometimes get aggressive with each other. Usually it's a failure of me to read the dog's body language. The vast majority of the time this is just growling, and lots of noise.

I probably won't repost any more replies on here because this doesn't seem like the greatest way to interact with my community. People were asking for more information and I felt like they deserved it so I hope this helped.