Bad dogs

Why is it that every time a person has their big scary dogs barreling towards us off leash, they always yell out 'don't worry they aren't aggresive, they are just disobedient....'?

Fast forward five seconds and inevitably one unleashed dog lunges at mine, and then all of a sudden I'm wedged between my dog who is flailing around on his bungee type leash, and pseudo non aggressive dog and its less aggressive mate. This isn't fun. Especially when my dog on the bungee type leash has just been swimming, and it is about 3 degrees and I end up with wet dog on jeans leg - all the while trying to seem aggressive to barreling dogs but not so aggressive as to get into argy bargy with said barreling dogs.

I don't care whether you think your dogs are friendly - if you know they are disobedient, shouldn't they be on a leash?

That said, if you think there is a slight chance your dog will go into the drink on a day where it is a top of 8 degrees but currently just over zero, specifically to round up a family of ducks - you should probably practice that leash thing too.