So, this has happened 3 or 4 times in the past a few months - when we are walking Ruby and she sees a jogger, she will fixate and 'rubber neck' if they are goin the opposite direction - constantly looking over her shoulder. The other day, one passed us going our direction on the other side of the street and she kept straining on the leash forward while looking at him and I felt if I dropped the leash, she would run right after him. Again today...the paranoid rubber necking at a jogger behind us.
She is a happy dog - EVERYONE who meets her points out her wiggly happy, smiling self. She is great around people - only once did she not let the neighbor's husband into our house while we were gone for the day (asked them to let her out to potty and give her a treat) but she let the wife in. She has gotten a little wierd with the gas reader guy but he always sings to her as he enters the gate and gives her a treat, so there has never been a problem - just some slightly fearful body language at a 'stranger' in the back yard (< they're electronic now, so no more backyard readers). This is the only instance of fear/avoidance I have ever seen in her (other than when I drop a stainless steel bowl on the kitchen floor) - normally she is 100% confident and exploring everything....
I DO trust her 100% around people - she smashes her head into the windshiled to 'say hi to people walking by when we're in the car and loves to meet people everywhere we go... She's great in crowds.
So this fixating on joggers is really weirding me out!! and I'm not sure what to make of it.
The first episode was a few months ago we were in the human park on a 100-ft line. There were 2 encounters with the same jogger (running back and forth across the park) that were my fault... First, I misread the guy wrong re what direction he was going since Ruby was on the long line and she ended up right up running up to him and check him out - I saw no hackels or aggressive posturing - just intense curiosity... but I could tell the guy was in avoidance mode. Then again 10 mins later, I misread him again, I accidently allowed her to be within range of the jogger and she ran up to him - I apologized profusely for the invasion and then managed to keep her totally away from him. BUT that's when I first noticed the fixating - keeping a constant eye on him and rubber necking and pulling the line to go toward him....
I don't think I am really 'worried' about this but it is bugging me as it is clearly fixating.... Doesn't seem aggressive at all just intense focus on joggers. We have never had any bad or scary experiences with joggers and walk our neighborhood every day in the morning when there is a lot of activity... Any thoughts about this behavior or what to do about it if anything??