no idea

wombat has no idea of how big and tough a dog she actually is (i like that about her). three times in the past month we've had the same situation happen to us on our afternoon walk that shows what a wuss she is. one of the streets we often walk up has a small pomeranian dog at one house. the dog is often in the back yard and goes CRAZY (possessed sort of crazy) barking, growling, running and spinning around the yard when we walk up the road (on the opposite side of the road from his house because it stresses wombat so much). the family also owns the house on the opposite side and occasionally (3 times this past month) the dog is tied to a peg at the front of this house. as soon as the dog realizes i have wombat with me (usually before he can even see wombat-- i think he must hear her lead jingling or something) he starts doing his possessed, crazy barking and spinning. at this point i tug wombat's lead to let her know we're going to cross to the opposite side of the road. if wombat was an aggressive dog, this would be an issue (i would end up dragging her or trying to carry her). poor wombat is absolutely terrified of this little crazy dog (and most small dogs). as soon as she sees i'm going across the road she's ahead of me, desperately clawing at the road trying to muscle her way forward as far away from the little crazy one as she can get. unfortunately the dog's owner doesn't seem to understand that she needs to keep her crazy dog away from my muzzled beast. two of the 3 times (today was the first time this hasn't happened) she has come out and told her dog he's a bad boy. then while i'm trying to calm wombat by having her sit for a minute, she unties her dog and brings him across the road to put him back in his usual yard as a punishment for barking at us. the problem is that we're usually just in front of the back gate to the dog's usual home so wombat now sees little crazy one coming after her from behind and gets really stressed again. i end up running wombat forward to the end of the block (she's not a fun dog to run with, she has no idea of pacing herself or staying with us--especially when she's stressed) and then showing her that little crazy dog is not coming after her while i sit and calm her again. she's usually pully for the rest of the walk after this happens.
i'm glad she doesn't think she's tougher than other dogs but it'd be good if she realized small dogs aren't really a threat.