Today's Cloud

I'm kind of annoyed with myself. We met a man on a bike on a walk today, he turned onto the road toward us quite suddenly. Monster was on full leash length ahead of me (about six feet), and looked up at the approaching bike with what looked mostly like calm curiosity. But I sharply shortened the leash and tightened it, holding him closely to me. Resulting in Monster immediately switching gear and going for the bike... I know my reaction feeds his reaction, but I don't know what to do instead. Quite possibly Monster could have handled the passing bike without aggression, if I hadn't reacted at all, and if he'd been allowed a slack leash and full length. But "quite possibly" just isn't enough. I don't have enough control over Monster without shortening the leash - if he were to lunge at the bike he could actually reach it on a full length leash, and while I doubt he'd actually do anything it would still scare the snot out of most people. I can't take the chance. So instead I actually deliberately provoke Monster's reactivity. Talk about a rock and a hard place...

Yup. All your fault...

It just really sucks that instead of solving our problems I keep aggravating them... And I can see that I'm doing it, but I can't find a way out of it...