Miserable dog walk and failed training

An example of me and Link failing to cooperate. This picture was taken during the gun dog course, where I was in a much better mood and hence better able to handle situations like this. Today was not such a day.

Sometimes everything you do seems to fail. No matter how much you try to motivate your dog or try to be fun, it just keeps sniffing the ground and pulling on the leash to get away from you and do something else. I had one of those days today.
 
During Link's and my walk home from work tonight, nothing seemed to go the way I wanted. At first we trained on some of the things we learned during last weekend's gun dog course, which went fairly well, but then the trouble started. Apparently a female dog in heat had been there before us, so Link paid no attention to me nor to lose leash walking. Then we met the first dog, a Cairn terrier. I managed to get the now very exited Link to sit while the terrier walked towards us, but in the moment it passed, Link lunged out. The only thing keeping him from getting to the other dog was my firm grip on the leash. Link barked out of frustration. The terrier, thankfully, just kept on walking. I thought I handled it fairly well, under the circumstances, and figured we could still get this walk on the right track.

Then the second dog meeting. A Boston terrier and a mutt. They began barking and growling at Link the second they saw him. This did not exactly calm him down. Link growled back a little, but it wasn't hard for me to hold him back or to get him to walk away with me. At this point though, I was irritated and Link was very stressed. I know that the more irritated I get, the more stressed Link gets. So I decided to just stop for a while, sit down on a bench and wait for Link (and me) to calm down.

It didn't work. Link started pacing back and forth next to the bench. Eventually he sat down, but then he started whining and barking. He just was not able to relax. And I felt my irritation grow. I tried not to show Link that, but he wasn't fooled. I settled for a few seconds of calm behavior from Link and then we got on our way again.

Soon after that, we met a Staffordshire bull terrier. I got Link to sit by my side as it approached, but like with the Cairn terrier, Link lunged. Only this time he lunged behind me instead of in front of me. This got me off balance, and it didn't exactly get better when I tripped on a stone. I almost fell on top of Link, but to my great relief I managed to stay on my feet. This whole maneuver however, led to Link getting all the way over to the other dog. Which in turn, turned out to be aggressive. It snapped at Link and growled fiercely. This probably took Link by surprise, he has never met an aggressive dog like this before. So thankfully he backed off for a second, long enough for me to regain my balance and be able to get Link under control. The Staffordshire bull terrier kept growling and Link answered in kind, when I held him back. Both me and the other owner mumbled something about how crazy our dogs were, both of us rather embarrassed about the whole situation.

I had by now gone from irritated to completely furious. I'm really glad that I am 100% convinced that it never helps to physically punish a dog, and also relatively good at keeping my temperament in check. A lesser person (or less convinced person) would have gone medieval on Link at this point.
I felt that another loss right now was more than I could take, so from that moment on I walk with Link on a very short leash and as fast as I could. I really needed the walk to be over!

The last dog meeting was with a Soft coated wheaten terrier, but I didn't even try to get Link to cooperate with me as we passed it. I just kept the leash short and kept on walking. Link tried to react to the dog, but wasn't given much time nor space to do so. I just wanted to get away from it all.

The rest of the walk home were to my relief eventless, but I had to really focus to stay calm. I felt like the worst dog owner in the world. Furious with myself as much as with Link, and at the same time I felt bad for Link. None of this was Link's fault, yet somehow the dog always gets the shortest end of the stick in situations like this.

I will try to not beat myself up to much about this and start fresh with training Link to pass other dogs again tomorrow. And I will try to remember the wise words I read in a dog training book once: "If you feel that you are in a bad mood or irritated, don't train your dog. Cuddle up with your dog in the sofa and read a good book instead."
Next time, that's what I'll do.