Horrified By Children's Actions

[Lady Flying Furball]

People take great umbrage to a stranger stepping in to tell them something isn't right. I have done it and often get a barrage of abuse and personal attack for my efforts. But saying that it is difficult to ignore such clearly wrong behaviour. The reaction you get is about being caught out and someone 'naming' something for what it is. I'll continue to do so when I feel the need to. We live with one another and are not islands. Good on you RSA...

[OSoSwift]

Yes I appear to be embarrassed if someone pulled up my kids - mainly because I would be annoyed at myself from not have stepped in sooner!!

Having said that my kids would have been dealt with swiftly and effectively at the first sign of an issue.

Not all kids are like that, they are what the parents create. Considering the dads actions have shown you that he thinks the behaviour is okay that gives you the answer there.

The owner needs a smack around the ears for allowing the incident to take place.

[raz]

Ososwift, I thought the same thing. What on earth was the owner of the dog doing?

[OSoSwift]

Unfortunately dogs get stuck with stupid owners every day. And kids get stuck with stupid parents!

Because of course I am perfect at both :D

[Simply Grand]

This is a different situation because the child wasn't being malicious, but another case of both parents and owner not doing anything when they really should have...

At the dog park this afternoon a family came in with a lab puppy, one of the kids was about 5 or 6. A young kid AND a puppy is a fun challenge for me, Quinn loves to jump all over kids and Riley likes to growl and snap and intimidate puppies, so of course they all came straight over to where I had my three sitting focusing on me and not the kid and the puppy. I didn't mind this, I used it as training and would have told them not to come over if I was worried, but they were pretty oblivious to the risk of their puppy rudely jumping all over three unknown dogs who were being fed treats, I knew I had them under control but they didn't know that

Anyway, the thing that made me was a bit later, the 6 year old was trying to wrestle a ball out of the mouth of someone else's Boxer! He was holding the dog by the collar standing trying to pull the ball out while he leaned over with his face right in front of this unknown dog's face, and the dog was holding tight. Both the parents and the Boxer's owners were standing around, probably 20m or so away from the kid and the dog - not close enough to intervene quickly if something went wrong - and were watching what was happening while they chatted but no one said anything.

I thought about saying something but I was further away than everyone else and keeping my guys under control, and seeing as there were 10 or so other adults around I decided not to. Thankfully nothing happened, lucky the dog was tolerant and didn't try to reposition his grip on the ball and get a hand instead

[Dame Aussie]

Bloody hell some people are useless.

[Steph M]

A kid has done that to Gus before, seemed like nice kids and were throwing the ball for him at the beach and after about five mins the kid had him in a headlock and his face in his! I lost my mind and told the kid hes very lucky gus doesnt bite but thats not how you get the ball back, said to the same to the parents and got 'well if he bites he should be on lead'

He doesn't, but I wouldn't blame him if he did.

[Simply Grand]

It's such a risky attitude for parents to take

1. I don't generally hit people, never have, but if someone I didn't know put me in a headlock and tried to wrestle something I wanted off me I certainly might; and 2. It's putting a lot of trust for your child's safety in other people by assuming they'll do the right thing and not let their kids interact with dogs they shouldn't, and that's assuming the dog owner even understands the risks, which some obviously don't!

[kelpiecuddles]

I agree Simply Grand. My daughter was bitten a while back but someone's SWF that he had on lead outside our local supermarket(literally right on the doorway so you had to walk within a few inches of it). She did everything right, asked the owner, approached the dog calmly for a sniff, the dog looked relaxed and happy and she went to give it a little pat on the shoulder blade and it snapped and bit her. No indication from either the dog or the owner that this was a likely scenario but the guy didn't seem overly concerned and just wandered off while I cuddled my crying child. Luckily my daughter is the resilient type(she's also been bitten accidentally by a python and been at the receiving end of bites from parrots when she hasn't heeded a warning to watch her fingers!) We talk a lot about animal behaviour and I take great pains to point out to them how our animals are behaving if they have had enough of whatever interaction is taking place so they can begin to see those cues for themselves with less of my guidance as they get older. In this case we discussed the reasons this little dog may have snapped at her and while they were purely hypothetical reasons hopefully it stands her in good stead to respect the space of other dogs and it was certainly a fast way to learn the reasons that you don't just approach strange dogs when their owners aren't around.

Sadly this guy clearly had no clue about the reality of his dog and it's propensity to lash out for whatever reason, hopefully next time he'll stand further away from access to shops and decline requests for pats.

[RiverStar-Aura]

Yes but I guess this is the way society is heading. There's a huge lack of common sense and when something does go wrong the blame is always on everyone else rather than themselves.

[chevbrock]

Another at what some people will let their kids do!