To the man in the park today.....

[Allfurcoatandnoknickers]

To the man in the park who, when he saw my dog ragging his own lead, and my pup excitedly barking at him doing this, felt the need to comment 'nasty little things'-

The dog on the lead is a rescue who we have had five years. I don't think he had been mistreated, but has fear aggression issues with certain dogs.. We live in a heavily dog-populated area (near several parks), keeping him away from other dogs is nearly impossible, and more particularly, ensuring other over-enthusiastic dogs get the message. He is either muzzled off the lead, or walked on a lead which makes him worse. We have taken advice of numerous behaviourists, and this is the best tactic we have found. Trying to stop him ragging the lead can often result in him becoming more infuriated....

The pup is our 18month old very happy well-adjusted girl, and friends with everyone in the park.

Please think twice about passing comment until you know the full facts....

[megcleary]

And do you know his experience with dogs?

[HoneyDragon]

Nasty little minded man.

If it's causing him no problems and he can't offer anything productive he should stay quiet.

[Allfurcoatandnoknickers]

Absoloutely....
He may have been bitten in the past, or had some similar bad experience with dogs. I think the best policy is always to either empathise, talk about a problem or shut up....

[LastOneDancing]

I don't think it's anything to do with dogs.

Liklihood is he's just a sad man who likes to share his misery. He probably huffs and tuts at kittens and detests children's laughter.

[pigsDOfly]

Some people are just unpleasant human beings OP. My dog is very well behaved and loves everyone. She's smallish and fluffy and generally we get a lot of people stopping to chat and have a stroke but every so often I get nasty remarks along the lines of 'not a proper dog' even got one girl we walked passed in the park yelling 'get your ratty dog away from me' (in no way does dog resemble a rat). Dog was nowhere near her just happened to be walking past.

Some people just aren't worth getting upset about. He'll go on his way feeling pleased with his nasty remark and looking for other ways and other people to be unpleasant to. Forget him.