Dog attacking child - not stopping to help

YABVU for not stopping.

You should have stopped but kept your distance, made sure your dogs were secure (put on leads) then checked the child was OK from distance.

Moving closer with your own dogs would have made the situation worse bur it was wrong to walk off. I would have phoned the police there and then as I'd be worried the family would brush the whole thing off when clearly the dog should not be with a family that has a child.

I'd phone the police again and ask for an update.

There no way I would have risked my dogs getting involved in that scenario. They can start fighting as a pack which would have been worse. YANBU.

@AnxiousRabbit thank you yes that's it

apologies if I've misunderstood but it read as if it was a stranger's child walked up to the family and dog

It’s not obvious from the OP that the child that was attacked belonged to the dog owners.

Because it says "child" not "the child"
I had to think twice..it could be either way.

So if I've understood this correctly the child who got attacked was not part of the family who have the dog?. How did you get that from the OP?

Sorry clicked YABU by mistake
Agree nothing you could do without potentially making things worse and risking your own dogs becoming involved

To what extent was it attacking? It could take more than two people to pull a collie off. Could you have handed your dogs to someone else or tied them up?

YABU to wait until you are in the car before calling police.

You were sensible OP not to get involved. Your dogs may have reacted seeing you enter a situation with an aggressive dog.
I think the only thing you could have done is shouted are you all right, shall I call an ambulance. Other than that if there were 2 adults dealing with the situation and it's their dog and their child, that seems sufficient to control what's going on. Assuming it was not a frenzied attack but a snap/bite get off thing

Nah, that would have led to you and your dogs being blamed for the attack - and the already attacking dog to have gone absolutely mental.

Especially if your dogs are larger or aren't a breed with such great PR (ignoring the realities of their breed).

I completely missed that about the child hugging the dog, I skim read 🙈 the fact that it was the owners child being attacked I 100% would have called the police, how awful!

Even if you didn’t have your own dogs with you, what could you have done when the attacking dogs two owners already had it on a lead? Wade in and get bitten too?

So if I've understood this correctly the child who got attacked was not part of the family who have the dog?

So the child who got attacked has parents who allow them to go up to random dogs and put their arms around the dog like it's a toy with no acknowledgement of whether the dog wants this to happen? Completely and totally unacceptable. How did they expect the dog to react?!? It was also a risk this would happen.

I'm very, very sorry for the poor child but no one should be doing with any dog let alone one you don't know.

I think that the parents and the owners were the same people.

@Idioticparents

Define attack?

it can't have been 'that bad' if they had enough focus/time to shout abuse at you??

as it was their dog (on a lead) and their child that they watched walk up to it, no I wouldn't get involved even without my own dogs. I don't have a dog at the moment but mine were always good , but none would have just sat watching on if I'd got involved, they'd have joined in which a) wouldn't have helped &b) would put them in danger.

if it was a child on their own I'd have tried to help & tried to keep my dog out if it.

if I was going to call the police I'd have done it there & then not waited until I got back to my car, why did you wait??

I would have offered my details to the parents of the owner of the dog was no the parent. I would have offered to phone an ambulance but I would not have gone close to the dog - or introduced my dog.

I think the parents were the dog owners.

I wouldn't have been able to stop if I had my dogs with me, my pug would have gone for the attacking dog if it was hurting someone and my other giant dog would have probably been scared and reacted badly, could have made the situation much worse.

If there was no one else to help I would have sought help out and called police, as you did.

YANBU. People need to train their kids not to hug dogs, they don't like it and a collie will let you know! Sounds like irresponsible owners who's child unfortunately suffered the consequences. He wasn't alone, he was with his parents. No need for you to get involved.

Oh course you're not being unreasonable. You had two dogs with you. How was anyone expecting you to help were you supposed to just abandon your dogs and hope they stayed put. To be honest if you had intervened you'd probably have got abuse for heightening the situation and protests of being a busybody.

There were already two (irresponsible) adults. You going joining the mix of arms & legs, & your dogs potentially getting involved, would have only made the situation worse.
They were probably shocked and had a surge of adrenaline, they were angry at themselves but chose to vent at you because they can’t believe their own stupidity I imagine.

I’d have probably shouted ‘do you need me to call an ambulance?’ Or something but I wouldn’t have rushed to grab their dog or anything.

@Idioticparents, who gave you a load of abuse? Bystanders? It doesn’t make sense that a group of strangers would abuse another stranger for not helping.

What did they think you should do? Safely tether your own dogs and head over to help? In which case, the situation would have been resolved by the time you got there. Bring your dogs with you while you helped? Then you wouldn't have any physical capability to do anything useful. Let your own dogs run off while you rush to help? It sounds as though they managed to get the situation - of their own making - under control. They need to educate their child about the risks of grabbing a dog from behind.

Nope, you did the right thing OP.

If you'd charged in, they'd have blamed you and your dogs for the whole event. I hope the kid is okay, but it's his parents fault, and only theirs.