Dog attacking child - not stopping to help

Nonsense.

In all my years of dog ownership, I have never had a disaster with my off lead dog on a beach.

Could be, that some people are just completely irresponsible

If you read my previous posts about being a safe distance and to visually check everything was OK. 🙄
That's being a responsible human 😊

The OP has stated that she called the police when she returned to her car. THAT'S being a responsible human. What use would she have been standing there gawping just for show, so that people could satisfy themselves that she had done the right thing? Not very helpful or practical.

It wouldn't have helped keeping your dogs in the vicinity

If you read my previous posts about being a safe distance and to visually check everything was OK. 🙄
That's being a responsible human 😊

Staying with two off-lead dogs with you would have been stupid! The best thing you could have done is to leave and remove your dogs from the area.

You did the right thing OP - your interference/attempt to help would have escalated the situation. Move on from this thread, there is no reason to doubt yourself. I wouldn't be impressed with your DP suggesting otherwise.

It's almost as if off-lead dogs, long leads and dogs on beaches were a recipe for disaster isn't it?

Sounds like they've got a fearful dog reactive dog that was on edge simply because of the presence of your dogs + totally mishandled by the owners (no attempts to get the dog closer to them, distract dog, get more distance from you etc etc)... and then their kid exacerbated the situation by grabbing their dog, at which point the dog redirected onto their kid.

Totally their fault in every way.

You going nearer, with or without your dogs, would almost certainly have made matters worse.

I do not understand what other posters think you should have done - last I looked, beaches often have absolutely nothing one could tie a dog to - a dog that is fearful and aggressive and being mishandled by its owners is not going to improve with the addition of a total stranger either. Particularly if its owners are going to scream and yell at that stranger for having the audacity to exist, with her dogs, in a public place!

I can't understand how anyone thinks you've been unreasonable??! You were the only reasonable one in the situation by the sounds of it, could you imagine how much worse it could of been if you had took your dogs over! 🙈

Personally I think I’d have stopped and shouted to ask if they needed help or something, it’s more to just ask, in the way you slow down for a fender bender and ask do people need help even if they’re all on phones just to shop someone is willing to help

their dog their child their situation. Absolutely I would have walked on to safety with my two dogs. You also could also have been attacked. Sorry but I do believe in today’s world people are just as likely to run away from problematic situations as towards them. I think something is going down in a store or restaurant I am out of there immediately and yes I have done this
IRL. Their dog their child their problems.

Yes which makes me question the situation tbh. I cannot see any parent, who is witnessing their child being attacked by a dog, whether it’s their own dog or not, having even the least bit awareness of what some random person is doing.

This seems like (yet another) stupid entitled parents thread where everyone is going to jump on about how everyone expects other people to prioritise their children blah blah blah.

What a messy situation created by those people, they clearly are not good parents or good dog owners. If you did try to help you would still get shouted at, for interfering. You did the only possible thing.

So if I had been OP, walking my reactive dog inclined to pack behaviour (who is well trained enough that I can keep her attention on me while passing other dogs, but absolutely not trained enough to stay away from me while I walk into a situation with an attacking dog and might be inclined to join the dog in attacking anything any anybody as a fear response), you think the right thing would be for me to introduce my dog to the situation (that I can’t actually make any better with or without my dog) which could feasibly result in two dogs attacking the child?

Cool, I’ll remember that for future.

Or I might continue to be a responsible dog owner and keep my dog out of scenarios that they’re not well trained enough to be in.

Get bitten, presumably.

For those playing Mumsnet Bingo:

You don't have a (dog attack) problem. You have a DP problem.

(I expect he just misunderstood.)

I think you did totally the right thing.

Adding additional dogs to the mix would have made things far worse and without having anything to physically tie them to you couldn't rely on them to continue to obey a "stay" command if they thought you were being threatened.

The parents sound the sort who shouldn't be allowed to have children or dogs.

This 👍🏻

This is spot on. I would honestly worry that if OP had stepped in and helped, these yobs would have found a way to blame her dogs. Worst case scenario, one of her dogs might have been destroyed. No way would I risk that. It sounds as if the kid got a nip, which is nasty but not life threatening. It isn't as if the child had been ripped to shreds and was bleeding out, obviously that would be a whole other scenario and not one that anyone would be posting about on Mumsnet! I am sorry for both the child and the dog for having such useless caregivers.

They were trying to blame your dogs for the attack their dog made on their own child. You bloody bet you did exactly the right thing giving them a wide berth. Your dogs started it my arse! They would have sued you for sure!

I wouldn't have gotten involved, either. Two adults were already on the scene, and the situation would only be worse if the dogs started fighting, so the best thing was to put some distance between them. I'm not certain what they thought you could have done to help, under the circumstances, as surely they had a phone between them to call for help, if needed. Most likely they'd just have yelled at you some more, blamed you, and possibly threatened you.

Ridiculous! I don't need to "come on now" because if ever I saw another human being who may need medical assistance- least of all a child, I would never ever walk away until I knew everything was OK.
This is society now "pull the ladder up jack" I'm fine. That's all that matters and it makes me sad and I'm shocked so many people agree that it's fine.

If the childs parent(s) were there, and you had dogs with you it would
have potentially made things worse to stay. An out of control dog that just attacked a child isn’t going to react nicely to more people AND strange dogs in that situation.

what did they expect you to do?

Doesn't sound like they wanted help. Sounds like they looked for someone to blame. Good thing you walked away. Your partner is being unreasonable. These people were rude and horrible.