Witch hunt for old woman

Because shop staf is not damageing my property amd refusing to provide cover for it lol.
I see zero reason for being polite to people who are obvious danger to others and refusing to take actions to fix probelms they caused. I don't need to pretend I am polite to get what I want in these situations.
In situation OP described it is very obvious you can just follow person refusing to give you contact details and involve police... or (gasp) wider community as obviously some people respond only whem their cuntish behaviour is made public.

If that dog owner applologies and provided contact details there would be no reason for the whole drama. If you make a mistake you are responsible for calming other person and helping fix situation. This is what adults do.

The owner was probably shouting at her to get her dog off , have you ever been on the receiving end of a dog on dog attack because shouting ‘get hold of your dog ‘ is a natural reaction

This. My dog has been attacked brutally by another dog in a completely unprovoked attack- it got her round the neck and tried to rip her throat out and yes I did shout to the owner to control his dog. What was I supposed to do?- whisper in a calm breathy voice "oh I am so, so sorry to bother you, please dont be scared of me raising my voice but would you mind terribly stopping your dog from killing mine? thank you so so much- thats very much appreciated"

FFS. The poor woman whose dog was attacked was in shock and probably terrified. The elderly woman is a horrible piece of shit and she should pay. If it was HER dog, you'd bet she'd be shouting.

"Community come together to identify and bring to justice irresponsible dog owner who allowed dog to attack and seriously injure another dog and fled the scene."

Her age is irrelevant, she's responsible for her dog, to think that they can frame her as a victim is bang out of order. Dog needs putting down, she needs to pay vet bills.

The owner was probably shouting at her to get her dog off , have you ever been on the receiving end of a dog on dog attack because shouting ‘get hold of your dog ‘ is a natural reaction .

Ever had an insurance policy that didn't have an excess? It's 20% of the bill on our policy.

Not a fan of witch hunts , but elderly woman's dog caused injuries, which need paying for, and as her dog was not under control and caused them - then she liable.

Elderly woman and her relative both had chance to do the right thing, and didn't. Therefore wotch hunt only way

If you are directly involved and yur dog was attacked I think you just need to message the middle lady and tell her when the elderly woman has contacted you to sort it out then you'll publicly put up a post saying its been dealt with.

Id also look into whether any laws were broken and contact police with the relatives details so you can pursue action that way.

There's hardly zero reason -If you want someone to do something for you - in this case provide you with their details - screaming and shouting at them isn't a particularly good way of achieving this.

I'd say that's a pretty flipping obvious reason to try and stay calm/polite if possible. I'm good at standing up for myself but if someone started shouting and threatening me, like fuck would I be giving them my home address. *

This reminds me of the 'dad screaming at teenager after she'd sworn at him' thread running a few days ago.

There seems to be this bizarre view among many people now that there is never any reason to temper your behaviour regardless of where you are or what you're doing - if you feel angry it's okay to scream and swear and shout, if you feel sad, feel free to wail, if you're scared scream out loud, and whatever reaction you exhibit, it's never YOUR fault how you react, it's the person who made you feel that way's fault.

Of course FEELING scared and angry if your dog gets injured is a completely valid FEELING, but rationale adult behaviour (given the dog wasn't in any immediate danger, which I assume was the case as if so you'd just run straight to a vet rather than standing around arguing) would be to discuss it calmly. Nobody is saying you couldn't be annoyed/curt/authoritative and express that in your tone, but shouting and behaving aggressively is never going to do anything other than making a situation worse.

I do wonder how people manage in work and just daily life if they can't manage their reactions, and worse, don't think they SHOULD, if anyone annoys or is rude to them. But I suppose it explains all the issues with teachers and shop staff needing to wear body cams etc.

*I obviously wouldn't completely just leave like the older lady, would give my first name and A contact detail, but I wouldn't be giving them my full name and address.

The Blue Cross have helpful advice. All dog owners should have third party insurance. It isn’t expensive. It is included in membership of the Dogs Trust. It is included in my household insurance. And you can get stand alone dog insurance. If someone chooses not to be insured then they have to take the consequences.

@Genevieva Surely if the owner of the injured dog is a responsible dog owner then they will already have their own pet insurance to cover vet bills. Why do they need to be so shoutily insistent that the other owner should cover them?

Lol what?
If someones dog attacked my dog to a level a vet is needed I would think I have every right to shout to that person to keep their idiotic dog on a lead and pay vet bills.
There is zero reason to be polite to people who have dangerous dogs off lead.
It could have been child that got bitten.

I agree that witch hunts are awful.
However the elderly lady should have left a phone number at least.
If a dog had attacked my dog I would probably shout, I'd certainly be angry.
A dog once attacked can so easily become reactive, it's not just the injury to the dog it's the permanent psychological damage.

@DogsBehavingWrongly I advise you to carry a walking stick and use it if necessary.

@DogsBehavingWrongly I'm presuming not all of the incidents you mention involved this particular woman though? I'm not excusing it, I hate off lead dogs approaching me and my dogs. But nothing good comes from this sort of Facebook drama. It smacks of playground bullying to me.

Utterly unfair. Had the injured dog owner not immediately started shouting at the elderly lady, she may not have got frightened and left the scene at the time.

The injured dog owners actions had led to this scenario; it could have been handled very, very differently and with a very, very different outcome.

Obviously none of us were there but going by OP's description, I'm not surprised the elderly woman left the scene.

I HATE witch-hunts.

She didn't turn it into one at all.

Posting it on Facebook and inviting public comments is what turned it into a witch hunt.

Minor errors do not deserve the community responding with feral and aggressive comments, with the underlying threat of people taking things into real life.

As I've already said, I've seen this happen several times. Thank goodness the admin of one of my local Facebook pages now only accepts these posts after she's turned off comments.

Elderly woman had her dog off lead and it attacked another dog.

Doesn't matter if it's never attacked before, it did that time and she should be tracked down by whatever means possible and asked to pay for the treatment for the dog attacked by her dog.

This happened where we live .Old woman but other way round! Whole street was involved ,some saying owner of aggressive dog should pay others taking their side! Got rather messy as was all over facebook

If it is a witch hunt then elderly woman turned it into one by dashing off. If she’d dealt with the other owner at the scene and offered to pay, the younger woman may not have even posted online.

Luckily just £80! Antibiotics and cleaning only. It looked horrendous though.

if it had been £800 I would have actively tried to get the money from them.

I sympathise with her panicking and dashing off but she should have used the relative to post an apology and that the owner had been contacted and vets fees will be paid by the elderly woman.

I will have to take your word about use of the word witch hunt because it could be a frantic attempt to find the person who should pay vets fees and be reported to the dog warden. I’ve noticed that FB stories like this often have replies saying that they know the dog/owner and their own experience encountering the duo. Also verbal abuse can be panicked reaction of attacked dog’s owner- totally understandable that she would have shouted and wanted answers.

I would be highly sceptical of the claim that the dog’s never done that before.

I think age is relevant in establishing that the escapee might be more vulnerable than the shouty one. It is reasonable to assume that someone older may feel more threatened than someone younger and more capable of defending themselves, and thus it's important to know how the initial confrontation went down.

It doesn't have any relevance on her dog owning competence though

I notice Older Woman's GD DIDN'T post "My Grandmother is terrified, we have now contacted dog owner and agreed to pay the bill so can we stop this now."Which would presumably have caused the witch hunt to quiet down

I thought this too. This would have calmed everything right down. Clearly they dont want to pay up.

Don't think either party has covered themselves in glory tbh.

Dog owner shouldn't have been aggressive towards the older woman. It's understandable that they were upset, but you can be assertive without being aggressive.
Older woman should obviously have provided her details.
I notice Older Woman's GD DIDN'T post "My Grandmother is terrified, we have now contacted dog owner and agreed to pay the bill so can we stop this now." Which would presumably have caused the witch hunt to quiet down.

I don't see the point in "what if's" - yes, if the old woman was a big burly young man, perhaps nobody would be feeling sorry for her, but it's equally possible the dog owner wouldn't have felt "brave" enough to behave as aggressively towards them as they did towards an older woman, would have asked for the details calmly, and big burly man wouldn't have been scared to provide them. I've been in a car accident where other guy (whose fault it was!) came out screaming and shouting, then once my big rugby playing DP got out the other door attitude completely changed.

Exactly this. It's nasty behaviour through and through to conduct a Facebook witch hunt. And that IS what it is!

When you involve other people in things like this it can get out of hand very fast. It’s the online version of the village mob with torches and pitchforks. Of course the dog owner should pay the vet bill but it would be much more effective to contact the granddaughter, arrange to send a copy of the bill to the lady and delete all the chat.

I'm on a lot of the ageism threads here on Mumsnet.

This thread is a dog whistle to those on both sides of the argument. (No pun intended)

The woman's age is irrelevant.

It's down to her as the owner of the dog that the incident happened.

Yes, she should at least offer to pay the bills.

But there's no law to say she has to.

SM witch hunts which lead to harassment however, are against the law. And quite rightly.

My SIL has a dog and is useless with it. It runs amok. She was visited by the community police officer after the most recent event when it got into a school playground.

Her age is also irrelevant.