To not understand what this parent was thinking?

Fundamentally the law and established mainstream moral codes prioritize humans over animals, and the protection of children (vulnerable humans) in particular. Any individual is free to disagree with this and follow a moral compass which treats animals as equivalent to humans, or even, if they are very odd, higher priority. But if you do, 1. Dont pretend it’s an established mainstream moral code. It’s extremist. You are an exception. 2. You’d better be vegan

I'm not invested in giving 'advice', I'm correcting factual inaccuracies in flawed arguments. That's sort of how these things work.

I've replied directly to OP and posters who have challenged what I've said, yes - and the reason I've said the same thing so many times is because so many people have challenged it. What I'm saying isn't changeable, it's not an opinion, it isn't how I feel - it's just the reality of the situation. That doesn't change so I've just said it each time to each post.

An 'informed choice' can’t be made if the information being used is wrong or misunderstood. People are free to feel any type of way about how they 'think' it should be but when they present erroneous statements, especially in reply to me directly, it's entirely reasonable for me to challenge incorrect arguments.

You seem very strongly invested in the OP taking your advice. Yes, the law will tend to side with the injured party, even if they/their carer has behaved irresponsibly. You’ve said that approximately 15 times now. We get it. Nobody has to agree with you or ‘needs to understand’ what you’re saying, they can make an informed choice.

Lots of legislation is 'poor', it's still applicable and OP would still be judged against it. I'm not defending or criticising it, it is what it is and I am simply pointing out the inevitable consequences of it. OP sits firmly foul not only of the DDA, but also the Animal Act and which imparts strict liability. Or would you like to dismiss that away too?

If OP cares about her dog, she needs to understand and adhere to the law as it is, not how she would like it to be to suit her opinion.

Once again, I suggest she should seek professional advice if she won't believe what's on this thread, because they will tell her the same thing - that her current hubris and lack of accountability for her negligence is only going to put her dog at risk if another 'unsupervised child' happens to be about.

I think the difference here is that toddlers, by their very nature, don't just 'appear out of nowhere', the mum had walked past them already too for the lagging behind toddler to be able to approach OP.

All this 'I wouldn't expect to find anyone there' is complete bollocks, any responsible dog owner is aware of their surroundings and would never let their 'child wary' dog come face to face with a child, and if it did happen they would recognise that it was their inattention that put their dog and the child at risk and act immediately to remove the dog.. standing just outside a shop is not a place to not be paying attention.

It's not OPs fault that the child approached them, but the whole way it was dealt with sounds ridiculous, grabbing the hands of and performatively lecturing the toddler so the parents heard, and then letting the other child come over to the dog as well (who is now showing clear signs of anxiety).. the parent should have been paying attention, but OP seemed more bothered about making sure the parent SAW the danger they were putting their kids in, rather than removing her clearly anxious dog from the situation, it's not something a responsible dog owner would do IMO.

@TryingToFigureLifeOut Thanks for replying. I get what you’re saying, and taking an animal somewhere it would not react well is obviously foolish. In the situation I witnessed it happened quite quickly and I’m not sure the rider could have done much. I think it’s a lot to expect any animal not to react to a deliberately aggressive or provocative human, however placid. And yes @Rotundra before you quote the law yet again, it’s true that the law (on dogs at least) is against the dog/handler. But the DDA is a famously poor piece of legislation, used in law and public policy teaching as an example of how not to do it. I don’t know what legislation applies to horses. It certainly doesn’t seem to prohibit letting them shit on the pavement!

@Allisnotlost1 In that scenario and putting emphasis on his age, the boy got what he deserves in my opinion. Providing he had no additional needs then he’s old enough to know better however regardless of whether he deserved it and it taught him a well earned lesson, the rider is still responsible for her horse and shouldn’t have let that happen in the first place so is the one at fault. After years of owning horses and also working with top competition horses which are usually more hot to handle than horses who are given a basic diet, I can say you will always know the horse and the way it reacts. Any horse could suddenly kick when a dog or person runs up behind it but you would have an understanding of that particular horse. The last horse we had, he hated dogs and would most definitely always kick out at any dog that came up close to him. He also wasn’t keen on children but had never tried to kick a child but there’s always the possibility so we never let any child near him regardless even if they had been pre warned we still didn’t risk it. I doubt that rider didn’t know her horse could kick when startled from the back. It’s not something every horse does just because someone runs behind them but you would at minimum know if your horse is of that nature. She’s the one taking a horse to a beach and should anticipate that situation arising. You can’t take a horse out where there’s lots of people at the beach/ pub ect and expect them to change their behaviour because you chose to take the horse there. If you know your horse generally bites or kicks then you need to be paying extra attention to what is going on around you but regardless if you’re in a situation where there’s a lot of people especially vulnerable then you take steps to make sure nothing happens. She could have had a set of extra eyes walking behind her. It’s quite normal to have someone running along at the side or back of the cart if you’re going somewhere with heavier traffic or it’s a young/ fresh or particularly scatty horse. Extra hands to slow or warn traffic or if anything goes wrong with the horse.

Since you’ve brought up the comparison, im
curious how this might work for a horse and rider. I’ve been on the beach where there were horses, dogs and people, including kids. It’s quite common to see them on summer evenings and many of the dogs and indeed kids get very excited and sometimes get (imo) too close to the horses. They are usually calm and their riders/drivers alert, and when it’s busy they trot along, and only run/gallop when it’s quieter (usually early mornings). But on one occasion, a young teenage boy - 12, 13 maybe? - ran up behind a horse, and before anyone could do anything, the horse kicked him. Absolutely no-one blamed the horse or rider, the boy was an absolute idiot, deliberately being provocative to the animal and showing off. Luckily the kid wasn’t seriously hurt and I bet he never did that again, but I’m curious how anyone could have stopped that. Would you say the rider was at fault?

@Rotundra You’re wasting your time. These people will never learn. Everytime there’s a dog attack people are quick to defend the dog and say it must have been abused or the owner “failed to read the signs beforehand because no dog will act without warning” and yet we have people here defending the poster who is failing to act on her dogs warning signs because once again it’s all about the dog. The dogs rights to walk without a muzzle, the dogs right to be out in public, the dogs right to freedom, all the while they just can’t accept that this particular dog lost its rights to walk freely unmuzzled in public when it gave its owner warning signs that there is a problem in hand which left unaddressed there is a likelihood the dog will act and attack a child.

What you're suggesting is that OP should have been hyper aware of her surroundings and should have anticipated something incredibly unlikely. It's like saying to someone "And why exactly did you not see the goose that approached you from behind whilst you were in the veg aisle of Tesco? Were you not paying attention?"

@CremeEggsForBreakfast
The likelihood of meeting a child outside a shop really cannot be compared with the likelihood of finding a goose strolling around Tesco! 😂

Duplicate deletion

@AlcoholicAntibiotic OP takes her dog who is wary of and threatened by children out in public and was faced with a situation where a child, toddler to be exact “appeared” from nowhere and in the face of her dog who then displayed behaviours of being uncomfortable and therefore threatened. OP is lucky no child was harmed this time. OP is failing to recognise and act on her dogs warning signs. OP is putting children and her dog in danger. OP believes it is the responsibility of any adult supervising a child to keep it away from her dog even though she has admitted her dog leans in towards her when approached by children which even by definition of any canine “expert” is a dog who feels fear, anxiety and threat. OP refuses to muzzle her dog who displays these behaviours and believes in good faith that her dog won’t actually act on these feelings because he is incapable of acting on natural instinct, therefore OP is somewhat delusional.

You don't need to agree with me, this isn't my opinion. It's the reality of the situation, there is no argument to be had.

OP is responsible for any interactions with her dog, by anyone and anywhere. That's the law. She wasn't in control of the situation as she allowed a toddler to be face to face with her dog - that's the fault. How 'well' her dog reacted to it is completely irrelevant.

I didn't want her to be paying attention to her dog, I've never said that, the law doesn't say that - you have misunderstood. I said she should have been paying attention to her surroundings, not just her dog. She wasn't - the liability is hers.

OP asked for opinions on someone else's parenting because she allowed the situation to occur and she'd like to blame someone else. The child should never have got close to the dog - she allowed that to happen. The liability is hers.

I have read the thread. I disagree with you. OP had her dog under control. The parent didn’t have their child under control. Thankfully OP’s dog wasn’t aggressive so no child was actually harmed.

I haven't misunderstood. I'm saying OP was paying to her dog exactly as you wanted her to.

From what I can tell, OP used "I wasn't paying attention" as a turn of phrase and she knew enough about her surroundings to know the dog should have been comfortable in that environment, what sort of foot-traffic there was, how much space there was around her etc.

What you're suggesting is that OP should have been hyper aware of her surroundings and should have anticipated something incredibly unlikely. It's like saying to someone "And why exactly did you not see the goose that approached you from behind whilst you were in the veg aisle of Tesco? Were you not paying attention?"

But do you know what, it's still irrelevant. The OP neither asked for nor welcomes your opinion on her dog ownership. She's asked for opinions on the parenting that led to an unsupervised toddler approaching an unfamiliar dog.

Read the thread. Regardless of the parent's behaviour, the overwhelming responsibility lies with OP for failing to prevent this happening.

The parent was wrong, but even children of vigilante parents may occasionally appear - if you’re worried the dog is dangerous you absolutely must muzzle it. It’s you that will be arrested and your dog that will be destroyed.

To put in simpler terms:
Dog has tried to attack whilst in public- Muzzle it
Dog has never tried to attack but has displayed behaviours of feeling threatened by children- Muzzle it to prevent the above
Dog has never tried to attack or shown any behaviours that it is uncomfortable or threatened by children- No need to muzzle

Dog lives with children in the family home and has never tried to attack the children but it has shown behaviours that it is extremely uncomfortable around children and feels threatened- Get rid of dog as it isn’t suitable for a home with children.
Your response- But he hasn’t actually shown his teeth or raised his hackles at my children so he’s not aggressive. He’s only shown me that he just doesn’t like my kids so therefore I won’t be protecting my kids from a likely attack from happening and I will be keeping the dog

Your dog may be fine with your children but it isn’t fine with other peoples children so just muzzle it when you’re out in public where you’ll be in close proximity to children who can and will just appear in front of your dog with no warning. Take accountability.

My car has the petrol light on so I can either:
•Ignore the warning sign my car has no fuel and keep driving regardless and wait for it to cut out, although it might not because it hasn’t done before and I’m certain it won’t
•Acknowledge the warning symbol and go refuel my car so the above doesn’t happen despite how confident I am that it won’t but regardless I’m going to do it anyway because I’ve seen the warning sign

It’s really no bloody different. People especially in the countryside drive their horses in carts and then pull up outside pubs. It’s the owners responsibility to make sure that horse doesn’t kick anybody even if the horse has never shown an aversion to people or dogs, but in the circumstance where you know the horse doesn’t like or doesn’t feel comfortable around dogs or kids you take extra precautions. You don’t just pull up and then suddenly a child is stood behind the horse about to grab its back legs and then say “Stupid parent should have kept their kid under control”. What you say to yourself is, shit that was a close call I need to have eyes in the back of my head as this has shown me that even when I believe I am responsible and have everything under control the reality is I always don’t. Your dog has shown you it isnt comfortable around children and you have shown that you cannot prevent a likely situation from occurring which is a child suddenly being in your dogs face, so do something about it. For a so called expert you really don’t know much. Maybe put the books down and step away from your “degree knowledge” where most of the stuff you are taught is from people with the same mindset as you and get into the real world. You really remind me of those people who go to riding schools and then believe they can ride a horse or believe they’re a horse person because they’ve been to college and done equine studies 🙄

@AlcoholicAntibiotic It’s been said repeatedly the mother was negligent for not supervising her child, no one is disputing that. The point the poster isn’t understanding (Accepting) is that she is responsible for her dog legally in the event that it acted upon its “Wary” and timid of children nature regardless of that the parent allowed the child to approach the dog. She believes the dog hasn’t shown any aggressive behaviours or any indication that it could become aggressive, but it has actually shown her that it has an aversion to children and displays behaviours such as leaning in towards her which suggests the dog is very uncomfortable around kids. A dog that feels uncomfortable and unsure is a dog that feels threatened. She can’t possibly say, which she has agreed with previously, that a dog, any dog and more so a dog who feels threatened would never act on those feelings out of instinct and attack. As pointed out already, it would be reasonable to take the dog into a large open field where the likelihood of a small toddler/ child appearing out of nowhere and then appearing inches from the dogs face or rather nose to nose with the dog is unlikely. When she’s out in public and outside a shop, it’s not unreasonable to anticipate a small child appearing from nowhere and as much as you believe it’s the adult supervising that child to keep it away from the dog and out of harms way, she is actually the one responsible for preventing any likely or unlikely event of attack from happening. Her dog has shown her that it is uncomfortable around children and yet she is so dead set on this belief that she doesn’t have to take preventative actions because the dog hasn’t shown any aggression. The focus here is preventative, the dog shouldn’t have to bare teeth, raise hackles or snarl for her to accept there is a problem and she needs to take accountability and muzzle it. That is being negligent to allow it to go that far when her dog has shown her already it isn’t keen/ doesn’t like/ is uncomfortable/ is wary of children. Coming back to the horses comparison, not all horses like children particularly because they appear suddenly and run around the back of their legs and this heightens the horses sense of danger and makes them feel threatened. Therefore it is the owners responsibility to make sure no child is able to be put in a situation where it could get kicked in the head. We used to take our horses around housing estates and generally out in public on the main roads driving them in the carts, one of them had never kicked or bitten anybody but he would become uncomfortable with children running around him so we never allowed any child to go near him regardless of who’s child it was or who was watching it. If we were stood in public and a toddler appeared from nowhere and was suddenly behind his back legs and he kicked that toddler in the head it would be my fault not the parents or adult supervising because I am the one who has put that child essentially in that situation by putting the horse in a public space and not being aware of my surroundings therefore I would be negligent and liable.

So you don’t blame the parent at all? It’s fine to just let.a toddler run around unsupervised by the adult who is meant to be looking after them?

OP’s dog was under control. The fault is with whoever let the toddler be out of control.