To not understand what this parent was thinking?

This!!

I still just cannot fathom what the mother was thinking, allowing her toddler to run up to a strange dog who was obviously eating/drinking, get nose to nose with him to try to grab him, and then send a second child over after she's made aware he is not a friendly dog?

She didn't 'allow' her child to run over to you, from what you have said she was walking ahead chatting and wasn't paying attention to the kids at all, complete parenting fail obviously. They wouldn't have come back to you, because idiotic parents like this don't want to be told they are idiots, so the other kid came in.

You are both massively catastrophising this though to be honest, this sort of thing happens from time to time, especially when you have a cute/goofy dog, it is up to you as dog owner to deal with it swiftly and efficiently, no fuss, no muss. Unfortunately you had a lapse of attention too, so it got too close for comfort, luckily nothing bad happened though.

I appreciate it was a surprise but I do think it was handled pretty poorly, with two of you there, you should have been in a position to block and move your dog away rather than put your hands on the child, that really is a last resort option (especially with idiotic/volatile parents), which just prolongs the interaction, the better option would have been for you daughter to intercept when she noticed the child, and step in between the two of them, which would have served to push your dog's face to the side, and to have blocked the child without having to grab his hands, if she had done that nothing could have happened, and you could have just led your dog the other way while she blocked the child/children, you certainly shouldn't have just stood there while the dog then 'had two kids to contend with'.

There was no need to touch the child or say so many words to be honest, just 'no thank you!' and blocking/turning away is sufficient, the whole interaction was blown out of proportion, I've had dogs all my life, you need to learn to calmly deal with unwanted attention for their own safety and for your own peace of mind.. you can't control what other people do unfortunately.

I don’t think anybody on this thread has supported the parent though? She was clearly being extremely irresponsible, next to a very busy road too. That is obvious.

I dont understand some people. I've taught my kids to always ask first and keep a distance until you have permision, also they go most places in their scooters and they either stop until the dog has gone passed or go real slow because we've discovered alot of dogs dont like things with small wheels. The point is the parent was NOT parenting! Its dangerous.

Its always the same , any thread about dogs and we get the self righteous brigade banging on about how awful dogs are and they all need muzzling . Why don't you read the OP and go from there, in this case OP did nothing wrong , neither did her dog . The parents were at fault for not watching what the child was doing , maybe we should muzzle the kids or at least keep them on leads !

So many people have missed the point of this thread entirely. Forget the dog. He's irrelevant.

Imagine if the thread was "toddler stops to talk to strange man and he takes toddler's hand and begins to walk away. 8yr old is sent to retrieve toddler"

Or "toddler tries to enter building site and 8yr old is sent in to get toddler".

The thread is about a toddler being unsupervised to the point of doing something potentially dangerous (even if OP's dog was Nana from Peter Pan, interacting with a dog you don't know without permission is ill advised) and the only intervention comes from another young child who should never be parentified and told off for not watching their very young sibling properly.

I don't even like dogs but can't see how any of this is OP's fault.

Happily . . .

You are obviously nervous about how your dog may react around a child. I understand that as I have a massively nervous cockapoo. But i would say it’s equally your responsibility to watch out for kids coming up to your dog and react in the way that your daughter did. It could have easily been a kid out on there own. In my experience there is a lot of people that just assume that dogs are friendly.

This was typical bad parenting. Why is a small child walking along a pavement without holding their parent’s hand?

I often see parents walking 30-40 feet behind their young kids along a busy road. Sometimes the kids are running with a football at their feet or cycling. My heart is in mouth but the parents are oblivious.

that said - I wouldn’t own a Rottweiler either but that’s a different question.

Can we extend this to teenagers?

If your dog has any unpredictability at all around anyone it should not be out in public without a muzzle.

How the law might apportion blame if something goes wrong doesn't change how parents and carers should act to keep children safe.

Hang on, any dog who is surprised can behave in an unexpected manner because they were scared - and some dogs (and horses, and people), have much more developed startle reflexes than others. The OP’s daughter did do what they needed to to keep the toddler away but also, toddlers are FAST when they want something so it’s not that surprising that they didn’t see them coming.

Ultimately the parent should be teaching their child that they CAN’T approach unknown dogs without their owners’ permission. It is not safe. It’s not safe with the most loveable soppy Labrador who has raised generations of their owners’ children and wouldn’t hurt a fly - because at the end of the day, they could still kill them if they decided to.

So many ignorant comments. Does it matter if he’s a rescue or not? Any responsible parent would not allow their child to approach a dog regardless of the situation. They’re not toys. If a dog is not used to being around children and the way they move and behave differently to adults then why is it their fault if they can’t manage it. It’s not. Entitled adults

A lot of dogs are wary of kids. Noisy, unpredictable fast moving, space invaders. I wish more people would realise this, especially if the child is a stranger to the dog.

Sensible dog owner behaviour from someone who clearly understands their dogs signals and won’t push him to the point of discomfort. Ignore some of the idiotic comments on here!

He’s not unpredictable though? The owner knows he is wary of kids (predictable), but she didn’t ’predict’ that a poorly supervised toddler would be up in his face like that.

I love dogs, though the kids have allergies which makes that difficult now unfortunately. Love children too.

I don’t know what you mean about trying to stir up trouble on dog threads.

@Galtymore seems to be very opinionated on dog threads, trying to stir up trouble? 🤔

This is the weirdest hill to die on. ‘Human mature’ allows for quite the wide range of immediate responses, and I’d trust the daughter’s report of her own over the opinion of a someone that doesn’t even know her.

OP and her daughter were responsible here. The person who wasn’t was the parent of the toddler.