To have kicked an old man’s dog?

Too many dogs badly trained off lead. That dog should not have come up to you. It was uncontrolled by the owner and it was jumping up on you. That's awful. I would have been going batshit at the owner for not controlling his dog.

What was she supposed to do? Situation was escalating and she needed to separate 3 dogs and only has 2 arms. I'm usually the first to say if you kicked my dog, she'd be the least of your worries but if the other dog is out of control, you do what you have to.

The dog didn't attack. Please re-read. So many assumptions in your post. The dog did not attack and there was no child! A non attacking excitable dog does not deserve a kicking. Grey area of animal cruelty. The man was obviously was also in the wrong.

Sorry but no. If your dog has such bad recall that you can't stop them from running up to other dogs on leads, then your dog shouldn't be off lead.

Kind of a roundabout way of giving an opinion but my view is that if someone steps over my threshold with evil intent (a burglar, say) that person leaves their rights on the doorstep and must take whatever danger arises as a legitimate consequence of their own action.

Similarly, if a dog who is unknown to me starts jumping either on or at me, the lackadaisical owner must accept that I will use any method available to me to defend myself from potential harm. If that means it gets kicked, struck or in any way walloped, again that is a direct consequence of the owner's own action.

So she should just leave her dogs on the ground to get jumped on/stood on? And possibly bite the dog in defence?!

FML, only on Mumsnet could you be in the wrong for moving your dog away out of harm!

This is exactly why you shouldn’t pick your dogs up. It makes you the target and the other dog starts jumping up at you.

I love dogs, all animals. But if my pet was approached like this with a dog off the lead, then no, not totally unreasonable. While the man's dog may be lovely, he doesn't understand dogs at all - because he's not appreciating that yours may not be.

You were responsible with your dogs on a lead, he wasn't. That's it.

If you put your leg out a greyhound will run into it. It might well have just run past you and it sounds like you actually created the whole problem.

My greyhound is very patient with other dogs and also not particularly interested.

I had an incident where a dog attacked mine, I kicked the dog to get it off. I reported the dog attack to the police, including me needing to kick it and there was nothing but understanding. They interviewed the owner and cautioned him. I’m in the UK.

Agreed. I don’t think you did anything wrong op.

If someone is holding their dog up off the ground to get it away from another dog who is jumping up at them, that person is well within their rights to kick it and defend themselves/the dog.

clearly the owner had zero control of their dog was jumping up at someone.

everyone saying the OP shouldn’t have kicked the dog, I presume you’d be fine if this dog jumped up at a child?!

And if I was the other person you would be getting a vets bill from me for a check that my dog didn't have any serious injuries. Dogs should be under control at all times, it could have been a child it jumped on if a child had picked up the dog and of course the op didn't know if the dog was friendly with people she had only seen it go for her dogs and jump at her it could easily have bitten her, greyhounds are hunting dogs remember, and some have had a rough life with bad owners.

Also OP, I think woodland is best avoided unless it's a strict on-lead site. The reason being that you can't get a good look around to see who's there and dogs can just suddenly appear with no owner in sight. Also best to avoid urban parks.

@Starlight7080
…Or did it shout as a natural response to having another dog playfully push its face down?

Presumably you wouldn’t minimise such behaviour if it was a man shoving a woman?

“It’s ok he pushed you in the face, he just wanted to have his bit of fun.”

Just because it’s only dogs getting harmed, it doesn’t give you any right to assume your dog can treat other dogs as their personal play thing.

Some people are absolute morons!

Your dogs were controlled
His dog wasn't (no recall = no control)
He was in the wrong
I'm so fed up of people that let badly trained dogs off the lead. I don't care if you think it's cruel, train your bloody dogs!

The dog was jumping up at the OP.
That's an out of control dog.

As far as the " frail old man" he'd be doing himself a favour to educate himself and the greyhound to avoid further incidents.

No dog should be off the lead in a public place.

I would have kicked it too.

Greyhounds are attracted by small furry things, I would have reacted the same way. I have a calm cockerpoo who would have been reactive if the same dog did that to him.

First post, unusually for Mumsnet, completely and utterly FAILS to nail it.

On no planet should the off-lead, out of control, zero-recall, RUDE dog be allowed to do whatever the hell it likes to any dog it happens to encounter. Including treading on it! While the small, elderly, on-lead and thus entirely under the owners' control dogs get banished to a secure field. You are so, so wrong on this and suggests that you are an irresponsible dog owner.

Let me guess, your dog rushes up to other dogs in public - including ones on leads - and you just shout, 'Don't worry, he's friendly!' and hope that nothing bad happens. Because you know you can't actually call your dog back to you reliably.

The law says that your dog must be under control in ALL public places.

Which means that, if you cannot stop your dog from rudely crashing into unknown on-lead dogs on the other side of the field with a verbal command, you need to USE A FUCKING LEAD AT ALL TIMES.

How? Like throwing a stone at it or something?

This is such a tricky situation.

My first thought was no no no never kick the dog.

But if my dog was being attacked by another dog, I would do whatever necessary to save my own dog.

It’s hard when you don’t know the people or the dogs so you literally don’t know what to expect when a dog comes bounding towards you.

YABVU the man was also BU, but you shouldn't have kicked the dog in that situation. There's kicks and then there's kicks and as it wasn't mentioned it sounds like it wasn't a gentle kick. You'd be getting a vets bill from me for a check to see the dog is ok.

Don’t kick the bloody dog,it’s not it’s fault it isn’t on a lead.have a go at the man.

Tbh, this is the sort of thing that people only 'tolerate' when it is either a small dog, or something considered fairly harmless like a greyhound. If the dog housing over and ignoring all social cues was 40 kg and black like our dog, the reaction tends to be quite different. But the root of the behaviour is the same