To have kicked an old man’s dog?

I'm interested in your definition of physical harm @Kariksalomna .

OP has multiple scratches on her shoulders and back and a bruise on her shoulder.
One of her dogs has a cut on his mouth and chin.

Doesn't matter if the dog was friendly and just wanted to play. By most people's definition, he caused physical harm to others.

Cos there wasnt physical harm? Or a suggestion of it? Or the dog trying actively hurt op or her dogs? It all seems a bit of a drama to me, and the witness being concerned about op's behaviour also tells something. Anyway I'm bored, sorry, bye.

That wasn't a legal situation. If it was op would probably lose given two eye witnesses critiquing her aggressive behaviour. Not that I think police would be interested realistically in a situation where there's no dog attack but a dog wanting to play and was rough. Agree that the dog should have been on a lead but don't agree with fork pitch yielding posters literally wanting the dog to be kicked and egging on the OP saying that was the right thing to do.

So, yeah, it comes to agreeing or disagreeing "I'm afraid", so best to stop acting all judge Judy. You agree all you want, I'll disagree all I want 😂

BTW In the case of the person I replied to, the "eye of the beholder" was seeing something imaginery, as in bones being broken and op being knocked over. Which isn't the case if you actually read what she wrote. I am afraid...

Also, @Kariksalomna , your definition of physical harm is interesting. You said that OP physically harmed the dog by kicking it away, but also are relying very much on the lack of harm to the OP. How is having a dog jump up with paws against her, trying to get to her dogs, not physical harm, but a kick to the dog is physical harm? There’s no evidence of serious injury from either. (And, btw, this is good evidence of the OP’s credibility, because she could claim injury if she was minded not to be entirely truthful).

So how come one is physical harm and the other isn’t?

Whether a dog is friendly or dangerous is in the eye of the beholder I'm afraid.

You can disagree all you like, but you don't override the law.

Your dogs were under control, on a lead. His dog shouldn’t have been off a lead if it approaches other dogs and has crap recall (or if he can’t be bothered to recall it)

I hate people who allow their ‘but they’re friendly’ dogs to bounce up to mine. One of my dogs isn’t friendly so he’s always on a lead. I don’t want my dog to bite, or to start a fight, so therefore I do what I can to avoid the situation, but if another owner doesn’t care, then what? . I don’t know if I’d kick another dog if he wasn’t actually attacking mine, but I’d certainly push it away and would be bloody angry at the owner.

Why is it unfair to not let dogs be off lead and enjoy the walk and socialise (yes I was told this once) but it’s totally fair to let my dog be stressed by the situation I can’t control because the owner is irresponsible 🤷🏼‍♀️

I don’t understand the logic of owners who don’t train their dog but then get annoyed when someone reacts to their dogs poor behaviour. The situation is created entirely by bad owners who get cross when your dog has a go at theirs, despite asking them to recall the dog or put it on a lead

Completely missing the point the pp is making, that those things could have happened, and in the moment what is the OP supposed to do, wait to see if she topples over and then complain about it? You have the very great luxury of hindsight that she didn’t get knocked over. She didn’t have that luxury. And I come back to and defend what I’ve said before, that the friendliness or otherwise of the dog is not something OP should be expected to judge, and not something that really makes any difference to her right to respond with reasonable force.

Op doesn't say the dog knocked her over or broke her bones, exaggerating much to make a point there are you 🤣 devils always in the details and you're kind of filling those details in from your imagination. But hey thanks for your nice wishes. And no, kicking a dog in these circumstances (the ones mentioned by op, not the imaginery ones) for me is not justified. we can keep going back and forth if you like, we won't be agreeing, but no worries.

I do hope no "friendly, harmless" large exuberant dog knocks you over, and breaks bones because it is out of control and you are not supposed to take action to make it stop.

The animal was out of control, off lead, and dangerous. Taking action to prevent it from further damaging the person it was already damaging, or causing more harm to a small elderly on-lead and under control dog it had already harmed, was completely justified.

Nope not black and white, cos a-dog was being friendly, b-op was physically harming the dog by kicking it. Won't agree to it, don't care, sorry.

The OP was caused alarm and distress, and physical harm as well.

The dog's motive for its behaviour would have made not a ha'p'orth of odds if its "enthusiasm" had caused a broken bone to the OP or a serious injury to one of her dogs, would it.

So the case is precisely that black-and-white; the animal should not have been being allowed to roam at large to cause alarm, distress and physical damage to anyone unable to get out of its way.

Don't agree it being so black and white like this occasion clearly demonstrates sorry, I guess many people think the same.

Not the point of the post. The poster said people don't understand dogs, op has two dogs

Unfortunately did the right thing. Any dog that causes alarm or distress means the owner is legally breaking the dangerous dogs act. If they cannot control their dog vocally then you have every right to defend your dogs space. If their dog is off lead they are automatically in the wrong if not under verbal control

Whose dogs accosted nobody. And since they were being kept on the lead, were extremely unlikely to do so.

Yeah but op is also a dog owner 😂

You don't know what ops behavior is like either... That's how it goes with these posts. Noone witnessed the thing here so you go by someone's version of events.

No you should not have kicked the friendly dog and I’m not surprised those who witnessed it are pissed off.

Are you ok?? Her dogs were on a lead. How dogs should be. And even if this particular area allows off lead walking, your dog must have good recall to be off lead. The greyhound, friendly or not, was not being controlled. The greyhound should be the one in a private field if it cannot control itself around other dogs. Jumping all over someone, jumping up and getting into other dogs faces when they a giving a clear indication they do not like it by growling shows the greyhound doesn’t have appropriate training to be off lead. The op has every right to walk her dogs on lead in the wood. She’s taking appropriate measures to keep her dogs away from others knowing their nature. Any normal person would have picked up their dogs and protected them/themselves with reasonable force if a big dog started running up to you, jumping at you and the owner was not near enough to control the situation. In those instances you have seconds to decide. She didn’t know the nature of the dog.

if this is somewhere you regularly walk and it’s small and local enough you feel like you might come across the same person again or people may recognise you as the person in the post, I would comment with your side of the story. If not, just forget about it. You were in the right as your dogs were next to you on leads and his dog wasn’t and had no recall.

People shouldn't have to understand dogs! They are domestic animals that people choose to own. Fine for the owners but other people should have the right not to be accosted by dogs while going about their lawful business.

If I may paraphrase what you’ve said there in quite a long post, essentially it’s OP’s fault for picking up her dogs which in your book was the wrong thing to do? So that caused the dog to jump up, and therefore OP doesn’t get to kick the dog. Is that roughly it?

None of it is OPs fault, the fault lies with the shitty owner.. the escalation of the loose dogs behaviour was caused by OPs response.

If she hadn't have panicked and picked her dogs up, the dog wouldn't have jumped up her, she wouldn't have had to kick it to get it off. Cause and effect.

Unfortunately you have missed the point of what I said, because you are still saying if the dog was aggressive or playing it would be the same end result.. it wouldn't, this dog was boisterous and playing, not aggressive.. even OP herself has said that, it really is not up for dispute.

If it was aggressive I would say she was justified in kicking it, all day long, but it wasn't it was excited, and a different response from her would have had a completely different outcome, which was entirely with her control (and safer for her and her dogs too)

If I may paraphrase what you’ve said there in quite a long post, essentially it’s OP’s fault for picking up her dogs which in your book was the wrong thing to do? So that caused the dog to jump up, and therefore OP doesn’t get to kick the dog. Is that roughly it?

I disagree with raking over every little detail of what she did to make it her fault. She reacted instinctively and reasonably imo, first seeking to block, then when the dog continued and trod on one of her dogs, picked them up, then only resorting to the kick when the dog jumped up with it’s paws all over her. I’m struggling to see at what point she could have walked away, the dog must have been upon her very quickly.

You can disagree of course, but I’d appreciate not being told I’ve ‘completely missed the point’ when I’m addressing the question of whether OP was justified in kicking, and expressing the view that whether we label the dog’s behaviour as aggressive or playful doesn’t change the position that OP acted instinctively and reasonably. That’s all very much on the point, thanks.

You're completely missing the point, I've got dogs, love dogs, hate idiot owners who let them run up to people, and badly trained dogs who rush up to other dogs.

But the intent of this dog is really crucial here because an excited dog 'wanting to play' (urgh!) and aggressive dog wanting to attack are two completely different things and need to be dealt with differently for OPs safety and for her dogs safety.. neither is acceptable, but it is a fact of being a dog owner unfortunately, it is very rare to have a loose dog attack yours, it will almost always be a badly trained dog pushing it's luck/wanting to play/being a knob.

Rather than taking people's word for it, why not just do a basic google search of what happens when you lift your small dog up when an excitable dog approaches you.. it WILL jump up you, jump around, bark at you, snap even, it's not aggression, it's excitement, your dogs may also go into a state of excitement, fear or aggression, which riles them all up even more, it's all a massive game. OP panicked and didn't know what to do, but she inadvertently escalated the excitement, which resulted in her getting clawed and her having to kick the dog to get rid of it.

If she had stood her ground, and physically blocked the dog, then walked her dogs away the loose dog may have tried to follow but would have lost interest, I've walked my dogs back to the owner before to expedite the process. By staying still OP let the interaction escalate, one of her dogs got hurt by rough play then she picked them up which then caused chaos.

Honestly, this has happened to me hundreds of times, I've had dogs for 30 years and my dog now is reactive of other dogs for exactly the reason above, it pisses me off every time, but I have to do this at least once a week, moving away breaks the focus of the loose dog, especially if it is being called back, and shouting at it / physically blocking it is a secondary option which I rarely have to use. I've never had to hurt an excited dog to get it to go away.

Because it made him incapable of controlling his off-lead dog or coming after it at any speed, perhaps? Or maybe because his age was a factor in his lack of control.

Since you don't know what the passing woman's usual behaviour is like, you really cannot judge her behaviour to be benign on this occasion. She might be the sort of busybody who just enjoys creating fuss and upsetting strangers, for all you know. Since she did not offer to help OP when the dog jumped at her,scratching and bruising her, and put its paws onto her shoulders from behind, nor even come over to the OP to ask if she and her dogs were OK after there was no danger from the dog any more, she is clearly not a person I'd want to rely on for anything at all except troublemaking.

And if she was so shocked, was she really too scared to berate in person at the time the five foot tall female OP whose arms were full of dogs? Obviously it was far better to vilify OP in a facebook post from the safety of her home later on.