AIBU to be upset after a dog jumped at our baby?

No, I’m not insane. I simply disagree with both your characterisation of what happened and your extremely confident interpretation of the law.

If anything similar happens again, do please report it and put your theory—that any physical contact between a dog and a baby automatically constitutes an aggravated offence—to the test.

Love how completely unhinged the comments got on this - knew it would.

They told it to get down, is kept at them, so they physically pushed hte dog away wit their foot - better than bend down and get headbutted by a strange dog.
It had 0 recall, 0 manners, 0 training. Definition of not under control off the lead. It caused alarm - which doesn't matter if its growling or happy, its the alarm felt by the person the dog is getting at. Dog owner probably would get a fine.

My horse once got chased by an off leash dog that jumped up at it...dog got a swift kick in the guts from the horse - which just reacted as any prey animal would to a perceived predator.

Letting the badly behaved dog jump all over the kid would be bad parenting. That would possibly make the kid scared of dogs - it did for my youngest. I will pet all dogs, OH is a dog magnet, but people having dogs that don't respect boundaries and have 0 recall is why my youngest dislikes dogs. Despite all our attempts to change that.

Completely the right reaction, if a dog approaches my baby and I perceive it to be a risk I’m going to kick it.
My baby is more important than any dog.

Dogs should be leashed or under complete recall control in public.

We can only hope she doesn’t have a dog. But I suspect she does and, like an astonishing number of dog owners (not all of course) believes that the law doesn’t apply to her because her dog is generally good natured. Or is very fluffy?

You are incorrect I'm afraid.

Physical contact with an infant does not automatically constitute an aggravated offence.

The CPS guidance states: “The offence becomes an aggravated offence … if the dog injures any person or an assistance dog while out of control.”

There needs to be injury for an aggravated offence.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/dangerous-dog-offences

The dog could be considered deangerously out of control if there were reasonable grounds to fear injury, but that is a context-dependent assessment - so I suggest you test things out in practice to learn how it is applied.

I’ve read OPs posts which include her responses to comments & they’re getting some flak here! I’ve been a dog owner for over 25 years & it always astounds me those owners who let a dog with poor recall off lead.

OP if I’d been in the same situation with any of my grandchildren I’d have done the same as you did with a persistent unknown dog. And fwiw a ‘kick’ doesn’t mean the dog was booted into orbit, more a foot to move/keep it away as a last resort. The OP doesn’t need ‘training’ in how to react to a persistent dog.

Six of one and half a dozen of the other.

It is true that the dog was out of control according to the 1993 Act. It is also true that you may have genuinely believed that the force you used was necessary. That is how it would be applied. (We can agree or disagree whether it was or was not necessary, but the law works on the force that was reasonable in the circumstances as you honestly believed them to be

It was not an aggravated offence though. @KellyK2026 stated: "The dog made physical contact with my infant child several times… contact is enough [to make it] an aggravated offence.”

This is not true, legally. The CPS is very clear ... as follows: "The offence becomes an aggravated offence, and triable either way, if the dog injures any person or an assistance dog while out of control." (see link below, under section titled: Evidential considerations – dogs dangerously out of control (all dogs)".

Put another way - Under s.3 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, there is a basic offence where a dog is dangerously out of control. It becomes an aggravated offence if the dog injures a person while dangerously out of control. The CPS expressly describes it that way.

So:
physical contact ≠ automatically injury.

You're sort of right and ... also not right at the same time!

link here ... see if this time works
\

Wow ...that's quite a drip feed!

One which page of the ten pages of OP's posts was this revealed?

It's a significant enough detail to be in the first one or two posts.

ETA- it also doesn't make your statement of "contact is enough to make it an aggravated offence" suddenly correct. Contact alone is not an aggravated offence according to the CPS. (It's still not good in polite society of course, but it is not an aggravated offence)

What are you talking about?

I was simply correcting completely ridiculous claims you repeatedly made about the law. Namely - that any physical contact between a baby and a dog constitutes an aggravated offence under the dangerous dog act. That is wrong and silly.

Now on page 35 of this thread you've decided to suddenly claim that the dog injured your baby.

I have nothing to say to that - I think it speaks for itself.

ok

ok 😂

Of course you’re not unreasonable. And I say that as a dog owner and lover.

my dog is friendly and loves being petted and fussed. She’s very good with kids. However I will only let her interact with older children say 3 up (between 3 and 6 or so if VERY closely supervised by me and the parents with my dog on a very short lead) who understand ‘be gentle, don’t pull her tail’ etc. I’m very nervous of her near babies and toddlers. I’m sure they’ll be fine but at the end of the day both can be unpredictable and I don’t want to take the risk the baby might poke her eye or something and she’ll respond by snapping. Also she’s a border collie and medium sized, which is quite big next to a baby. It’s not worth the risk. The baby could be hurt and/or traumatised, my dog would be put down, and both myself and the parent could never get over it.

Whether it is friendly or not doesn't matter. It was out of control according to the law.

Your language is very emotionally intense, naturally of course. You are a mother to a young infant and you were frightened. ETA - you used the force that you deemed necessary at the time which is entirely ok and fine according to our law.

You appear to be insisting that any contact between infant and dog will always result in scratches which is obviously emotionally overwrought and not entirely true.

It is possible a dog could touch a baby without leaving a scratch. In this instance however, it did leave a scratch, which could potentially constitiute aggravated offence?

In other words, moving from “the dog touched my baby” to “the dog scratched/injured my baby” is legally significant.

I notice you have also gone from "jumping up" to "lunging".

It must exhausting being in a courtroom all day debating nuances, subtly of language, reasonable force etc. No wonder they are paid so well.

As Aristotle once said (I'm not high brow, anyone who has watched legally blonde will know this one) - "The Law is reason free from passion" - which is how this debate of the legality of wording has ended up unfolding!