"It's ok, he's friendly!"

[daffodilandtulip]

Out walking this morning and I've heard the ultimate ridiculous excuse for not training your dog: an off lead dog jumps up at me, snarling and barking. Owner "we didn't see you there, you scared him."

Over the past week, we've had:

"He just wants to say hello", whilst jumping at a terrified, crying toddler.

"He won't hurt her, there's no need to be scared", whilst face to face with a dog the height of toddler.

"I'm not taking him on the road, he'll be scared", regarding the chiwowa IN THE OWNERS ARMS, whilst trying to make me walk three toddlers on a main road in order to pass.

"You'll have to get off the path, she won't walk in the mud" - large Rottweiler, in a children's park.

"He doesn't bite, he'll just jump up".

"Whatever's the matter with her?" said about toddler who has just been knocked over by a large dog and dog is remaining towered over her.

And obviously, a million and one of the "it's ok, he's friendly."

I've also got scratch marks down the entire side of my leg from trying to drag a "friendly" dog off my own dog's neck.

He's not friendly. It's not ok. Stop looking at me like I have three heads when I ask you to move the dog away from the child. Control your dog or use a damn lead!!

Fully fully agree. My DH always lifts toddler up when we are out and dogs are near. In my mind dog owners who say these things are absolutely barking mad themselves. It's disgusting. I'm also very sick of dogs not on leads. I have to put up with dogs coming near me when I'm out and about. Hate them and their selfish owners.

For what it's worth, when dogs have been too close to me in the past and the owner hasn't called them after I've told them too, I've found that a kick usually helps

It depends on where the park is re regularity of offending. Mine’s a semi-suburban small park in North Manchester, so lots of dogs cooped up during the week. Sunday mornings are especially bad for it.

Totally agree, the behaviour of dogs and their owners has totally put me off ever owning one. To the point where I don't even really like dogs anymore and don't want to be around them (I know they're not all the same and there are nice ones etc but it now seems that's the minority)

For context I worked in animal rescue for years and used to love the idea of having one once my cats had passed on

You’re completely right. It’s not friendly. It’s rude. I have two dogs. Trained not to approach anyone unless they are invited over. If we meet anyone nervous I hold them or get them to stand by me until the person has passed us. Dogs shouldn’t take precedence over people.

You know exactly what the OP meant.

Your attempt to make yourself appear superior has the exact opposite effect, sadly.

What is the best way to deal with harassment from dogs?
I'm thinking don't engage with any of the excuses and firmly say 'keep your dog away from me please'

Totally agree OP and there's no etiquette of seeing if your dog is on a lead that they get there's and pop them back on the lead 🤬
Then some people have two dogs one on lead one off 🙄 mixed fuckin signals to all other dogs and owners

Those hinting at the OP exaggerating are being unfair. Your experience is not theirs. The OP is not suggesting their experience is yours.

On the school run this week, 2 youngish dogs jumped up ‘being friendly’ (making me muddy) and an additional one was off lead completely running amongst the children before the owner noticed. That was within 3 days of each other. I’m not sure dog owners notice it in the same way as those not keen on other people’s dogs.

If you don't read that with the correct pronunciation you're a much bigger idiot that you're trying to make OP look.

I live in a block of flats with a green area directly outside and people come from all over the local area to walk their dogs here. Most let them off lead as soon as they get here. The dogs crap everywhere and the owners - knowingly or otherwise - don't keep track of where their dogs are to clean up after them. The grassed area is intended as a play area for the DC who live here - when DD was younger she would often come in covered in shit which had been hidden in the grass. In the end we stopped her playing out at all.

Most of the parents here have stopped their DC playing out now because the dog problem has got much worse in recent years. Apart from the shit, dogs chase kids regularly and I've seen a couple be jumped on/bitten. I've also seen dogs attack other dogs being walked responsibly - when one owner complained to the owner of the dog who attacked his, he was punched in the face for his trouble.

I avoid the grassed area as much as possible and come in through the back door these days, having also been chased/barked at/jumped on more times than I can count.

100% agree OP. The entitlement of some dog owners is off the scale. But when I try to talk about the incidents my kids faced from dogs when young I get attacked on here by Devotees of the Dog.

So many dog owners seem to have no insight that big dogs, well any barking, snarling dog, is frightening to small children. In fact, they seem to think that the problem is your todller for being frightened, not their dog for being poorly trained and unleashed.

I must admit that I have started to think this too.

There is literally no park, woodland etc in the area where I live which isn’t overrun with dogs. I would pay good money to anyone who could direct me to somewhere I could walk and get fresh air or have a picnic with my kids that isn’t a ‘regular dog walking location’ 🙄 Please enlighten me as to how me ‘increasing my awareness’ will solve this issue? Sounds like what you actually want is for people who don’t like being jumped all over by dogs to get over themselves and agree with you that it isn’t an issue.

It’s really unpleasant to call people idiots because they don’t like that this country is now overrun with badly trained dogs off their leads. For every good dog owners there are 5-6 lazy and entitled horrors.

Kids growing up staring at screens inside is a massive, massive problem in this country and being totally unable to spend time outside as a family without dealing with a constant stream of dirty jumping dogs is really not helping the situation. Much as many dog lovers are disgusted by and dismissive of children that don’t adore dogs, lots of kids are genuinely and quite reasonably scared of dogs because, to them, they are massive. There’s also a lot of kids now growing up with a fear of dogs caused directly by badly trained dogs jumping at them, knocking them over etc and causing a long term fear. So the situation exacerbated itself.

I would honestly vote for any politician at this point who was advocating either designated dog free areas (effectively enforced because all dog free beaches I’ve ever seen are full of arrogant dog owners ignoring the rules) or preferably a requirement for all dogs to be on leads outside of designated dog walking spaces.

All dogs don’t need to be on lead. But they MUST be under control. If owners can’t or won’t do this then they should be on a lead.

I’ve a nervous dog and I’m starting to have a bit of luck by shouting ‘ddog, that dog isn’t lunch !” . People only care if they think their dog might get hurt (which is the risk of letting your untrained dog run up to my on lead reactive dog ).

So so many stupid people out there. I left teenage dd with ddog outside a nat trust cafe the other day while I went to get food and another owner purposefully brought his poo mix dog over despite the yellow no dogs vest and said ‘don’t be shy’ when ddog backed away.

I’m not at all polite anymore when people are idiots , I’ve had enough.

@TheChoiceIsYours if you're going to get offended at least read the comments I was responding to.

My initial point was that she should be aware of where the children were and pick them up or whatever to avoid dogs.

It was nothing to do with the dogs jumping up which I completely agree is wrong.

I also agree that everywhere should be on lead by default now, with maybe some designated off lead places. Rather than the other way around

@SproutingAbout not as daft as you look getting worked up about someone else being made aware of a spelling mistake.

And don’t get me started on the, to be honest borderline fucking creepy, dog owners who genuinely seem to get some perverse enjoyment out of seeing small children frightened of their dog. Smug smirking at a terrified toddler while their dog leaps at the child, no effort to stop it…I’ve seen it more times than I care to think about and I can’t help wonder what kind of psycho that person is.

If I see another dog coming or people approaching mine will go on lead until we pass. My dog IS friendly, but I don't know the approaching peoples circumstances- their child may be terrified or their dog nervous/not great with other dogs....but...otherwise she is off lead and always will be.

Totally agree. I'm sick of being made out to be the bad person as I don't want a dog jumping all over me.
My daughter has been shouted at for looking nervous near dogs - the owners about out "don't be scared hes friendly". I dont care if hes friendly I dont want him near my child.

They are everywhere now too. Local garden centre new rules and get them jumping up there to fgs!

Honestly if I picked my kids up every time a dog ran over to us, their feet would barely touch the floor. It’s not really a sustainable solution to a family who just wants to go for a walk or a picnic, is it? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to be able to go for a walk without being on constant alert and heaving two children into the air every few meters. It’s only in the last three years it’s so sad.

Oh I see all the disbelieving dog devotees have come out on this thread too, just like they do when I have posted about my experiences.

Look, when you have toddlers you do have a lot of these incidents, because big dogs coming up to tiny children is frightening and dog owners don't bother to try to come and retrieve their 'friendly' dog. I have also have experiences of dogs being aggressive to toddlers, in a way I haven't experienced as an adult and I wonder if some dogs just feel more emboldened to corner and snarl at a very young child. And yes, I have been there and no my child was not bloody doing anything to the dog or even paying it attention till it charged and snarled.

So just because you as an adult don't experience this, it does not mean parents of young children don't. So quit the pretence that parents of young children are making this up.

But how would a parent feel if someone kicked their snotty nosed cherub of a darling toddler?
Do I prefer dogs to people?
Yep. Every. Day. Of. The. Week.