was ibu to have said something to the vet?

[bubbub]

was going to collect dd1 from preschool with dd2 who has a dogdar of 20 paces, she is dog mad! screaming dogdogdog before ive even had a glimps of a tail.
we stopped outside the vets waiting for another mum to finish at the shop when a guy comes out the vets with a huge husky dog on a metal chain lead, dd goes into meltdown, dogdogdog!
yes i say, lovely dog.
the dog walks calmly about half a foot ahead of the man, who screams at it, then whips it with a metal chain on the face!
im stunned and dd goes silent.
guy proceeds to walk, then whacks the gog in the face with the chain (a hefty chain) again, this time i really didnt get what the dog had done wrong. dog whimpered. dd starts to cry.
so i popped into the vets and said, im sorry i know this is none of my buisness but the guy with the husky that just left just hit the dog in the face twice with a metal chain, and i felt i had to say something, it wasnt a light tap and it worried me, she said really condesendingly, yeah, i saw, he is just controlling the dog, its perfectly normal" and laughed.
so i appologised and went (didnt have time to say anything eles as had to get dd1)
i dont know what i expected but is this really normal behaviour condoned by vets?! is that what it takes to tain a dog? i dont have one so i dont know.
i just worried that if thats how he treats it in public, what does he do behind closed doors, but also thats the kind of behaviour that would make a normaly docile dog turn into an agressive dog? was i unreasonable to say anything? or were they unreasonable for kind of laughing at me?

YANBU. Horrible man, stupid vet. Dogs do not need to be whipped with a chain to be trained. Better to train them through rewards than through punishment and make them vicious.

Not sure what you can do about it though.

vet? vet receptionist? I can't imagine a vet would condone that treatment (although no one should of course) but I can see that a vet receptionist might not have the same feeling of "duty of care" to an animal.

And no it's not normal - if the person who had seen it happen had any compassion and any sense, they could have reported him to the RSPCA as they have his details. You don't and unfortunately can't do anything about it.

YANBU :(

That is no way to train a dog. I suspect that guy may have been watching too much of that utter twat Cesar Milan, aka The Dog Whisperer and is trying to assert his alpha-dogness which is all a complete load of bollocks and has been utterly discredited but no time to go into that now.

I would bypass the receptionist and ask to speak to the practice manager / managing vet / whatever. He should be reported.

Id have said something to the dog owner. Id have asked the vet to to ring the RSPCA and report him. I hate cruelty to dogs.

I've answered this on the other thread! Vet can do nothing unless approached directly by RSPCA!

No, you don't need a dog license anymore. OP, think you should just ring the RSPCA yourself. But you should complain about the attitude of the receptionist.

If one of the receptionists at my vet had seen someone hit their dog like that then the RSPCA would be the least of their worries.

Due to client confidentiality, we can only report abuse/ cruelty if we have strong grounds for doing so, otherwise a well-meaning vet could be struck off, especially if the RSPCA subsequently prove nothing and drop the case, as is likely in this instance unless the dog has physical evidence of abuse.

If the OP reports to the RSPCA, and they decide to proceed, the vet could, after discussion with the Vet Defence Society, release the clients details to them, but not before.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that I do not condone this kind of training, it's highly unlikely that the RSPCA would pursue it, unless the dog was visibly scarred, or they received further reports about this person. Despite the incident the OP describes, the dog could otherwise be very well cared for and loved, and the vet's evidence of regular treatment vaccinations etc could actually go against any case for abuse.

Sadly the RSPCA (and vets) see so many cases of real abuse and neglect, that unless this is part of a bigger picture and backed up by physical evidence, they will know they haven't a hope in hell of prosecuting. Even some of our worst cases have a pretty unsatisfactory outcome when they go to court

I would get in touch with the local dog rescue home for advice and maybe they can 'pull some strings' well done you! that poor dog to have yelped shame it wasnt me walking behind him! obviously if you had your child with you you did the best you could and reported him...not impressed with the vets though he'll prob be back there soon to have the poor dog PTS because the dog has 'turned' on him. I wouldnt let it lie though. Please update.

I think Cesar Milan has a lot to answer for as his method of abuse training appeals to thugs like this guy who are attracted by the thought of being a 'pack leader'. Twunt.

The thing is, as I said on the other thread, we don't know what the OP saw vs what the vet/ receptionist etc saw. And it is a snapshot.

It actually happened to us once. We arrived at the park, DH and me and the dd's, who were babies, and the dogs. Our now old-dog has always been pretty daft, and when DH opened the boot, he had escaped from the travel cage and jumped out and legged it to the nearest road. Dh ran after him, grabbed him by the collar and brought him back, whereupon a woman came across and gave DH a mouthful about "dragging" the dog by the collar. She was F'ing and blinding in front of the children, jabbing her finger in DH's face and calling him a wanker. I tried to explain that I would rather the dog be "dragged" than hit by a car, but she started on me. It's pretty hard for a 6' man to hang onto a smallish dog by the collar without it looking like dragging. And I guess the effect was made worse by DH muttering angrily at the dog, but it wasn't abuse, and I was hugely upset by the whole thing, which took place in front of my children. She saw a snapshot and decided we were horrible dog owners. We are not. Our dogs are really well cared for. Old boy is nearly 16 and incontinent- I won't put him to sleep because he is happy, even though I am cleaning up pee and poo several times a day and he doesn't even seem to know who I am But I love my dogs, although to that woman we were horrible people , based on one incident that she completely misinterpreted