To think parents should teach their children how to behave round dogs

[Xihha]

There have been a few posts lately about people needing to control their dogs more (and I agree, if you cant control our dog and clean up after it then you shouldn't have a dog imo), but is it unreasonable to expect parents to teach children to be a bit more careful round dogs?

Whilst walking my dog (on his lead) a child who looked about 10 ran up and stuck his head in my dogs face to make a fuss of him whilst i was picking up doggys poo, without checking if it was ok, there have been other times kids have just walked up and started pulling doggy around, this sort of thing happens a lot, especially in the summer when there are more kids out playing and the parents rarely say anything about it.

It's not really an issue with my great soppy lump of a dog because he loves kids and will put up with anything for a bit of fuss but shouldn't these kids know that you should check with the owners before approaching strange dogs and that even a nice dog can get pissed of if you start pulling it around?

Interestingly, for all the talk of leads being definite protection against dog owners being held responsible for their dog's actions:

This government website:
www.gov.uk/control-dog-public/overview

states clearly
"Your dog is considered dangerously out of control if it:

injures someone
makes someone worried that it might injure them
A court could also decide that your dog is dangerously out of control if:

it injures someone?s animal
the owner of the animal thinks they could be injured if they tried to stop your dog attacking their animal"

Pretty clear cut and no "extenuating circumstances" mentioned at all.

Donnadoon, your assertion wrt children not interfering with each other or taking each other's toys is not borne out by my experience of bringing up five children in a built up area with playgrounds, sandpits, public swimming pools and nice library with children's reading floor.
If a puppy is off lead during recall training then he is not under control at all times.

SaintlyJimjams, the rules about property owners' responsibility wrt attractive nuisances on their land were designed with trespassing children as the main potential victims in mind for hundreds of years. The potential of children to trespass is renowned.

LtEve, if you take an animal out in public and have it off lead, the public is either correct in assuming you are completely in control of the dog or it is not correct.

If correct then what is the problem? If incorrect, and the dog is not completely under control, then you should never have taken the dog out in public. (By public I mean any place the public have access to including MOD land that is inadequately fenced and unsecured/unguarded as you have described the land you exercise the dogs on). For the purposes of liability, access is the key, even access that constitutes trespassing.

The MOD owned land that I use, and have permission to use is securely fenced, less two 5 bar gates that have a HUGE "MOD Property NO unauthorised access" sign attached. It isn't locked, because locked areas have to be patrolled and guarded and we (the unit 'we') no longer have the security staff to do so. None of this makes any difference where dog bites are concerned, and since there were people there that you didn't expect to see when you took your pups out then you should expect to encounter people there on a regular basis.

For the purposes of understanding responsibility, being out of doors and away from your own secure and inaccessible private property means you are responsible for anything your dog does to any person or their property. This includes bites and chewing of handbags, peeing on and ruining personal property, etc. The reason this is so is because you are exercising a privilege, not an untrammeled right, to bring a dog out in public, and complete control of your animal is required so that you do not impinge on the rights of people to enjoy the outdoors.

A dog is not a person and does not have rights accorded to people. A dog is suffered in public under certain conditions.

If you do not own private enclosed land then maybe you should rethink the decision to work with dogs or own dogs. Members of the general public do not owe you any cooperation when you decide to impose your animal on them during training or exercise.

I think it behoves all the complaining dog owners here who want people to make allowances for the fact that their animals' behaviour is a work in progress to remember that children are also undergoing a period of training and that in the case of children this period can be lengthy.

Saintly -- one step forward and six steps back applies to children too.

SN/NT is called a 'spectrum' for a reason. There are no neat boxes.

Chiggers, the muzzle and lead were factors in the judge's decision. A lot of dogs out and about are neither muzzled nor on leads. Dog owners here on this thread have scoffed at the idea of muzzling and are insisting that responsibility lies with parents of children only.

The judge in your anecdote implied that dog owners have a responsibility to keep their dog under control and found that they had fulfilled their responsibility:
Judge found that my friend did what was more than reasonably expected in order to keep the child from getting bitten and that the parents failed in their duty of care to keep their child adequately supervised under reasonable control.
What the judge was saying there was that the dog owners have responsibility. Your friends exceeded the requirements. There are reasonable expectations of precautions on the part of dog owners. Although you do not report what exactly the judge had in mind, the owners here had a lead, a muzzle, dog was right beside them, they told the child not to poke its fingers into the muzzle, they moved to another table and they told the parents what was happening.

The judge committed the parents to education so that their child would not be endangered as a result of their ignorance or fecklessness as parents. His decision had nothing to do with any harm the dog might have come to as a result of contact with the child.

In all circumstances, the safety of the child is paramount.

This is borne out by GoshAnne's links.

LtEve, you should not use MOD land for training potentially dangerous dogs on. If members of the public have access to it (even if they are trespassing) and if you deal with dogs from a shelter then you are being irresponsible and the MOD may be liable for damage done by dogs you are working with. The ideal place to train puppies or work with shelter dogs is your own private and secure property

Don't tell me what I can and cannot do out of your own sheer arrogance Mathanxiety. You are NOT in the forces, you have NO IDEA what has been agreed. I am NOT irresponsible to ensure that dumped and abused animals are properly retrained and rehabilitated so they can go on to their 'forever homes'. I am fully supported by the local dog warden and Community Police Officer.

ALL MOD Land can be patrolled by Attack Dogs, at any time. Even land that is inhabited 24/7. Because we have dogs on site we get a 20 minute warning that they are going to patrol, so we can toilet out dogs then keep them in. If we didn't, and our dogs or ourselves were attacked WE would be liable, even though we have permission to be there and it is where we work.

Mathanxiety you are making yourself look ridiculous with your assertion and conviction that you CANNOT BE WRONG. You are so obviously wrong in this case, but you just can't let it go. I wonder, you sound so very similar to the abusive/NPD types that are posted about in Relationships. One of the 'Red Flags' indeed.

So I think I'll leave it there. You cannot be reasoned with, and this is no longer fun, just sad.

I don't know math, I think if you ignore keep out signs and wander onto MOD land, the odd puppy is the least of your worries...

I think in the kind of case talked about here it really comes down to not interfering with somebody else's property, whether that's their fishing line, their scooter, their spade in the sandpit or their animal. Of course children sometimes make mistakes. However, when they are with a responsible adult who will intervine to apologise if necessary and manage the situation this isn't a problem.

I think the parks and outdoor spaces you go to must be very different to the ones I have visited/live in. In my experience, every body has to live and let live, so for instance cyclists, runners, footballers, rugby players, cricket players, picknickers, bird spotters, people fishing, horse riders, and children on trikes all share the same space; and you could remove all the dogs and there would still be cows, ponies, horses, deer, sheep, donkeys, sometimes pigs, squirrels, pigeons, seagulls, ducks and swans; and an out of sight child could be near the sea, a stream, a river or a pond (with or without ice), or climbing up or toppling over rocks/a cliff.

Of course fenced off children's play are relatively safe, but they don't allow dogs.

I really don't see why it should be such a problem to teach your child to check before approaching a dog, or if a child has absconded and is a bit unpredictable, actively check that they aren't being annoying and apologise if they are, just out of politeness.

Good post merrymouse

Possom18 that is so sad about your dog, your cousin is exactly the type of child the OP is referring to, your Aunt was an ass!!

Janey - we all agreed that days ago, except for those who keep insisting that dog owners are responsible for other peoples children as well

The agreement of a few dog nuts on a Mumsnet thread is irrelevant. The law is what you need to understand.

39 pages on some people are still in dogged denial and living in the world they want to, not the real one, I don't think anything anyone can say is going to change that ( though I'd bet their real life behaviour has changed, threat of a fine probably concentrates even minds like these....)

I never got a chance to teach my children to be "nice" to dogs before ruddy animals ran up, knocked toddlers to the ground, another time a bunch of dogs ran up, stole sandwiches from our picnic blanket, jumped into pram with baby in it, started rutting each other while haring round barking; another time the dog owner screaming at me that it was his right to have the park for him and his dog and we should leave. Led both DTs to have huge dog phobia, wouldn't go to forests, on country walks or to hampstead Heath. Only getting better now. YAbu to talk about parents having any responsibility whatsoever regarding your dog. You choose to have a dog, your job to protect children from that dog. Of course it's great if parents do teach children this but and a very good idea if they do - that is different to calling it a responsibility to do so. Like having a car - its a dangerous thing that parents do need to teach their children about but ultimately it's up to you to drive carefully!
Time and again dog owners would be totally precious about their digs, how they wouldn't hurt my child , while my children are in meltdown, screaming with terror, thrusting their dog at us, saying look? He won't hurt you. Offended like, that my children could be scared of their dear dog after the experiences we'd had.

Math - you're not really trying to teach me about autism are you? As well as being a parent of a child with severe autism for many years I am published in the area. Like I said I'm happy to educate, but I don't bother unless people are interested.

Forget dogs, why not send your kids trespassing across MOD land and see what happens to them. After all you're all for them learning from their mistakes. Some sites could be particularly interesting.

Actually, I don't think the law does allow you to interfere with other people's property.

Obviously you're not going to call the police if a toddler nicks your ball/pulls your dog's ear/runs off with your scooter, but you would expect an "oh I'm awfully sorry" from the parent and a display of willingness to grab said toddler.

You then say "oh don't worry, I have children myself"

It's just the kind of social interaction that makes the world go round.

Children of 10 or more who are out on their own and don't respect other people's property are likely to be regarded as brats, and, if not taught how to handle random animals that they encounter, might eventually meet the police.

Balaboosta - ds2 used to be terrified of dogs to the point that he was no longer invited to friends houses (they all had dogs ) because his reaction to seeing them was so extreme. The very best way of dealing with this was to teach him how to behave around dogs & to understand dog behaviour/communication. Dogs are fairly prefictable and easy to read (compared to a cat or horse anyway ime).

We didn't have a dog until recently but the biggest problem for ds2 wasn't those that bounded over (yes he over reacted, & made the situation worse & yes it would have been better had they not bounded over but each interaction only lasted a minute or so at most). A much bigger problem was the pet dogs of friends who were just bring friendly in their own homes. Ds2 had to learn to cope with dogs or he just would never be able to visit his friends.

Possum - I'm interested in how your cousin is as an adult? Still not your favourite person I guess

Math - do you know what MOD land is? You sound a bit erm uninformed. There are slightly more dangerous things than rescue dogs on MOD land surely? If my kids trespassed on MOD land I'd hit the roof & not because of a few rescue dogs being walked there.

"The agreement of a few dog nuts on a Mumsnet thread is irrelevant. The law is what you need to understand."

That was me agreeing with a non-dog owner, did you not actually read it? I'm sure she's delighted to be labelled a dog nut.

The law is irrelevant, the question as posted in the OP and that the people who keep banging on about safety, liability and legal rights to interfere with other people's property safety is...

whether even with an under control dog, who did not bite, supervising children and teaching them to behave politely is in fact within the remit of expected parenting.

You can change that all you want to include all sorts of different scenarios which may or may not be to do with safety or the law - but that doesn't mean that that then becomes what is being discussed by everyone else.

Imagine if the OP had just simply posted
" please control your kids folks, please don't allow them to pull my dogs ears and bark in his face, it's bad manners, thanks"
Replys to follow
" erm, fuck you, my kid can do what he likes to your precious dog"

Gosh I know it seems unusual and I didn't believe it at first either. Everything I know was passed on to me by my friend (I wasn't in court with her as I was working and couldn't get time off) and it wasn't a crime as such, but the judge deemed the parents as neglectful because they had not taken appropriate steps to ensure their child's safety around the dog. They didn't call their DC back or go and get the child to remove them from the situation, despite being asked to by my friend, so the judge ordered them to go to parenting classes as he must have seen a need for it.

The judge even said that my friend had gone above and beyond taking reasonable precautions to ensure the safety of people as much as can be expected, so he wasn't going to order said dog to be PTS. From what I've been told he ordered the parents to attend the dog information course (hosted by the main police dog handler for my area) because he felt that it would benefit the parent to be given info on how to behave around dogs and what is likely to happen in different scenarios. This course was oversubscribed, so it was quite popular with dog owners and people who don't own dogs.

All this has been confirmed by another friend who was in court that day.

Obviously I wasn't in court, so I don't know the intricate ins and outs of the case, just the basics.

Donnadoon that would at least have been a shorter argument...

Chiggers- the child would need to have committed an offence though; for a parenting order to be imposed.

(I am not suggesting the child was anything other than bloody stupid btw, clearly the child and parents were in the wrong in this case: I am just a bit confused about the situation you describe)

donna yes but there is a massive difference between stopping your kid doing something because it is impolite and hurtful even, and stopping your kid doing something because it will put the kid in danger.

The difference is that mistakes and unforeseen incidents are liveable with in the first case and not at all in the second.

I can and do work hard to make sure my DD is not a pain in the ass, and would never consider it okay to do something that might hurt a dog. That is all fine. What I find hard to deal with is the attitude that should she slip, or trip up or make a mistake then she deserves to get bitten.

In general if I don't think my DD can 100% be trusted in a situation where she could get seriously hurt then I don't put her in that situation. If people are going to take dogs that can't be trusted not to bite even when a child is not actively doing anything wrong into childrens play areas, then that means that until I can be certain my DD can bike, scoot, run, jump, play with no possibility whatsoever of tripping up and ending up accidentally in some dogs no go zone, I can't let her out to play. This I really resent. Because it isn't my decision to keep dogs like this, and yet it is suddenly my problem.

If this was about politeness and boundaries of personal property I would have no issue whatsoever....but it isn't.

And for the love of god don't suggest dog free play areas...because 100% of the cases in which my DD as thus far encountered dogs have happened in dog free areas of the beach and dog free playgrounds....because I don't trust dogs near my toddler, and I don't trust my toddler near them yet...so obviously I stick to the non-dog areas....

ICBINEG I agree with everything youve just posted
But Oh my gosh where have you been told that your dd deserves to be bitten if she trips or falls ? thats just hideous!
I think at times this thread has strayed massively off topic
the OP was referring to children approaching her dog without permission and antagonizing it, not the other way round.

Balaboosta We have all said that it is our duty to keep our dogs under control, what we were asking was that kids don't run up and wind our dogs up.

I agree with you about some dog owners being pretty annoying with trying to force children to pet their dogs though, there's a lady near us with a little Chihuahua that's forever trying to get my daughter to stroke it and just can't get that dd doesn't want to. (dd likes dogs, she just isn't interested in small dogs plus she is convinced that Chihuahua's are a type of rat )

I hope your children grow out of their phobia soon, it can't be easy for them or you.

A dog that can't be trusted not to bite if a child falls near it isn't one that should be anywhere near children...nobody's disputing that.

If a dog is even slightly likely to bite a child because it accidentally gets too close while going about their own business then again, the dog shouldn't be anywhere near children.

Bear in mind that the dog owners have children too, we're not talking about dangerous dogs, we're talking about family pets who live with children.

I keep my dog out of reach of passing children because he likes them and wants to say hello, but I know that not everyone wants to be greeted by an over enthusiastic dog. Children walking past or playing are only ever going to be able to touch him if they actually want to...I don't see why it's so contentious to ask that they do it nicely, but judging by this thread it clearly is.

Agree tabulah.
I just wish other dog owners could see sense like you.
It's not even just an issue of whether a dog is harmful- as you rightly say, people have a right to walk down the street without a passing 'friendly' dog sticking a slobbery nose against their coat (something else which has happened to me on occasions- and I bet the owner wouldn't be too pleased if my passing child has grabbed their clothing with sticky hands!)

Having a dog isn't compulsory. It you want a pet dog, you should only get one if you are able to train it properly, away from the public, and if , when it is trained, you continue to manage it properly. Dogs such as guide dogs or hearing dogs are of course different from someone choosing to just have a pet, but IME these are likely to be the best trained and behaved anyway. Any other sort of dog is a choice and I really do not understand why anyone would choose such a pet if they don't want the responsibility which goes with it