Was this dog owner being unreasonable - or is this normal dog owner behaviour????

[joshandjamie]

Frankly if I am being unreasonable in my thinking, I don't care.

So this afternoon I'm down at the river playing football with my DSs, using our jumpers as goal posts. A dog comes along and starts ferreting around our things (I was on the phone to husband at this point - he is abroad and he rang for a quick chat before boarding his plane home, so I was watching this all, but from a slight distance).

The boys stop their game and wait for the owner to call the dog off. We'd had several doggy interruptions and we always stop so that the owners can call their dogs away instead of overexciting the dog by kicking the ball around. My boys are also slightly anxious around dogs as we've never had one.

This owner does nothing but is watching the dog from about 20 meters away. The dog then lifts its leg and proceeds to pee all over one of our jumpers - I was at this point trying to wave at the kids to get them to lift the jumper up. The boys just stood there shocked. The owner watched all of this, came up to the boys and said rudely: 'What's the problem, he's not going to bite?' And then sauntered off.

I was still on the phone but think even if I hadn't been, what would I have done? Dogs are dogs, they can't control where they pee. But for the owner to do or say nothing, and then be rude to my kids because they were standing there looking stunned? Knobhead.

I was in a group of dogs at the weekend and one of them ran a bit down the field and 'retrieved' a sock from the game of football that was in progress. The owner of that dog did what any 'normal' owner would do, got the sock from the dog and returned it to its owner, with apologies. It might have been a bit damp but at least it wasn't peed on. Completely unreasonable attitude - and if you have a male dog (or some females) you can predict that this sort of thing might happen and therefore take action before it does (we have suggested to a toddler's parents that it might be a good idea if she didn't jump in the next puddle along from the one she was jumping in as my dog had just wandered in, drunk a bit and then topped it up herself...())

That's awful.

My dog once cocked his leg on a poor woman in the park. Thank god she was a doggy person and was understanding, said dog was old, blind and more than a bit stupid but I was beyond mortified.

Of course YANBU! The owner was completely out of order. He should never had let the dog sniff your belongings not least of all because sniffing is often followed by peeing for scent marking. I would have been mortified if my dog had done that.

I was just toying with the idea of getting the boys to pee on the dog.

How odd. No not normal. So you think there is a chance that the owner didn't see him peeing

Maybe the owner's embarrassment made him defensive, but I'm shocked at that. It seems nobody pointed out what his dog had done so perhaps he didn't see and just saw a group of you standing there not saying anything.

Most people have regular places they walk their dogs so it is not without the wit of man to think 'kids often play football here, I'll put Rover on the lead' so that Rover doesn't go running over to play. That's what we do.

Have you thought of getting some of these www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/sports-cones as goal markers instead of using clothes? I'm thinking of the low conical ones, not the mini traffic cones. They don't cost much and are light and easy to carry.

I work as a dog walker and I think this person was very rude not to call the dog back.

Dogs will be dogs - they can behave around humans and other animals in a way that is not meant to be irritating/frightening, but it is ALWAYS up to the owner to ensure, to the best of their abilities, that this doesn't happen.

I tend to always keep my dogs on a lead as that way you have good control over them.

By the way, yesterday, I saw a bloke watching his dog poo in the park and he didn't even clean up after it. Unbelievable. I would have confronted him but got into a row with him some time back because his dogs attacked my dogs and this guy has a filthy temper.

This morning I walked into some shops past an owner tying up a dog, they also put a filled bag of poo (clear mini plastic bag) next to the dog. When I came out of the shops the dog had gone and the poo bag had been left. There's so much poo across the pavements where I live, it makes it a nightmare trying to dodge it with the pushchair.

Yes! I was walking my dog the other day ( carrying my bag of poo till I got to the bin) and a young ish woman wandered across the village football field ignoring her Labrador who was doing the most enormous dump on the field. I handed her a poo bag with a smile ...

Some dog owners think they rule the park unfortunately. I've always loved dogs, and not been nervous around them. Teach my children to be confident around them but always ask before stroking and always hold out their hand to sniff first. Lots of owners have commented to me it's nice to come across children who aren't so timid.

Last week in the park however, I had my baby in a sling and a terrier came bounding towards me at full speed barking loudly. It uncharacteristically made me very uncomfortable, I think it was the barking and I was scared it was going to jump up and scratch the baby's legs with it's paws at least, or frighten her or grab her legs. I called my older daughter away from it. The old lady owner didn't call it away even though it was obvious I didn't like it as I was half running backwards away from it. just shouted out 'she's FINE' and eventually when she had casually caught up to the dog, 'she won't hurt you'. Then she said really snottily 'Only people who don't use the parks much want them on leads and just don't understand they are harmless'. Cheeky cow!

I would have pretty much let the owner have it, probably risked arrest for losing my temper and then be full of self- loathing for having a confrontation. That's the way I usually roll!

YANBU at all! I often wonder what this type of dog owner would have to say if I let my kids jump up at them or pee on their belongings?

The problem is once the leg is cocked there's bugger all you can do about it. How do your stop anyone, dog or human, peeing in mid flow? When my dog has done this (rarely) I've apologised profusely but I have to say I wouldn't offer to pay for anything.....it's only a bit of wee after all. Not the end of the world.

Yuck. You can't stop it mid-flow but you can prevent it from happening in the first place by taking responsibility for keeping your dogs away from other people and their property. If you don't do that, you should certainly offer to pay. It's disgusting to expect people to have to carry home property soaked in dog wee and then have to clean it themselves. A lot of people don't like dogs. That's why we don't have them. If you like them and choose to keep them, you should respect other people's desire to be as far away from them as possible and call them back if and when they start to approach others - BEFORE they have a chance to frighten or alarm them or damage their belongings.

Oh my f-ing G!
I caught the tail end (as it were) of my dog wearing on a jumper-goalpost a few years back. The game had been abandoned so none of the kids were present. However, I approached every group of mums and kids in the park until I found whose jumper it was and offered to take it home and wash it.

The mum was v grateful but said she'd bag it up and wash it herself...much less hassle, but thanks for telling her etc etc..

Not normal behaviour at all.

YANBU, he's a prick. But I would have hung up and helped my kids out if I were you.

When we were about 8 and 11 my sister and I were having a picnic with our Nana. We were horrified when a couple let their dog out of their car whilst they opened their flask and had a nice cup of tea.

The dog made a beeline for us and poo'd in my sister's sun hat.

That wasn't what caused us the most embarrassment. What did was my Nana's reaction.

She picked up the hat, walked over to the car and dropped the poo through the open passenger window, saying something like 'your dog dropped this in our hat' - well bellowing it actually.

We died/cried with laughter and horror, they called their dog back and drove off. My Nana dined out on that one for years!

Yanbu.

I would be mortified if my dog did that and so apologetic!

I'd be furious if someone else's dog did that to me as well.

In his 14 years on the planet my dog has pee'd inappropriately a total of two times. Once on a fish and once on a someone else's dog. Had I anticipated it I would have called him away. I've been caught unawares twice in more than a decade... Mea culpa, accidents happen. It's only a bit of pee...not the end of the end of the world.

Where are the threads on MN complaining about cats peeing and shitting indiscriminately in our gardens??

NB doesn't excuse the dog owners bad manners, of course. He's obv an arse.

John

The cat threads exist. They are hilarious!

Football, isn't it? Mmm? Jumpers for goalposts? Cheezypeas at half time, mum's at home making the tea... Mmm?

Aaaanyway.... YANBU. Jerks like this are really starting to make people rail against dogs, which is very sad for those who actually do bother to correctly train and control their pets.