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AIBU?

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Original poster

SHould I report neighbours dog for this?

242 replies

tundrah · 03/09/2015 16:46

On sunday my little boy (2) sneaked in to the neighbours garden. The neighbour let his 5 dogs out and they surrounded my boy barking, snapping and snarling at him. The dogs are not very well trained but usually the neighbour would call them back. This time he made no attempt to call them back, I had to grab my boy who was bawling and shaking like a leaf. The neighbour jsut gave me a foul look.

I am constantly telling my boy not to go in there, he is well aware he shouldn't. THE only good thing is he might not try to get in There again. I am absolutely livid that the neighbour seemed to be letting his dogs scare my child like that!

Should I report it?

there is more to the story, too. We are farmers and our fields surround these neighbours, I have also had 3 sheep killed and 7 aborted since these neighbours moved in. I have reported the worrying to the police (you should always do that) but I don't know for certain it was them. Judging by Sunday I have suspicions now that it was them.

OP posts:
SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 03/09/2015 18:58

Also, the bull may have been in a field. Or it may not have been in a field. It's Schroedinger's Bull.

Oysterbabe · 03/09/2015 18:59

YABU.
The dogs did nothing wrong, they just barked, whereas you let your 2 year old sneak / sprint / wander / whatever onto someone else's property.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/09/2015 19:02

Why isn't the dogs' owner getting more criticism for not calling his dogs off?

Even if the OP is the most neglectful mother and the most careless farmer ever, and the boy trespasses in the garden on a regular and frequent basis, it's still not OK to stand and watch your dogs surround a small child, growling and barking - and that is what the OP said happened.

00100001 · 03/09/2015 19:02

I don;t think anyone actually think the man setting dogs on a child is acceptable.

what they saying is unacceptable is your complete lack of personal responsibility for your own child in this situation and refusing to see that you could have prevented this.

What did the other person who you were talking to at the time say about the incident?

Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost · 03/09/2015 19:04

Couldn't agree more, Genius.

00100001 · 03/09/2015 19:04

^^ lighthouse and Genius

londonrach · 03/09/2015 19:10

Lighthouse and genius swap the word dog with river, pond, tractor, sharp instrument... Dogs sound very well controlled and trained if just barked. A river, pond wouldnt be... Hopefully op has learnt from this and not put her child at risk on a farm.

StayWithMe · 03/09/2015 19:15

I find it very hard to believe that the man stood there while his dogs terrorised a small child. Does anyone actually believe the neighbour would put a small child at risk? I think there's more to this bovine feces story than meets the eye. Hmm

Oysterbabe · 03/09/2015 19:15

Maybe he knew the dogs weren't a danger and wanted the op to control her kid.
She said that he used to think it was cute but recently doesn't want him in there, which makes me think it's not the once in a blue moon event she later claims.

NotMeNotYouNotAnyone · 03/09/2015 19:19
  1. The dogs, in a pack in their own territory didn't touch the child
  1. I suspect the man didn't realise what they were barking at. Dogs bark at anything. My dog barks at his own farts.
  1. How long did op leave her son in there fgs?
SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/09/2015 19:22

As I said in my first post, in a perfect world, the ds should not have got away from the OP - but as the mother of three boys, I know how even the most vigilant of parents can slip up.

Is there really any parent who can say, with 100% honesty, that they have never, ever taken their eye off their child, even for a moment? I can't say that - mine have, on the odd occasion, actually got away from me - it only takes a moment's inattention. Dh and I have managed to lose ds3 in Bluewater shopping centre and ds1 in Harrods. I don't think we are bad or neglectful parents - and all three have made it to adulthood, largely unscathed.

But the dogs' owner should still have called them off the child. Even if they were only barking and growling, and were well trained enough not to attack the child, does that make it OK to stand and watch one little 2-year-old surrounded by barking, growling dogs?

He's not going to have known the dogs wouldn't attack him, and I bet the poor boy was terrified. Why is it OK that the dogs were not called off?

Happfeet2911 · 03/09/2015 19:26

The dogs were barking at an intruder on their property, what on earth do you plan on reporting him about. If you can't stop a 2 year old wandering next door you probably need reporting!

PuckyMup · 03/09/2015 19:27

I think people are reacting to the fact its on a farm more than anything else - a momentary loss of a child in a shopping center is not nearly as potentially fatal as one on a farm - slurry pit, electric fences, animals - so many more ways for it to go wrong, and then I tihnk it got worse when it seems the child is "known" for bolting etc

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/09/2015 19:28

NotMeNotYou and StayWithMe - the OP said this:

"...This time he made no attempt to call them back, I had to grab my boy who was bawling and shaking like a leaf. The neighbour jsut gave me a foul look."

People are prepared to believe the things the OP has said that paint her in a bad light (the things suggesting her boy has got into this garden before, or does it often etc) but disbelieve this part? I think you either trust all of what a poster says or disbelieve it all - you don't pick and choose the bits you believe (unless you have factual proof that the poster has lied or made a mistake - note - factual, not supposition).

morecoffeethanhuman · 03/09/2015 19:29

Well i have indeed read all ur posts and am actually rather literate. From ur op & following posts, I can clearly see, you my dear r bullshitting -u are clearly changing ur details to fit hoping to gain some sympathy. Regardless of bulls/boundaries, u still let urself be distracted enough for ur known bolter...to indeed, bolt......u stuck, he's 2 - watch him!!
Poor kid will do himself an injury, like a pp said if that guy had a pond would it have also been his fault if ur DS had fallen in??
In regards to dog behaviour, they behaved pretty standardly & u cant prove why they were let out. For instance, my soft as shit lab barked at the back door last week, so I let him out - not realising next doors kid had climbed the fence. May of looked like i let him out due to the child, however i thought he needed a wee/needed to tell a cat to piss off. However fred was barking and growling at said child as, as far as my dog was concerned we had an intruder! There is a picket fence separating my garden in two so dog wasn't able to get near child, but due to growling barking bear of a dog the child burst into tears, I called dog in as child climbs back home pretty quick sharp - ten minutes later said Childs parents knock my door APOLOGISING as their son was in the wrong, didn't start passing blame that the consequences of their lax parenting was some how my responsibility to control!! No one told me my dog was aggressive, they were just very sorry their son was so rude.
So my point of this huge post is yes urbfu - u had a parenting fail & that fail scared ur boy. Stuck it up and learn from it - don't try and pass the buck!

SmugairleRoin · 03/09/2015 19:32

Well...yes the man should have called his dogs off, obviously.

But your child should not have been in there, to a dog that is someone intruding on their property. Dogs bark at anything and the fact that they didn't bite makes me think they were simply warning him off. Of course, you can't expect a two year old to know that! Poor little kid.

Go buy some toddler reins or something if you see your child going into their property becoming a regular problem. Particularly if you are out around a bull - the results of slipping into a field with a bull will be much more dangerous than a few dogs barking.

Lurkedforever1 · 03/09/2015 19:38

Can only speak for myself, but the reason I'm being so arsey is because the op is endangering her child by not supervising him on a farm. As far as the dogs are concerned it's so far behind the actual danger the 2yr old is in its inconsequential, even if you assume the neighbour did it intentionally. I can only assume people sympathising with op have no idea that actual farms aren't like petting zoos.
If it read 'aibu? My habitual bolting toddler ran off yet again and when I found him he was in a garden, some 6yr olds were scaring him running past and shouting. Their parents should have prevented it. I wasn't there myself at first cos I was filling the car with petrol as we were at a mway service station, with very easy access to all 6 lanes of traffic when he ran off'
Would anyone be agreeing that op is nbu? Would they fuck.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/09/2015 19:43

Morecoffee -'the difference is that you called your dog off - the owner of the dogs in the OP didn't.

I've had a similar thing happen - next door's teenager came over our fence to retrieve a football - we don't mind him coming in to get them (though we'd prefer it if he used the gate) - and ddog2 ran out, barking madly - and he hurtled back over the fence. We got the dog back indoors at once and apologised to him and our neighbours for the fright she gave him, and they just laughed and said it was fine - they'd never seen him move so fast.

IMO, the man would not be at fault if he had a pond and the OP's son sneaked in, fell in and drowned - but to me, what actually happened is more like the OP's son falling in the man's pond, and the man standing there and watching him struggling in there, getting distressed, but doing nothing because he doesn't think the boy is in any danger.

HackAttack · 03/09/2015 19:45

Both of you behaved badly, you should have had some kind of restraint for your lo, especially considering this has happened before.

Your neighbour should not have capitalised on your laziness and fecklessness by scaring your two year old.

Your poor kid, I hope you feel terrible, good luck reporting dogs for not being able to recognise an inadequately supervised toddler!!

WeirdCatLadySaysFuckOffJeffrey · 03/09/2015 19:47

It's nothing like him watching the child drown at all Hmm The dogs didn't touch the child, nor did they attack the mother when she eventually went in to retrieve her child. They barked. That is all they did.

SnowBells · 03/09/2015 19:47

Tundrah

YABVU

It is your duty to look after your child. This time round, the 2-year-old just wandered in a neighbor's garden. What if your child wandered into someone's barn where horses are kept, and he was kicked by a horse?!?

My neighbors have a dog. It barks. It seems to have a lot to say. Once, it came over to our garden. Still barking and wanting to seem like a big, angry dog. But as it was a dachshund, I picked it up, and handed it back to the owner. Dog was a darling.

As a dog owner myself, I know they can bark without ever intending to attack. That's not what the Dangerous Dog Act is for.

StayWithMe · 03/09/2015 19:48

STDG

I don't agree that I should either believe all or nothing that the OP claims. She would not be the first person to chop and change her story to gain sympathy. I'm not one for jumping in and making accusations, but I still find there are too many inconsistencies in her tale.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/09/2015 19:56

WierdCatLady - I deliberately didn't say it was like the OP's neighbour watching the boy drown in the pond, I said it was like him watching the child fall in and struggle because he believed the child was in no danger.

StayWithMe - fair enough, you don't have to believe all of the OP's postings - but it does seem as if people are believing anything that paints her in a bad light, but disbelieving anything that suggests that the neighbour did anything wrong - that doesn't seem fair to me.

definiteissues · 03/09/2015 19:58

So let's get this straight.

You have a neighbour with dogs you know are aggressive.
You have a boundary which you already know your child can and does cross when not properly supervised.
Your 2 year old child is prone to running off.

So while near the holey fence you were not watching properly because you were too busy chatting despite knowing all of the above.

Seems you are unreasonable, not the neighbour

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/09/2015 20:04

The OP has said that the access point that the child used is between the neighbour's garden and a forestry track, so maybe that bit of boundary is not her responsibility.

Maybe she should contact the forestry authority (I assume someone has responsibility for the track and its boundaries) and ask them to fix the gap.

I have also just notices, on rereading some of the OP's earlier posts that the neighbour used to think it was cute when the boy sneaked in, and used to encourage him - and now he's standing there, watching as his dogs terrified a small child.

Yes, the OP should have watched her son, especially as he is a bolter, but that doesn't excuse the neighbour standing watching a two-year-old being terrified by his dogs.