To request that all parents please ask

[SunshineAndShadows]

... Before you let your child loose on a strange dog!

I was just out with my two hounds, both friendly beasts but bouncy when out walking and neither enjoy contact with children as they've had unpleasant DC experiences and will avoid them as much as they can.

Both dogs off lead but under control by me when I see a nearby mum release her toddler (very small, no older than 2) in my direction. He toddles forwards and I put a hand on each dog's collar so that I have full control (no time to clip on leads) and mum cheers him on.

I eventually have to do a crazy toddler knee block whilst holding both dogs and saying 'no' very firmly, which stops him in his tracks. Mum then comes over and stands there expectantly. I was wordless with astonishment and eventually she pulled him away saying 'oh dear, the doggies don't want to play'.

I felt like asking her if she also let him play with knives and electric sockets (but of course I didn't)

AIBU to expect that my dogs and I should be able to walk peacefully without attacks from uncontrolled children?

the bags would have been a pain with or without a lead.

Seek, you're still not getting the point that dogs can be scared of / upset by toddlers. Just because there isn't physical injury involved doesn't make it ok, a point that you seem to concede given your example of a dog scaring (but not mauling) your child.

And your (general your) out of control kid is not more important to me than my animal.

Your repeated assertions about the lead make no sense either, as everyone has explained over and over.

If this actually happened
My point is that I think this reads like quite a carefully contrived way to defamiliarize the much more often seen scenario in which a dog walker hasn't put his/her animals on a lead and a parent on MN asks if they are being unreasonable to wish they would, as their toddler found the approach of a large animal alarming

Nice troll hunting there Seek Please feel free to report me rather than make snide insinuations- I doubt you'll get anywhere.

Also please feel free to point out where I suggested that the toddler might in anyway physically harm my dogs? I haven't and of course that was not the point of my post. As discussed in previous posts I used the word 'attack' because from a dog's perspective that is what it may appear to be, and that may result in any dog at close quarters with a threatening stimulus, feeling the need to defend itself, which can have devastating consequences both for the dog and the toddler.

I'd like to avoid that situation occurring and so I do think its important that parents consider such interactions from the dog's point of view, even if you find the description of the toddler's actions in such canine terms really distasteful I'm not clear on why this is so offensive to you?

If I'd had my dogs on leads they would have been a metre and a half ahead of me and would have had contact with the toddler. A lead is not a magical control device that inhibits canine fear or aggression. The key issue is where dogs are under control or not, and mine were

Its also worth adding that whilst this was the most astonishing example of idiocy I've encountered in a while, children attempt to touch, chase or otherwise interact with my dogs on pretty much a weekly basis, lead or no lead, and it's really important that they are taught that this is not appropriate, which was the point of my post.

Sunshine I don't think you're a troll and I'm never interested in troll hunting.

What I do think this is that this is framed in a very specific way to make a specific point, and I don't care for your rhetoric or indeed your wider point - so yes, I do think you are BU (as you posted in AIBU - you get that people might think that, yes?).

Most posts on MN are going to be framed or embellished - it's the nature of the beast. Acknowledging that isn't troll hunting, and taking issue with what does seem like, to say the least, a very partial representation of circumstances is all part of engaging with the question Am I Being Unreasonable.

I find your talk of 'attack', 'release' etc distasteful because children aren't dogs.

OP has used the term 'attack' as from the dog POV. And yes children can attack dogs. Not saying that this has happened here but for a dog a toddler coming up to them could be seen as a threat. Especially is the dog is unsure round children

If I was carrying a bag or bags of shopping, I know what I'd choose between holding a lead in the other hand and two dogs' collars at close quarters!

OP herself has compared the dogs to 'knives or electric sockets' - I wouldn't let my child play with those any more than an unknown dog. But I also wouldn't take knives to a public place, and if I had to, I'd keep them very, very, close by. Not wait until a foolish child approached them before I got around to holding them safely.

And when it comes to 'physical injury' there's no 'just because' about it being involved. Physical injury is worse than no physical injury, so yes, a dog feeling anxious really doesn't register as highly with me as injury of a human or indeed an animal.

I just teach my dc to ignore all other people and the giant furry creatures parading beside them.

Misanthropic isolation has so many benefits.

ShowOfHands

Seek no one is suggesting that dogs are children

However there's a large body of scientific evidence that demonstrates that vertebrate animals (and even some non-vertebrates) are sentient, and thus capable of a wide variety of emotional experience including anxiety. Recognising that fact does not diminish in any way the experience of a child or equate dogs with children, it simply current scientific thinking. My point is that by considering events from a dog's perspective we can mitigate risks to children - is that not a good thing?

I'm still confused as to why you think a lead would be a better option than me holding my own dogs at close quarters? Restraining them at close quarters allowed me to reassure them more effectively and restrain any movements they might make, boisterous or otherwise towards a very small child - I'm unclear as to how a metre and a half of flexible lead would have allowed me to do either of those things more effectively?

Also please can you point to any of my posts where I say my dogs were not very very close by? If you read what I've written, you'll see that they were.

It is of course you're prerogative to consider me unreasonable, but I'd have to assume that in that judgement, you're considering any person with an off lead dog in a non-child friendly environment unreasonable, since that seems to be the foundation of your argument.

seek appears to be bloody well right and no amount of logic will change her mind.

I'm still confused as to why you think a lead would be a better option than me holding my own dogs at close quarters?

because you were forced to suddenly hold them at close quarters, in a reactive way and under stress - you had to act quickly and hold them tightly, from what you're saying, and that doesn't seem like a very sensible contingency plan to me. Especially as you were carrying other stuff, having to stand in front of them, and 'knee block' the child. I don't think I've said they weren't close by, so no worries there.

I don't know what you class as a 'non-child friendly environment'?

But a dog on the lead has more freedom than a dog held by the collar, so the OP's dogs were actually under more control than if they'd been on leads.

Ok, what was she supposed to do if the dogs had been on leads, rapidly dance backwards away from the advanced child? Ignoring the fact that the dogs would have been 3 feet in front of her if on leads and therefore CLOSER to the child (that kept advancing)?

She saw the child before it was three feet in front of her, right?

Yes, a dog on a lead has more freedom than a dog held by the collar but these dogs were not held by the collar until the moment of crisis. I think that's risky behaviour. As indeed is letting a child run about in that fashion . Especially when there are 'bouncy' unleashed dogs around.

the OP's dogs were actually under more control than if they'd been on leads

Again - yes, they were. Once they were being held. Not before. And she had to find away to hold them under duress and very quickly. Not clever.

throws up hands

Umm... there's an awful lot of assumption on your part Seek and not much actual reading of posts - I did not grab my dogs to me in a stressed way .

As I've already described I called them close, crouched and held their collars after praising them - what's not sensible or calm about that? I'd have had to use my leg to block the child regardless as I'm not Inspector Gadget and if I was holding leads, my arm wouldn't reach beyond them to stop the child. Additionally, if my dogs were on leads and suddenly yanked back to restrain them, that would be stressful. The addition of a lead to this situation does nothing to increase safety.

By non child friendly-environment I mean the edge of the car park where this took place, since if you read the posts you'd see that was the context of this encounter, and was one of the reasons that my dogs were under close control, unlike the child.

dog feeling anxious really doesn't register as highly with me as injury of a human or indeed an animal

Ok, so where shall I start....

1. Dogs are animals
2. Humans are animals
3. Both humans and dogs are mammals
4. Children running up to a dog can frighten it in the same was as a dog running up to a child can frighten it = same physiological response in dogs and children
5. In the dogs case they react to fear by appearing aggressive when, in fact they are shit scared
6. This can then lead to dog harming child
7. According to the law of the land that would then potentially lead to the poor animal being put down
8. A horrible, aggressive, animal harming child however can continue to grow into a horrible, aggressive animal harming adult.

I have kids. I have dogs. My dogs love my kids, they don't love yours. So please, keep them away because actually I care about your kids not being harmed as much as I care about my dogs not being harmed.

Some of the anti-dog nonsense on MN is really beginning to irritate me.

There was no duress, reactivity or stress - that's complete imagination on your part.

My dogs are actually trained to respond to calm verbal instructions - I didn't have to wrestle them to the ground!

God. even when controlled that's not enough on MN. seriously. how do people still manage to find fault even when a person is acting responsibly.

In defence of some of what Seek wrote, you do write in a certain rhetoric (whether you mean to or not). You either consciously or unconsciously equate the two species.

It is entirely possible to read it as an agenda. Which of course it is. You are, after all, asking something of the parents on here.

Take it as a compliment. Your love of dogs screams out from your very words.

I suppose the fact remains that the vast majority of, if not all, MN users know not to let their children approach unfamiliar dogs and you're preaching to the choir. Better to educate the ignorant individual you meet in rl. It's the same the other way round of course. People start threads saying 'aibu to ask all dog owners to control their bloody hounds' (of course we've all seen those threads too). Well, nearly all, if not all MN users with dogs already do that but the thread will start with a tale of a 'big slobbering beast' and cowering toddlers and nobody actually on the thread has ever wandered around with an unleashed out of control dog but it descends into a silly bunfight over dog ownership where everybody gets cross, nobody wins and the ignorant few are still out there, tickling dogs not their own or releasing wolves at babies (I forget the exact exaggerated rhetoric at this point).

I like to think that in general Mumsnetters know what constitutes good dog and child ownership and all these threads ever result in is a lot of bad feeling and sniping. Quite simply, some people don't really like dogs. Some people really like dogs. The magic of the Internet transforms this into some of the biggest fighty threads I've ever seen. In fact somebody once threatened to find out where I lived and to come round and rough me up because I didn't agree with her premise that we should hang people who mistreat animals. Of course I don't believe in capital punishment at all but Internet + dog = madness.

There is little point arguing here.

One person believes that dogs should be on a lead next to a car park.

One person believes that dogs shouldn't have to be on a lead next to a car park.

It's a difference of opinion. Neither person is actually right. Only right according to their own firmly held convictions.

Let's all enjoy the fact that it isn't raining. Perhaps go for a walk? Not near a car park?

Where's Olivia with her peace and love?

Thanks Show and sorry if it wasn't clear - the point of this post was to highlight the risks of letting your child approach any dog - even apparently friendly ones, and also to express my own frustration (of course!) not to start a bunfight.

For what its worth I live in a fairly naice area, where you'd assume a good level of education, and yet these types of interactions occur on a weekly basis, so I'm not convinced that all Mumsnetters do consider this (if we assume a broadly middle class demographic).

I guess if I'd posted 'IABU to walk my dogs off-lead in a child unfriendly environment' I'd have a bit more understanding of some of the responses, but I do find it strange that its the off-lead issue that's a problem for some posters, not the control of the dogs or the behaviour of the mother in this situation. Its a bit of a weird 'box-ticking' perspective. On-lead = safe, off-lead = unsafe, which seems nonsensical to me.

Op there is an easy solution. Poll your entire area and find out what time any lunatic precious parents would prefer you to walk your dogs. Probably it will be about 3am. Then walk your dogs only at that time. Out of consideration, remember to use muzzles, pop them in a crate, and drag the crate with a lead.

Also stick up flyers offering open dog grabbing with your contact details. Thus when some entitled parent wants their offspring to manhandle your dogs, you can arrange to meet them at a location of their choosing. That way you won't need to take them anywhere in public that might upset the sensitive.

Obviously if your dogs aren't happy being walked in crates or mauled by kids, they are vicious and dangerous.
Far more reasonable for you to go to this little effort as you've chosen to own dogs, than for some poor parent to have to supervise their toddler or teach them respect for animals.