Who was unreasonable?

[FiddleWiddiRiddim]

Man and his son were in the park driving around two remote-control cars. A big dog was in the park off-lead, which is allowed at that time in the morning.

As they cross paths one remote-control car goes near the dog. Dog owner calls the dog over and tells the man and the son that the dog will pick up the car, run off and chew it if it comes too near him.

Man says "okay" and they move on.

Later, they cross paths again on a narrow path.

The dog owner calls her dog close as the man and his son get closer. The man/son keep their remote-control cars going as they pass so the car comes close to the dog.

The dog goes nuts, picks up the car and runs with it.

The dog owner calmly walks after her dog. The man starts yelling at the dog owner to get the car back. The son goes chasing the dog, which the dog completely loves and which gets the dog really excited meaning it runs further and throws the car around like a ragdoll.

After several minutes, the owner catches up with the dog. The toy car is very clearly knackered. The owner puts him on the lead and goes to leave the park. The man insists the dog owner needs to pay for a new car as the damage is her fault. The dog owner says she warned him about the car coming too close to her dog so he should've picked it up until they'd walked past the dog. Therefore, the damage is his fault and she won't be paying.

So, who's in the right? And WWYD?

As if anyone can think the man with the car was wrong!

My dog has a thing for picnic rugs. She sees one and wants to roll on it. We check for any picnic goers before we take her off the lead.She might be better now she is older but I'm not taking the risk again.

Going by the logic of those who think the man was in the right, in future I can tell anyone who is having a picnic that they need to remove their rug as my dog might not be able to help herself from rolling on it?

If you think the man was in the right then logically you must agree that in future I can just warn people about my dog and let them deal with the consequences?

The man should have picked the car up

Why? The man was perfectly entitled to run a walkie talkie car around the park and should have been able to do so without it being attacked by an out of control dog.

AlternativeTentacle that's not an out of control dog. That's just a dog.

Same as if you were counting your sausage collection on the grass, in a place where you knew off-leash dogs were allowed. Any dog which ran off with an item from your sausage collection could not reasonably be classified as an "out of control dog", just as a dog.

I don't give a shit about where off the lead dogs are allowed or not. They should not be off a friggin lead when the owner is unable to control it.

both of them are thinking their territory in park.
dog owner thinks my dog can run as much it wants because at some hours they are allowed without lead and warns but warning sometimes not enough.
and the car owner thinks I can drive how I want there are no rules against it, I can drive wherever I want in the park even near the dog.
maybe they both need to respect each other.
when the dog owner sees someone driving remote car she can put the lead on and the car owner don't drive near the dog.
I change from my first opinion, they must share the cost.

Ceto, I didn't say they followed the dog owner if you read my post. I just said that when the dog owner saw the man a d boy approaching again for the second time she should have put her dog on the lead.

I blame both sides because she should clearly have put the dog on the lead. However, man and boy were bloody stupid too. If you treasure something yet you know that a certain dog might grab it given half s chance then surely the very last thing you would do would be to run it right up to the dog even if it is on the lead.

Dog owner should have leashed her dog. Man and boy should have paid more attention too.

Police are unlikely to do anything. They are more likely to refer the man to the local Dog Warden, for whom he will need the dog owner's name and details.

Is it the nudists from earlier in the thread who have the sausage collection?

As some one who has a dog and RC cars I’d say both of them were at fault. I’d never mix the two personally but would be more concerned about 10kg of RC car doing damage to the dog.

I'm rarely on the dog-owner's side but this time he is not in the wrong at all!

In our park there are no areas (except the children's playground) where dogs are not allowed off the lead.

People like to picnic in the park in the summer. An extension of the argument that the dog owner was not at fault because their dog was allowed to be off the lead in the area is that picnic-ers can expect their picnics to be trashed by any dog who cannot control it's urge to steal food.

Utter nonsense. Just because a dog is allowed to be off the leash doesn't mean that it should be.

The dog owner was completely irresponsible.

I once had a dog owner go completely ballistic at me because their dog jumped up at me on a bench in a park and stole my sandwich.

Apparently it was my fault that her dog would now be sick and that I should be liable for her vets fees.

No suggestion from her that I should be reimbursed for my lost lunch.

I didn’t say anything, I’m bloody petrified of dogs, always have been. Not been back to that park since.

In both situations the dog owner is at fault. Your friend knew that her dog would be unable to contain itself if it came into contact with the car and when she saw them coming with the car she didn’t put appropriate measures in place (the lead) to prevent what she had foreseen.

If, pretending to be the parent with the remote control car, I had seen the dog owner take firm action it probably would have made me realise that she wasn’t messing about with what she said earlier and I would have taken more firm action to keep the car a more respectful distance.

Dog owner should pay up. Her dog clearly isn't under control so therefore should be on a lead. If it was on a lead it couldn't have caused the damage.

One more thought. Presumably the park is not awash with remote control cars. It is, from your description, very busy with dog walkers.

It’s not unreasonable that the man and child didn’t make a very strong mental note of the description of the woman complaining about their cars and her dog’s lack of discipline and therefore didn’t recognise her when they met her again.

Maybe they thought that by driving on just half the path that they were being respectful.

I'm a dog owner and keep my dog on lead whenever we are around others...i haven't trained him well enough to come when called if there is something/someone he wants to play with. It's quite arrogant of the dog owner to instruct others that they need to move so her dog won't damage their property. Not on.

1. Man drives small noisy car at dog.

2. Dog owner asks man not to drive said car at dog, as dog will attack the perceived threat.

3. Man drives said car at dog again anyway.

4. Dog perceives threat and attacks it, especially when chased by said man’s companion.

Apparently it’s the man who’s done nothing wrong

Legally I believe that there is an argument to be made that the dog owner was not in control of her
Animal. This caused a criminal
Damage.

Put a child in the place of a car...

This is just how the law would see it. Fair or not, there is a line (as there always is with statute) and that line states that you must always be in control of your dog. I.e. Dog goes to chase a car/ewe/toddler/bee? You'd need to be able to call that hound to heel. If you can't it is, by definition, out of control.

Put a child in the place of a car...

Sigh. Why do we always have to have someone say this?

My dog LOVES remote control cars. There's a guy in a wheelchair who I've seen two or three times. He has a remote controlled car. The dog chased his car once, didn't touch it, just stopped, delighted and stared once the car stopped. I leashed him. Another time, different car, sounded like a bloody supercar, ddog again chases, all delighted. I told the owner ddog would continue to chase. He picked up the car and left. I figure the cars probably cost a few quid, owner doesn't want it damaged so should remove the temptation if the dog owner has told him it's a problem.

Dog owner should have better recall, tho, dog should come back immediately when requested. Pp has the right of it, it's out of control in a public place. I have a great excuse-deaf dog!

Both in the wrong.

Put a child in the place of a car...

Why? It wasn't a child.

Ceto, I didn't say they followed the dog owner if you read my post. I just said that when the dog owner saw the man a d boy approaching again for the second time she should have put her dog on the lead.

I didn't suggest that you did say that, Topseyt. I quoted what you said, i.e. "They were given fair warning of how the dog would react, which they even acknowledged. They then proceeded to ignore the warning" My point was that they didn't ignore the warning by staying in the vicinity of the dog; they simply happened to cross paths again later.

wictional

except that the man didn't drive the car at the dog, and the dog didn't think that it was a threat.

You have a dog called Turnip. For this reason alone you can NEVER be unreasonable.

wictional, the trouble with that little scenario you've posted is that you've made it up. Nowhere is it suggested that a man drove a car "at" the dog: it was simply the case that a man or boy was playing with a toy in the park, as they are absolutely entitled to do, and in the vicinity of the dog. Equally there's no suggestion the dog perceived the toy as a threat; if anything, it seems to have perceived it as a toy also. And why on earth shouldn't a child chase to try to retrieve his belongings?

It would be more accurate to describe it as:

Man and child play with toys in the park. Owner of dog off the leash tells them not to do so in the vicinity of owner's dog on pain of dog destroying toys. Man and child continue to play. Owner sees them in the vicinity again, chooses not to restrain dog. Dog seizes and destroys toy. Toy would have been fine if owner had restrained dog properly.