Aibu - dogs off lead in local park

[Jelly0naplate]

So, walking in an local park recently with my almost three year old. A dog comes running over and is around me/lo/buggy as we're walking over the (muddy) grass to the path. My lo was screaming because of the dog and the owner watched on from a distance. Was aibu to shout at the owner for not keeping their dog under control/on a lead? Their explanation was 'it's just a puppy!'

Background: My lo is currently terrified of strange dogs after a dog came running over to him and took a stick he was carrying out of his hand. He now screams if a strange dog is anywhere near him.

Dogs shouldn’t bounce up to strangers. If it’s a puppy and they don’t have recall then they should use a longline.
I would seek to address the anxiety though. My eldest was scared after a German Shepherd dog grabbed him by the arm as we walked home from school. Didn’t manage to leave a mark (he was wearing a big coat) but it really scared him.

You say running around?

So no contact with you or your child?

In that case YABU.

As in right around our feet bounding about but not actually jumping on lo, I couldn't push the buggy forwards (lo was walking at that point). Lo screaming because of dog (other incident happened only recently).
I would have expected a dog owner to actually do something with a small child screaming about their dog round them...

If the dog is 20 feet away then I wouldn’t see an issue. If it’s close to knocking down a toddler and bouncing around the pushchair/making a general nuisance of itself then that isn’t ok.
The law says dogs must be under control. If the owner has no control of the bouncy puppy then they need it on a lead.

Well, I would have pulled the puppy away because the screaming is traumatic for the child and for the dog.

Maybe the owner didn’t realise why the child was screaming? Lots of children scream for many different reasons, and for no reasons n at all.

It’s fairly obvious if a child is distressed by a dog. (I have a rather large one and body language gives anxiety away) The owner couldn’t pull it away as they didn’t have it on a lead and were watching it from a “distance”.

Pull away was a wrong world, you are right. “Remove” would be better.

Bouncy puppy. So implied lack of control or recall.

YANBU. If a dog is approaching strangers and can’t be reliably called back by its owner it shouldn’t be off the lead.

It’s not ok for dogs to be running up to people. I am very nervous of dogs after being bitten badly as a child and I hate strange dogs running up to me. Doesn’t make any difference if the dog is friendly/a puppy/small.

The dog shouldn't have been allowed to get that close to you. I have that occasionally with ds who is in an sn buggy and I've told the owner to remove the dog before ds thumps or kicks it.