To be furious over what has just happened?

[DippyDiplodocus]

Out Walking our dogs and my 6 month old baby in carrier. I have four dogs and look after one of my friend's dogs while she's at work occasionally. My four are quite large, the biggest being big German shepherd size and the smallest is a pug (friend's dog).

Before I get flamed for having too many dogs, two were mine, two my DH's before we met, so obviously we now have four. We aren't the kind of people to get rid of dogs just because we had a child - dogs are family too and we treat them as such.

We live in the countryside, very quiet rural area.
Coming to the end of our walk over the fields (where I never usually see any other walkers) I see another dog approaching - muzzled Siberian husky with a bloke.
At this point I already have four on leads ready for the road back to our house and bent down squat position to put pug on a lead.

I thought man would stop when he saw me bent down but he carried on approaching. I was struggling to get wriggly pug back on lead so I called out to him "can you just wait there a sec so I can get this one on the lead?" - No response and continues towards us.

Still trying to get dog on lead and my dogs are now getting a bit twitchy and unsettled that this bloke is approaching them, so one of mine barks.
Just to add here, our dogs are all very well behaved but they are protective over me and DD and will act accordingly if they feel threatened.

Man takes no notice, I call out again and say "can you just give me a second?" Ignores me completely.

He decides to squeeze by my dogs and I with a stupid smirk on his face. He can clearly see I'm struggling and baby is now crying and the others are pissed off. One of mine pulled forward and I dug my heels in and sat back so as not to land on my daughter.

I shouted at him and called him a fucking arsehole.

If he could have waited one second, I'd have been out the way and that wouldn't have had to have happened.

FFS I just despise people at times.

There is so much projection here about him being a bully and enjoying making life difficult for a mother, and liking the feeling of making a woman uncomfortable.

It is, of course, entirely possible that he is any of those things. But a more likely explanation is that he was fairly oblivious and didn't give her a second thought.

If a man wants to actively intimidate a woman he'd probably do something more than just walk past her and ignore her.

What part of her putting up her hand-pretty international sign, I'd say-did you miss?

I didnt miss that,i was just giving an example of why he didnt stop.
Plus he might have listening to music,seen her wave.And that smirk was really a smile to acknowledge her wave.

He does sound like a bit of a twat but I think you could do with telling your friend you can no longer walk their dog. It will only get harder as your child gets older. I appreciate it is only occasionally but you really have enough on your plate.

Oh I forgot the bit where you called him a fucking arsehole.

classy.

I don't think yabu. I would hope as a dog owner that one would be taking in their surroundings and that includes other dogs and their owners. If you did all that you say you did and he still didn't respond and kept walking he was being rude. Listening to music doesn't stop you from seeing your surroundings. Unless he was blind, there isn't much of an excuse for him not to have stopped.

He didnt do anything

And if you insist on walking a pack of dogs that you don't have full control over you're putting yourself and your child at risk. 🤷‍♀️

He was an arsehole, I have a footpath here where a similar thing could happen I can imagine it, we have a woman who walks a husky with a muzzle, her dog once nearly choked itself trying to get at my dog through its muzzle. I don't have any issue with you saying the man was at least rude and at worst could have caused a dangerous situation - particularly for your baby.

But that's the point I am getting to: you cannot be in control, you just can't - its arrogant, naive or just plain stupid to think you are. No amount of putting them on leads, muzzling etc is going to help. If your dogs/friend's dogs whatever were attacked or provoked then you could do NOTHING - even the smallest thing like crossing the road puts you all at extra risk because you cannot control that many dogs and keep your baby safe.

You need to make other arrangements - walk them separately, get help, whatever. And I think I lost all sympathy when you said you had other people's dogs as well

Obviously it's muzzled for a reason, whether it be dog or people reactive

I used to walk with someone who muzzled their dog because they had a habit of eating droppings. Horse, dog, fox, whatever. So it's not necessarily because of any other ppl or dog reactive behavior. In fact, the muzzled dog appeared to walk past you and your more noisy, wriggly dogs with no adverse reaction, so I don't think there was a problem there.

If you have that many dogs then you should walk them separately or in twos so that you can control them properly .
And if you don’t have time to do that then you shouldn’t have that many dogs or at the very least give up walking the pug

We have several large dogs and they are walked in twos separately on each walk it take DH a few hours each day to do this

I still don't understand why people are saying: he's a twat, he was being a dick and he was unreasonable.

Nothing the OP has posted since has given me any cause to think he acted anything other than as a decent dog owner. He moved past the situation quickly and without incident. His dog was under control and he smiled at the OP as he passed (probably in sympathy). He hasn't actually done anything wrong?

No doubt if he had waited and the Ops dogs had begun reacting even more at his presence he would still be considered the unreasonable one.

Well if he didn’t hear her asking him to give her a minute he won’t have heard her calling him a fucking arsehole.

Tbh I’m with the op on this. Where is common courtesy these days. Ok so maybe she had her hands full but ffs, what’s the harm in giving her a few mins to sort her dogs before walking past ffs.

I did miss the hand thing too but now am finding it a bit unbelievable that the OP was actually able to make eye contact, hold her hand up to say STOP, ask him "nicely" twice, all while squatting on the floor, struggling with a wriggly dog, whilst holding onto 4 other dog leads and being pulled onto the ground by one of them.

When I say unbelievable, I of course don't think the OP is making it up but I don't think it happened the way she perceived it as happening.

Way too many dogs to walk with a baby

Jesus OP....too many dogs and 'protective' could also be referred to as 'aggressive'. Barking and pulling forward? And you don't see a problem with that?

You're dogs should have been able to cope with a another dog passing by and you should be maintaining control.

And shouting abuse after them? Charming.

I'll be that person.

For all you know, he's deaf.

Anyway, if you struggle with four dogs and a child, why are you also walking your friend's dog?

Yep he's a wanker

You sound entitled...and stupid. Why so many dogs?? And with a baby? smh

I am not a dog owner but managing 5 dogs and a baby seems excessive. I doubt the other person was deliberately being obtuse or difficult. He was perhaps in a rush and you misinterpreted his smirk. It sounds as though he was simply going about his business and it was wrong of you to resort to such name calling when he has actually done nothing wrong.

Yep he's a wanker

Why? Seriously why on earth is this man being demonised and called so many names what did he do that made him a wanker?

Plus its not usually a good idea to call strangers names.You dont know how they would react.

I understand your annoyance but he also didn't really do anything wrong. If you can't control all 5 together, simple, don't walk all 5 together.
Where I am in the country, the council bylaws don't allow you to walk more than 4 anyway, which I happen to agree with.

Why? Seriously why on earth is this man being demonised and called so many names what did he do that made him a wanker?

Hes a man so this is MN of course hes the Devil.And wrong.

I always shudder when I hear people say their dogs are protective of their children. They’re not. They’re possessive and anxious around your children. It’s not something to Ben pleases about, it’s something to be very worried about.

I'm just imagining the uproar if someone started a thread saying they'd seen a man with a baby in a carrier, walking 5 dogs on leads

It's quite clear that not a single person knows the real motives of the man. There are many plausible explanations. Op's narrative is merely her biased account. He may be a twat. He may have misunderstood. He may not have heard.

Think about the things you do know and can control op. Such as whether you're in adequate control of your dogs and whether they are unnecessarily aggressive. It might prevent a more serious occurrence whilst walking next time.