Just been on a lovely walk in the countryside, only to be spoiled by a shouty farmer. Need a different perspective on it otherwise it will just wind me up. Will include picture.
Walking with my dog on a lead through a field, staying on the public footpath when I see two border collies barking in the distance. I stay where I am to look for a farmer to check if they are aggressive or not, no one in sight, they are staying where they are but still barking and in the way of where I need to walk, so I went back and walked down the other side of the fence.
I get to the bottom and see the dogs have gone, also notice the gate was open so they could have got to me anyway, never mind I’m there now and go over the stile back onto the public footpath.
Only then I notice the dogs have come back, so again I check to see if I can see the farmer because whilst they weren’t growling they were barking which is intimidating enough.
At this point there is a fence between us so not a problem but I check to see where the public footpath leads and you’re supposed to join the farm track but their gate is open. The dogs are following me and my dog down the fence, still barking, so I decided to walk away from them not wanting to risk what would happen when we reach the open gate. I am at this point on the farmers field.
After a few steps a farmer comes running shouting for my attention, I stop and see what he wants. He said ‘the footpath doesn’t go along there, you’re damaging the crops’. So he was clearly watching me, and would have been able to see that I was uncomfortable with his dogs around.
There is snow on the field so I wasn’t sure what I was walking on but either way I said, sorry I appreciate that but your dogs were being aggressive towards me and my dog so I felt I had no choice.
He kept repeating that if I can’t stick to the path then I shouldn’t go on the walk, which in normal circumstances I totally agree with, but in this case I felt it best, to protect me and my dog.
He insists his dogs are not aggressive, they are with him at this point, still barking but I admit not growling or coming closer, just staying with him, but I said again that I was not to know this and didn’t want to risk anything happening to my dogs.
In the end I walked away because he clearly could not see my point of view.
So was IBU waking on his land or was he. And if he was is there anything I can do to stop if happening to someone else. Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading.