Help! A dog one

[ILoveCoffee222]

Not so much an AIBU more a What would you do now? (Sorry it's long)

I have a 10 month old puppy. He's fairly big now - size of a small skinny lab, or maybe a sheep dog size. Since we got him I've walked him every day in a local field, usually 2 or 3 times a day as he's a breed that needs a lot of walking/running. It's a field mainly used by fellow dog walkers. We know most of the owners and dogs now that use the field. The field isn't used for livestock or anything. Occasionally we meet the odd older couple with no dog, or someone out for a jog. I've never seen children in the field. There are local kid friendly parks with slides etc.. where families tend to go with small children. This field is more of a walkers field if you know what I mean! Although of course, anyone is welcome to use it. My own children join me occasionally to walk dog.

Anyway, I've tried to be a responsible pet owner. We scoped out the field before getting the pup to see if it would be suitable for walking. Since getting him we've kept him on the lead if we see a fellow dog walker in the distance and dog is on lead, or there's a walker or jogger with no dog. When we have past the dog on lead, or people with no dog, and are a suitable distance away, we let him off the lead to run around again. Or if other dogs are off lead we let my pup play with other dogs if owners are happy with that.

Often times the field is empty and we have it to ourselves, so I let him run free off the lead and put him back on if I spot someone coming in the distance, or when it's time to exit the field. All good. So far no incident.

Today was a bit rainy so we had the whole field to ourselves for a good 45 minutes. Noone else was in sight. Pup was having loads of fun sticking his nose down rabbit holes and chasing pigeons around, and generally amusing himself, catching his ball etc.. nothing unusual.

The field is surrounded by hedges with gaps in which lead off to small trails, or various entrance/exits to surrounding paths. Today pup was sniffing by the hedges (that's where the good scents and rabbit holes are!) when out of nowhere a small child about 3yrs old, and her mum came through a gap in the hedge. My pup was nearby and ran up to child. Child fell (or my pup pushed her in his excitement - hard to tell). Then followed, understandably, loads of uncontrollable screaming and crying from the small child who was probably terrified. Child's mum grabbed her and picked her up in lightening speed and I tried to grab pup but he was so excited by all the screaming and sight of small kid he kept circling them and wouldn't respond to me. After probably a minute (but it felt like hours!) I managed to catch pup and put him on the lead. I apologised profusely to the mum, who understandably looked mighty angry and concerned for her kid and she blanked me and they walked off. I walked in the other direction with my pup on lead

Anyway, it was a total shock to see them. One minute the field was empty, the next minute the child was there and dog was practically on top of her.

I feel terrible as the child was so upset. If mum is reading this now - I'm so sorry. Thing is, I just didn't see them. If I had seen them coming I'd have put pup on the lead straight away.

I don't think I was being unreasonable as it seems like just an unpredictable occurrance and I did my best.

But - now it's happened, what do I do? Carry on as normal, letting him run free when the field is empty? or keep him on the lead on the off chance this could happen again (odds r really small). He's a breed that needs good long walks and to run and run, so I just don't think keeping him on lead would be feasible. But now this has happened once I feel there is no excuse for it to happen again and it would be my fault if it did.

If you were the kids mum, would you be despising me now?

I'm really shaken as I think this kid may now develop a fear of dogs, but I just didn't see them. They just appeared. Shit.

Is this "field" open-access land? If it is, please remember that although people have a right of access to walk there with a dog, at this time of year (March to September usually) dogs are only permitted on open-access land if kept on a short lead, of no more than 2 metres in length.

I think this is not widely known (either that or it's widely ignored). Very annoying.

Goodness all this fuss about nothing. In our society adults, kids, cats, dogs etc all coexist and share spaces, sometimes we will bump into each other, give each other a fright and maybe be annoyed about it but it really isn’t the end of the world.

Unfortunately that's not what the law is, and too many dog owners are totally ignorant as to what their legal responsibilities are.

Yes, ideally we could all co-exist in some kind of utopia but in reality that's never going to happen - especially when there are regular stories about children being killed by dogs.

You can't legislate for someone popping out of a hedge unexpectedly and getting your pup all excited. You'll probably find as the dog gets older they don't react like that. Ours would have run away (she's 3 and is very wary of children for some reason). So I think carry on as you are, you sound responsible.

That child learned a valuable lesson without being hurt. I would say your pup has done her a great service.
The parent was irresponsible for not 'scoping out' the field beforehand and for letting her child run through a hedge into a known dog exercising place.
You and your dog did nothing wrong. And now you know you need to work on his recall.

The law doesn't care whether someone just popped out of a hedge unexpectedly or whether you could see them from miles off - that's the point I'm trying to make.

If, heaven forbid, someone got hurt or even bitten, the law is never going to be on your side if your dog was running about out of control.

@TomatoFrog in that case, it sounds to me like the dog isn't the only animal that's out of control.

Kicking a dog which isn't showing aggression towards you and your child is a sure fire way to find out if the dog has some aggressive tendencies. Perhaps you should do some research into what to do in a situation like this in case it ever occurs and you end up making the situation a thousand times worse.

He is a Springer spaniel, nearly 7 years old and extremely lively. He learns very quickly, however he can learn the wrong things quickly too, so I have to vary our walks and activities, for example if he learns that I always put his lead back on at a certain point in the walk, he will start to be evasive at that point.

It just sounds like part and parcel of life. If you know your dog isn't aggressive with people and other dogs then there's no reason he shouldn't be allowed supervised off lead time. The police aren't going to come knocking on your door just because your puppy jumped up at a child. Your dog isn't going to suddenly decide to bite or kill a child one day with no prior warning signs of aggressive behaviour.

Obviously, you need to work on training your dog not to jump up at people or approach other dogs without checking it's ok first. Just don't be that annoying owner who just stands there waiting for their dog to come back to them when it's bothering someone.

Is it a fuss about nothing to a three year old, though? Mine is now terrified of dogs after a similar incident and it makes daily life horrendous: she no longer wants to go to the park because of the sheer number of dogs that bound up to her. 90 seconds is a very long time to endure something terrifying: and to a three year old, being circled by a barking dog the same size as you IS terrifying. There’s no concept of “oh, he’s just playful”.

It sounds like a field near me where I walk my dog. It's a privately owned one, but the owner allows people to walk their dogs around the edge unless they are in there with their large dogs. Occasionally it is locked as it has sheep grazing. It is known all around as a dog walking field, yet we have at least one family a year having a picnic in the middle! However, it does have a fence all around, some areas better than others, but I don't think someone could get through the hedge.
Someone mentioned up thread about what if it was an aggressive dog coming through the hedge? Well, if your dog was on lead it still could have got attacked, and who knows, maybe even felt vulnerable themselves due to being in lead and not being able to get away, and got aggressive too.
I don't blame the mum for being cross, but I think that would be down to being protective of their child. Maybe she in turn will be more careful about how they get into fields and maybe go on first. You never know what is through a hedge. Could have been a field of cattle.
I think the rule for ground nesting birds only applies to a few areas where the dogs have to be on a lead of no more than 2m in length for the season. Just use common sense in areas where you know there are some. We have a skylark nesting area near us where dogs need to be under control, but they haven't yet said all on leads. If mine starts to wander into the areas a bit too much, and starts to ignore me, she gets put on her lead, but for the most part she is a good dog and comes to me 99% of the time.

I've said it on threads like this before, but I wonder how people would feel if I took my 16.1hh (nearly 6ft to the top of his back, head and neck higher) horse to somewhere like this and turned him loose, then failed to collect him when he went bouncing up to people and loitering, pushing at them, knocking them over, getting in their face or frisking their pockets for food - I think most people would find that quite intimidating tbh, especially if they have no interest in horses, no idea that he's not being aggressive and I just stood there shouting his name and saying he's just being friendly?
Must be how a small child feels with a medium/large dog.

I agree that’s really hard, but I also think it’s virtually impossible to raise children in a way that nothing scary ever happens. Some children are terrified of hand dryers in public toilets because one went off in their face, some children have a balloon pop near their face and they become terrified of balloons. There will always be some experiences which are ultimately harmless but still terrifying to a toddler, and some of those will relate to dogs but in my view unless the dog owner has been actively irresponsible or reckless there’s just no point stressing about it.

Is it a fuss about nothing to a three year old, though? Mine is now terrified of dogs after a similar incident and it makes daily life horrendous: she no longer wants to go to the park because of the sheer number of dogs that bound up to her. 90 seconds is a very long time to endure something terrifying: and to a three year old, being circled by a barking dog the same size as you IS terrifying. There’s no concept of “oh, he’s just playful”.

Exactly this!

It's not a hard concept to grasp - if your dog has poor recall and can't be trusted in certain situations then you need to make sure it's either on a lead or you're using a long-line at all times.

So, so many people seem to think they're entitled to let their dogs off regardless of who they bother or what they get up to. I'm not including OP in this as she's clearly mortified but a lot of the responses on this thread are clearly of the "don't worry, he's friendly!" school of dog ownership.

Dogs have no inherent right to be off the lead - but children do have the right to wander around fields without having to worry about being bombarded by them!

There will always be some experiences which are ultimately harmless but still terrifying to a toddler, and some of those will relate to dogs but in my view unless the dog owner has been actively irresponsible or reckless there’s just no point stressing about it

Thankfully the law disagrees with you!

If you're in England you're already a month into the season. I posted this up thread.

Dogs on open access land

You must keep your dog on a lead no more than 2 metres long on open access land:

• between 1 March and 31 July - to protect ground-nesting birds
• at all times around livestock

Just because land is open and accessible does not make it open access land. There are a lot of areas that are publicly accessible green spaces, but not parks, nature reserves, farmland or open access land.

Not to make you feel worse OP but if I was the mother, then truthfully yes I would be fuming with you for not being able to recall your dog whilst it was off lead. This is why im of the opinion dogs should always be on lead- every owner thinks their dog has amazing recall- until it doesn’t. Thankfully child was just pushed over and nothing more severe.

This. He's a puppy. He's still learning. You can't teach recall if they're never off the lead. And the parent sounded like she completely over reacted. Way to teach your child to be afraid of animals!

My daughter is autistic and terrified of dogs. This would literally be my worst nightmare.

Obviously you sound very sorry OP but withoit recall then your dog should not be loose in a public space.

So I'm guessing you would not have allowed her to go through the hedge before you

All part of growing up and learning. If your dog can only recall when there are no distractions or those that are miles away, you need a plan to work on this.

Get a good trainer out to you and build up the strength of recall

For what feels like the thousandth time - you don't need to let your dog off the lead to teach recall.

You use a long-line attached to a harness so that if they ignore your calls, you can stamp on it and reel them back in. You don't just let them off to run free and hope for the best!

I just checked and we have two areas here which are classed as open access land, where I don't walk my dog. All the other areas aren't under that banner so I haven't been doing anything illegal. I didn't think I had

This is a map where you can check Open access map

Exactly, but it's not the first time I've seen someone assert that dogs should be on 2m leads as though it's the rule for any land you can go on.

The one area near us that is designated under the crow act surprisingly has no information about it being open access or having any sort of ground nesting bird ban. Whereas if we head a bit further afield there's lots of signage about open access, dogs on leads etc.