I walk my dog in the local park every day. There are sections where he is on lead and sections where I let him off. He is extremely used to people and dogs and generally very well behaved.
As we arrive at the park I always let him off lead and he does a poo. This is on a field area beside a path.
Today he did his poo in the field about 6 feet off the path as usual. I noticed a man in a suit approaching along the path. My dog then went back on to the path to wait for me and I leaned down to pick up the poo.
Very very unusually, my dog started to bark - he barked 4 or 5 times - and I saw he was now behind the man (who had walked past him). I was about to apologize, my dog almost never barks at people (he sometimes barks at really unusual things like a person wearing a sombrero or riding a tricycle, and this guy wasn't wearing anything unusual, except a slightly dishevelled suit on a Saturday morning). The man totally lost it at me. He started screaming that he had been bitten on the back of the leg by a dog, that my dog and dogs like him are aggressive and that it would bite my children and kill them (I didn't have my kids with me). He told me to get the dog away from him or he would kick it in the head. My dog is a bloody 10 lb cavapoo!
I appreciate that my dog should not have barked and that the man was triggered. If he had shouted to put it on a lead, before he walked past it, I would gladly have done so. My dog has excellent recall, and is completely reliable on the "wait" signal. He's actually a dream to get back on lead - but I hadn't called him over as there was no sign of what was about to happen. I do wonder if this man inadvertently spooked my dog or even kicked out at him in fear or something as it's so unusual for him to bark at people like that.
Aibu to think that the man, in his fear, may have inadvertently caused the dogs reaction? And that my dog behaved badly but it could have been avoided if the man had just called out for me to hold the dog?