I’ve just been for lunch at a cafe, and was admittedly in a bad temper because I’d left to find my car battery dead, so went back in to order a taxi.
Anyway, on leaving the second time my path was blocked. The path coming from the cafe to the street is lined with thick bushes on either side, and a man, presumably waiting for someone who was in the cafe, was standing with two small dogs, one of which was on an extendable lead on the other side of the path to its owner, blocking the whole path with the lead.
As I walked up he smiled sort of apologetically and shrugged. I said ‘can I get past please?’ and he said ‘I’m trying to pull her back’. It was a small dog, he could’ve easily got her back if he’d wanted to. Anyway, he pulled her half a foot back and said ‘just walk around’. As I walked around, the dog inevitably jumped up. I said ‘totally ridiculous’, and he said ‘how’s that ridiculous?’. I said ‘come on, you’re blocking the whole path’, and he said ‘it’s a little dog, calm down’.
I know I was in a bad mood because of the car, but WIBU?
YABU - the dog did no harm and you should’ve been more patient
YANBU - it is irritating that he shrugged helplessly as if his dogs are so cute no one should mind them blocking the path and jumping up
As an aside, this attitude from some dog owners (and I’m a dog lover) is really grating on me at the moment. We have a large park with signs everywhere saying to keep dogs on the lead, and so many don’t. My toddler nephew was nearly knocked off his feet a couple of weeks ago by an off the lead large dog being called over the park’s footpath from one owner to the other, and they just shrugged and shouted sorry, same as when off the lead dogs approach you and instead of an apology and putting them on the leads they just say ‘ah he’s harmless’.