Dog attacking child - not stopping to help

[Idioticparents]

So, I’m walking my dogs on the beach. See a border collie on a lead being walked by what I presume is mum, dad and child. No problem - my dogs are trained to come to me whenever they see another dog (not that they go far tbh).

BC is clearly not friendly. It’s frozen. Stiff. Licking its lips as I go by. No issue. Give it a wide birth (10 or so meters given the tide is high) keep half an eye on it. Owners don’t real it in and keep it on the log line (full length stretched with dog nearly choking itself).

Child (about 8/9) walks up to dog as parents watch and wraps its arms around the dogs neck from behind. Obviously the dog attacks child. Parents wrestle dog off child.

Now, here is my am I being unreasonable - I didn’t stop. I just kept walking. Kid had two parents with him and I had my dogs nearby waiting to walk on. As I walked away I got a tonne of abuse for not stopping. But why would I? IMO the dog had attack its owners child and if it’s going to do that then I am not going near it. Partner says IWU not to help.

I couldn’t believe that the owners just kept repeatedly watching their dogs come over and be a pain and just think that that was ok; for both me as someone relaxing and for my dog
In their minds their fur children are generously making friends with a fur child who has no playmate.
What's really happening is that their small pack of dogs is menacing you & your dog!
They wear the rose coloured specs and exist in a gold sparkly bubble when it comes to their pets🤬

Exactly this.

If people know their dog is dodgy, they have a responsibility to keep it under control in a public place, not on one of those yards long leads, or else muzzled.
(I have a shepherd type who is as socialised as I can get her, but she is very wary and watchful, and she doesn’t like being approached by anyone or anything she doesn't know. She is muzzled in public.)

Having said that, the parents should have trained their child not to approach strange dogs, too.

You are right, there is a significant overlap. And the subcategory 'people who don't bother to train their dogs' seems to get larger every year.

There were two adults there.
I would bet my house on there also being 2 mobiles.
So the adults present were capable of dealing with the situation they had created.

I really hate that it’s become the norm for morons to have dogs. And why people with children by dogs that are not family friendly I’ll never know.

YANBU though as 9 times out of 10 I do stop when I see an injury in public and check the person is OK, sometimes it’s a case of “I’d just get in the way” or “I’d just put myself in danger”. Or both. In those cases it’s fine to walk on by. You did nothing wrong.

There was a thread not long ago by a poster who worked in a large open plan office and her colleagues had an asthma attack. There were 5 or so colleagues helping and speaking to emergency services on the phone so OP carried on working because it was either work or stare at what was happening, which isn’t useful. She got a load of grief from her colleagues and I felt so sorry for her. I think people expect everyone in the vicinity to panic and flap around when these things happen but it just isn’t helpful to behave that way

I have a large, dog-reactive dog. (She was attacked by two fighting Pittbulls when she was two. She was being walked by my son who was ten and didn’t know what to do but stood between him and these dogs -who were being egged on by their feral owners. It was all on video and they ended up being destroyed by police.) *I screamed at him to drop her lead and grabbed him and ran out of the melee and phoned the police.
Now she is ten and she feels the need to protect everyone except my husband, so only he can walk her. He tends to walk her late at night and early in the morning and avoids parks etc. of course there are still dickheads with off leash oodles where we live saying “Don’t worry it’s friendly” while their fluffy little floof is bouncing right up in my dog’s face until she loses her mind. Or the gits on bikes with the border collie that follows them around the suburbs - that I found in our kitchen. I had to lock our dog outside… Unfair!

If you are not involved, then don’t get involved.

@AnxiousRabbit

if you ever want to change your vote all you need to do is tap on the other option. It'll change it & you can see it change the %.

'Sick','sad' and 'shocked'?

Wishing you a speedy recovery.

We don't even know if the child was hurt.

His own family dog jumped up at him, the OP did the right thing & carried on away from them. Taking her dogs away from the drama

all she saw was their dog jumping up on the child. Potentially a lot of fuss over nothing.

@WickedSerious thank you.
I will never understand how on mumsnet things get really nasty if you disagree with the majority.
I'm allowed my opinion and I maintain thus behaviour is wrong and it's bad that so many people think its not.
Knowing a child was being attacked and not even checking they're OK is ice cold behaviour and it's now the norm in society.

Yes, she mentioned the dog turning/jumping at the child in response to the hug, and the child briefly screaming - it could have been from fright as much as anything else.

I feel sorry for the collie in this situation, he or she is obviously scared and not being at all well cared for.

So I wish you all a speedy recovery and hope you're never in need of help in public.

You know you did the best thing by getting your dogs out of the way. But they were scared and shocked and I wouldn't blame them for just calling out to who ever was passing. Hope the child was OK and you can put it behind you.

Have you even read OP's updates?

The child screamed once. We don't even know if he got more than a nip. The parents started screaming abuse at OP, who wisely removed herself and her dogs from the scene, and called police.

None of your claims about her being "ice cold" have any relation to what happened.

BOTH the boy's parents were there. What was OP supposed to do, not least since they launched straight into screaming abuse at her?

@Catsmere should've checked the child was OK?
Who walks away from something like that completely unphased. You're all rushing to defend this behaviour but think about it.
She just left and didn't even cast a gaze backwards to see the child was OK.
Who does that?

Apparently I do.

I’m not putting myself or my dogs in danger for a child that had both its (aggressive) parents there. I needed to keep as much focus as I could on my own dogs - not potentially escalate the situation.

Having slept on it I am even more convinced I did the right thing because tbh I wouldn’t have put it past the parents, given the way they reacted, to try and claim my dogs were responsible for the incident.

@Idioticparents

'FUCKING STUPID BITCH', 'FUCKING COME BACK HERE' 'HER FUCKING DOGS STARTED IT' (whilst the charming parents yelled at each other over who was at fault...).

What's that phrase? "Can't argue without the stupid"? Add to that negligent and abusive..

You did the right thing by yourself, your dogs and the child and his family, whatever they think. Calling the police to report the incidence once you and your dog were safely in your car was the right thing to do. 🌹

@Idioticparents

He thinks that the dogs are trained enough that if I put them in a sit/wait they would wait. They probably would have waited. But, I wasn't willing to risk it - they're still dogs at the end of the day. Even the most placid dogs will come to their owners aide if something happens to them (PPs have noted examples of this). I didn't want to risk them or myself. But he still thinks that they would have been fine (and continues to hold that line).

That's what HE would do. You, actually whilst this was happening, did what YOU thought is right for you, your dogs and the other family. And that's OK too. 🌹

Well said, OP.

I'm beginning to think @Cantgetausername87 is just on a wind-up.

@Idioticparents yes that's exactly what you did, and you asked on the Internet if you were being unreasonable.
The concensus is that you weren't so you can go ahead and sleep easy.

how can you be so sure nothing will come of it?

You definitely did the only sensible thing @Idioticparents. The dog reacted to your dogs. It is ridiculous for anyone to suggest that you should have hung around accompanied by the very thing that triggered the dog's initial reaction. The dog could have attacked your dogs, or attacked you. Those parents need to sort their own shit.

Because I just don't think the police will do anything (but I have a very low opinion of them admittedly, having lived in London for many years).