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 think that the parents and the owners were the same people.

The parents! We were alone on the beach - the only reason I got as close as I did was the tide/long line lead (their dog).

So if I've understood this correctly the child who got attacked was not part of the family who have the dog?

So the child who got attacked has parents who allow them to go up to random dogs and put their arms around the dog like it's a toy with no acknowledgement of whether the dog wants this to happen? Completely and totally unacceptable. How did they expect the dog to react?!? It was also a risk this would happen.

I'm very, very sorry for the poor child but no one should be doing with any dog let alone one you don't know.

Even if you didn’t have your own dogs with you, what could you have done when the attacking dogs two owners already had it on a lead? Wade in and get bitten too?

I completely missed that about the child hugging the dog, I skim read 🙈 the fact that it was the owners child being attacked I 100% would have called the police, how awful!

Nah, that would have led to you and your dogs being blamed for the attack - and the already attacking dog to have gone absolutely mental.

Especially if your dogs are larger or aren't a breed with such great PR (ignoring the realities of their breed).

You were sensible OP not to get involved. Your dogs may have reacted seeing you enter a situation with an aggressive dog.
I think the only thing you could have done is shouted are you all right, shall I call an ambulance. Other than that if there were 2 adults dealing with the situation and it's their dog and their child, that seems sufficient to control what's going on. Assuming it was not a frenzied attack but a snap/bite get off thing

To what extent was it attacking? It could take more than two people to pull a collie off. Could you have handed your dogs to someone else or tied them up?

YABU to wait until you are in the car before calling police.

Sorry clicked YABU by mistake
Agree nothing you could do without potentially making things worse and risking your own dogs becoming involved

So if I've understood this correctly the child who got attacked was not part of the family who have the dog?. How did you get that from the OP?

Because it says "child" not "the child"
I had to think twice..it could be either way.

It’s not obvious from the OP that the child that was attacked belonged to the dog owners.

@AnxiousRabbit thank you yes that's it

apologies if I've misunderstood but it read as if it was a stranger's child walked up to the family and dog

There no way I would have risked my dogs getting involved in that scenario. They can start fighting as a pack which would have been worse. YANBU.

YABVU for not stopping.

You should have stopped but kept your distance, made sure your dogs were secure (put on leads) then checked the child was OK from distance.

Moving closer with your own dogs would have made the situation worse bur it was wrong to walk off. I would have phoned the police there and then as I'd be worried the family would brush the whole thing off when clearly the dog should not be with a family that has a child.

I'd phone the police again and ask for an update.

Is it possible that the abusive bystanders assumed that the collie was yours?

It is possible to permanently stop a dog by using an everyday object such as a ballpoint pen - if a dog has its jaws clamped round someone else's limb and you press the pen deep into a dog's eye socket you will end the attack immediately and forever; however it takes enormous attitude and emotional fitness to be able to do this; I'm not sure whether I'd be able to do it, especially if I didn't know the other parties involved

I would have kept back too. Introducing more dogs closer to an already very agitated dog would likely have exacerbated the situation.
You contacted authorities when you could practically do so. I would however have hovered at a safe distance in case an ambulance needed to be contacted or medical assistance was needed.

The parents were likely taking their upset and frustration out on you rather than examining their own shortcomings.

Those abusing you for walking away clearly a) watched you walk away and therefore b) witnessed the attack?

If they were that bothered they could and should have stepped in themselves.

YANBU to walk away.

For what it's worth I called the police in an almost identical situation. On the beach and another family had a dog which first attacked and bit my on lead dog and then in the melee bit it's owner. She had a five year old with her and she had bought the dog in a pub the week before.

The police could not have been less interested. They said it was nothing to do with them and said we could report it to the dog warden 'if we wanted' so we did but they only had a answer phone and they never got back to us.

She gaveus all her details so I ended up going on her Facebook and working out her son's school from her photos and I rang them and did a safeguarding report about the little boy.

The dog was reacting to your dogs! How would you going over have helped!

I'd have rang 999 if it looked like the parents didn't have control.

Poor kid, poor dog.

Was the child who was bitten the dogs family or was it another child passing by?
I think you did nothing wrong - what were you expected to do with 2 dogs of your own? you could have made things worse

Just to be clear, you are talking about killing the dog but pushing a ball point pen into the brain, correct?

Lots of skirting around in your post.

It's not clear what level of attack you're talking about here but you had dogs & the collie appears to have been triggered by them (not your fault), how could you have approached? It does come across as a little cold that you didn't, from afar, check if things were OK etc.

I'm curious about their situation though, reactive collies don't tend to attack their unit out of the blue so either it's done this before or it's a rescue & they are really crap owners. I have a reactive collie & NOTHING my kids could do would make him bite them, absolutely nothing. A wild kid? Wouldn't even risk it to find out.

So I think you might have been unnecessarily cold & they shouldn't have a dog. Hope the kid is alright :(

I'm confused about the child too, is it the 8/9 year old mentioned in OP or a different child and parents? If so, what were the dog owners doing?

Hang on, am I understanding this right? The border collie reacted to its owners' child grabbing it, and the owners abused you for not intervening? The whole scenario is bizarre.