Witch hunt for old woman

[DogsBehavingWrongly]

Yesterday a woman was walking her dog when it was attacked by an offlead dog. Offlead dog was owned by elderly woman who always walks dog in this same area daily. She says the dog has never done this before. Attacked dog was limping after the attack and elderly woman was asked for her details (after been shouted at by other woman). She refused to give any details and rushed off home.

Woman with attacked dog then posts on Facebook saying what happened and asks if anyone knows the woman as she wants the vet bills taken care off. This then starts a witch hunt on Facebook of people trying to identify old woman and suggesting people follow her home etc to get her address. A relative of old woman then posts that her grandmother is terrified at what is happening and asks for people to leave her alone as she’s now too scared to leave the house.

im torn on this - on one hand accidents do happen, dogs are unpredictable sometimes and this elderly woman has previously walked her dog in this manner with no issues. On the other hand, I’m sick to death of irresponsible dog owners and am fearful everytime I walk my dog that she will be attacked by an offlead dog. This area is full of the “it’s ok, he’s friendly!” Types.

Where would you stand on this? IMO the elderly woman (or her relative) needs to do the right thing, accept responsibility and pay the vet bills.

Being old doesn't absolve you from responsibility or common decency.

Change old lady to young man and I think someone would have a different opinion on whether the Facebook post was acceptable. Regardless of age or sex she needs to own up and pay.

Dream on. They would have asked if she knew who owned the attacking dog and when she didn't they would have filed it.
If she did know they would maybe have sent someone round for a chat if they had a PC with time on their hands, so probably still nothing.

Exactly. The police aren't going to do anything, they wouldn't even turn up around here and we don't have a dog warden?

So no one has heard the older ladies side of the story, but have all found her guilty based on this other woman’s word? How lucky courts don’t take the same approach.

The chances of a bus driver ordering a well behaved boy off the bus are pretty slim I'd say.

This. Regardless of her age, she's at fault. It's not a witch hunt at all. Ridiculous. Poor dog!

Animals Act 1971, section 2
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/22#:~:text=2%20Liability%20for%20damage%20done%20by%20dangerous%20animals.&text=(1)Where%20any%20damage%20is,otherwise%20provided%20by%20this%20Act.

The Blue Cross have helpful advice. All dog owners should have third party insurance. It isn’t expensive. It is included in membership of the Dogs Trust. It is included in my household insurance. And you can get stand alone dog insurance. If someone chooses not to be insured then they have to take the consequences.

This. If this had been a young lad, literally noone would be calling it a witch hunt.

Stupid woman should pay for the damage caused by her dog and she shouldn't be walking it if she cant control it. Zero sympathy for people (of any age) who take no responsibility for their dog's behaviour.

Also if she's saying "its never done this before" then that is surely an admission that it did in fact happen!

Thought I had replied directly, but I didn’t do it right. Reply above.

So you think the women with the injured dog is just making the whole thing up? If the older women's dog didn't attack another dog why is it a witch hunt, if she's done nothing wrong then she's nothing to worry about!

if she's done nothing wrong then she's nothing to worry about!

Yep- and why would she say the dog has "never done it before" if it didnt actually happen?- why on earth would you say that if nothing happened at all?

Naunet
So no one has heard the older ladies side of the story, but have all found her guilty based on this other woman’s word? How lucky courts don’t take the same approach.

So you think the women with the injured dog is just making the whole thing up? If the older women's dog didn't attack another dog why is it a witch hunt, if she's done nothing wrong then she's nothing to worry about!

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But the problem with this kind of scenario when both sides haven't been fully heard is that it brings out the Keyboard Vigilantes who then share posts creating more traction and more Warriors who don't think beyond what they are reading.

I'm only 50 and I would find it frightening to see that level of internet traffic directed at me by strangers.

You need to be extremely careful when posting on SM platforms as once it's out there you have feck all control. Thanks here are too many, quite frankly, thick nasty idiots who will join the pile on just for something to do.

And for the avoidance of f doubt if the incident genuinely happened as described the elderly lady and her family should absolutely taking steps to make this right and prevent it from happening again.

Maybe the other woman’s dog was the one to start it and attacked first, seeing as the older woman has said her dog has never done this before? But sure, let’s find her guilty here too without ever hearing her side 🙄 Like I said, we’re all lucky courts don’t behave like this.

If a woman accused of being a witch, isn’t a witch, she’s got nothing to worry about, right?

If the poster is genuinely just trying to find the person, they could turn comments off and ask to be privately messaged.

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This

If the poster is genuinely just trying to find the person, they could turn comments off and ask to be privately messaged

If the older lady is genuinely sorry and just panicked in the moment then she could also privately message the person with her details and offer to pay- this works both ways

Surely the injured dog's owner can claim on their insurance.

Bullying on Facebook is never acceptable. The elderly woman was verbally attacked and was frightened.

Of course she should have given her details but the angry owner was shouting and aggressively demanding. She was afraid.

Well, I'm not sure what to vote for in the poll, but I absolutely loathe and despise the disgusting lowlife behaviour of shaming people on facebook, and the kangaroo court that sets up their 'trial by social media.'

But this woman having a dog off the lead is also disgusting, and she needs to take responsibility for what her dog has done. The woman whose dog was attacked needs to report it to the police - maybe not 999 but 1O1 is it?

Good luck with her getting anywhere though. A similar thing happened to my friend about 6 years ago. She was walking her dog (spaniel, with long floppy ears;) and a dog off its lead attacked her dog and ripped two thirds of his ear off.

Cost her 2 grand in vet bills. She couldn't actually prove anything though. There was no CCTV or anything - and she ended up having to foot the full bill. She also had nearly a couple of thousand pounds worth of court costs, because she tried to press charges against the owner, and ended up losing, because she couldn't prove anything.

This is a really tricky one... I don't think the woman whose dog was hurt can do much about it unless she has proper proof of what the other dog has done. (Or the older woman admits it happened. I'm not sure if the relative posting, asking people to leave her alone contained any information that admitted the older woman's dog was at fault.)

But yeah tl;dr, the 'older woman' was in the wrong for sure, but the facebook shaming is scumbag behaviour.

Maybe she had, or will. But multiple people in her community posting viciously about her will be incredibly upsetting. I've seen it happen on my local Facebook pages, and people are absolutely feral, despite not having been there and not knowing any of the truth of the incidents involved.

That's why, if I was ever on the position of needing to find out similar information, I'd switch commenting off and ask for identification via PM

Yeah it's very possible that the owner was getting in there first.

I don't know either of these people. I know one person ran off and one person got shouty. Neither are ideal, the scale of each determines the level of wrong doing

Agree with this also.

My comments regarding the SM pile on still stands as this came before.

And if the individual in question was a young man I would think the same regards trial by Facebook

If it was possible the attacking dog should have been caught and taken away. I suspect little old lady would suddenly have an awful lot to say. Sort of thing my late DF would have done.

Following an old woman home isn't ok. However the woman's actions weren't ok either. This is what happens when irresponsible dog owners don't bother to put their animals on leads.

I suspect she's learnt her lesson, she should offer to pay for her mistake and then people should stop with the Facebook nonsense. It's so easy for every man and his dog (sorry) to get involved in incident that has nothing to do with them.

Someone needs to respond to her relatives post that she needs to pay the vet bills and in future keep the dog on a lead or muzzled .