To have wanted to shout and this unsupervised child in the park today...

[milliec]

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Did you see the Mus reaction?
Poor dog. Poor children

I think she should have shouted at the mother. It's bad to leave your kids unattended and expect every one else to look after them. The girl needed to be told though, there's a saying "it takes a village to raise a child", so true. You are not being unreasonable.

YANBU, just lucky you did not have to shout at the girl! A ten year old should know better than to hit a strange dog and lots of dog owners do get VERY defensive about their dogs as they are like children to them.
The mother was just doing lazy parenting as just wanted to chat.

Abolutely she should have been told off.

I'm all for community responsibility. I'd happily tell off other kids, reasonably and calmly, and I'm perfectly happy for other parents to tell off my kids if they're doing something which annoys or offends others. This way they learn about how to behave in society.

At the same time I support the mum's right to sit and chat with friends when in a play area. It's one of the few places you can let your kids run free without paying them too much attention and that's good for parents and children alike.

so the negligent mum is yapping to mates whilst chaos ensues.Shocking!definitely merits intervention

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YANBU. Animal cruelty is definitely NOT acceptable.

It sounds to me like if someone had told her off much earlier her behaviour would never have been allowed to escalate to the extent that she was hitting a dog.

Other parents are far too reticent.

Also it's dangerous for a child to hit a dog with a stick: even a nice dog can resent this treatment to the point where it attacks.

I bet shd hae gone mad if the dog had gone for the girl though saying the dog shoud be kept under control blah blah . She souds th type [angy]

she doesn't like dogs so she leaves the play area and attacks one?
deffo needed intervention
good job it was a spanger.....that could've turned nasty

misconception about it not turning nasty because it was a springer, they can be as nasty and snappy as any other dog. If this had been my old dog i dread to think what would have happened as he was a rescue and had clearly been hit with sticks before we had him - but then he was a rotweiller so no doubt it would have been his fault as a killer dog . The mother needed stringing up, not only did she allow her child to bully the other children but she put her in a potentially life threatening situation - if she had hit my dog i would have gone ballistic

Never a rotwhiler [sp] about when you need one is there?

What a vile child.

Good for the woman who had a go

oh, don't get me wrong, i'm not complacent about springers - especially under provocation such as this
it's just that they're far more likely to just run off than to retaliate - on balance
an alsatian/collie etc....more risky

that is a fair point minou

The child deserved to be more than told off!!

PS, a "cute and fluffy" west highland terrier nearlly killed my friend's German Shepherd recently... ANY dog has the potential to be very dangerous.

YANBU, I reprimanded a wee boy v. strongly for kicking a cat that had wandered into the school playground, then told his mum who also told him off(she was round the corner). IMHO the nearest adult should deal with children who are behaving irresponsibly or dangerously, preferably by telling parents if they are nearby. I live in a small town so know most of the parents but I also spoke to children who were breaking branches off trees when I lived in South London, I can be a bit old school!

a few months ago, i shouted "no!" really loudly at a little boy in the park near us as he had some blower-type toy, and he ran up to DS and blew in his face with it (you push a pump and it poots air out), DS thought it was funny, so the boy tried it on my springer, and i just reacted
i explained to him that he wasn't in trouble, as he was only being friendly, but that he shouldn't take such a risk, even with a friendly dog like mine
i didn't even think, as you never know how the dog will react

Oh then if those are the rules do i have permission to hit certain people with a stick because I don't like them ?

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It would have done her some good . Boy am I glad I have too many children to take to the park now!!

What a way to raise children - I wonder if those serial killers we hear about that started with small animals had a mother like this one??

Good point, because most anti-social people always start with being nasty to animals, then can go onto killing animals for fun (other peoples pets, birds) and then are more likely some say to murder another person.
I've never trusted kids, even when i was small who did not like animals and who were not kind to them.

Agree with madamez, this woman did the child and the parent a big favour by intervening - no child should go round hitting dogs, not only because of the cruelty but because if she carries on one day this child will be attacked.