My dog has disgraced herself this morning.

[Sn000w]

Off the lead and enjoying a run around, we were the only people in that area of the national trust park,
It was closed to cars and not many people brave (or stupid) enough to walk.

We stumbled upon a lovely little family of snowmen,
however the one that she could reach was a really small but brilliant feathers McGraw with a carrot for a beak. I was going to take a photo and realised she's pinched his beak and ate it!

She's never stolen anything before but she was so fast!

This post made me smile so much, thank you. Difficult time as my DH has advanced cancer and nights are pretty tough. Thank you mumsnet community. Xx

@vodkaredbullgirl should have realised that the anti dog mob would come and have a go!

I worked in a vets as a teenager on reception and the amount of dogs who eat knickers was impressive!

I once took my old dog to the vet for a routine check up regarding his arthritis and paid circa £70
For the consultation and meds.

Got home and the other dog (the carrot thief)! Had chewed up and ingested the contents of an entire bottle of loxicom / metacam(doggy pain killers) the bottle was 100ml and I didn't know if she had eaten the entire thing or not.

So off we went back to the vets, this was Covid so no staying with her. They made her puke and somehow she had also had some baked beans? Anyway they said she puked up a lot of metacam so they had to keep her in on fluids and she was taken home by a vet over night because it wasn't so bad that she needed overnight constant observation in the local pet hospital but she couldn't go homes

The vet who took her home would call me 2x a day and said all the nurses and staff absolutely adored her.

She had a week of fluids and night time sleep overs with the vet. Cost us £750 (thank god we're farmers, use a farm vet and got a discount because we have cows, horses and sheep the vet sees all the bloody time)! She absolutely refuses to take metacam now if she needs it. Must have traumatised her 🤣

I'm so sorry about your husband. I'm glad you got a little bit of relief from this thread.

Have you seen this thread ? It's for mn users who are going through what you are, for support.
Such a fab resource for me previously

The storm part 3 http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/lifelimitingg_illness/4729740-the-storm-part-3

This is Belle but she's not a carrot lover at all. My Sister's other whippet (sadly died 3 years ago) Chessie was the carrot chomper. Also he loved green beans and would suck them up like spaghetti! I have enjoyed the photos of dogs shared and scrolled past the negative posts.

So sorry to hear that. I'm glad naughty dogs are providing some solace. Dogs are good at doing that.

For the last time. I’m not anti dogs.

I had a dog myself. I have been a dog owner. My parents both had dogs, growing up I was surrounded by dogs. My Facebook feed is full of cats and dogs.

Its just unfathomable to all of you that there might be some bad dog owners out there who caused my DS’s phobia. Your bottom line seems that there are no bad dog owners.

Imagine a Great Dane, and running at you fast, swiping something homemade you were about to put into your mouth you’d enjoyed baking as a treat, coming out of nowhere, scratching your bare legs with its paws as you were wearing shorts, making you totter with the force of its thrust at you and all of this happened in one second. DS was looking forward to his treat and had bought it to the park.

I imagine even you as dog owners would be shocked and a bit surprised if a dog as large as you took something literally out of your mouth. You’d take it in your stride but for a child, a dog the same size as them, that they’ve not experienced this kind of thing before, it’s scary.

Dog owner nowhere to be seen. Dog off loose, charging around.

It’s not my fault this happened. Someone else’s dog was out of control that day and it affected DS quite badly.

I did not overreact. I’ve had dogs jump up on me, countless times.

but as a dog owner what seems normal to you, is not normal to small children who have not been around dogs.

So just remember that. Kids can be badly affected by this sort of thing. Please don’t allow your dog the nick stuff from small children. Or knock them down. Be careful and be kind.

Not sure why all that is relevant on a thread about a dog who stole a carrot from a snowman.

Someone who has built a snowman has taken time and effort to do so.

Someone who has made a picnic has taken time and effort to do so.

Someone who has baked a treat has taken time and effort to do so.

When your dog nicks the carrot, the sandwich, the treat, the ball, the shoe, whatever it may be it’s one second for you but for us, who’ve made the effort, it’s pretty annoying and if full body contact is made, it can be frightening especially for small children.

There were posts on here laughing at this sort of dog behaviour and as someone who has experienced it with bad consequences I wanted to take those posters up and give a general reminder that callous peeing on snowmen and nicking carrots etc doesn’t give dogs a good name to some of us. It causes general anti sentiment feeling and I kindly ask you stop doing it and try to control your dogs better.

You are like a dog with a bone, never giving up.

Jesus christ, move on.

That’s actually quite funny 😁 genuinely!

Ok not so funny…

Sorry couldn't resist 😆

It’s not about moving on or giving up, it’s looking for acknowledgment from their thread that dogs shouldn’t do that kind of stuff and seeing you take accountability. There have been about 10% of dog owning posters on here who have stood up for me and agreed. The rest have just attacked. Why not be accountable for your dog’s behaviour and call out bad stuff and bad posters. Whats so wrong with calling out bad behaviour?

Im fed up of being attacked and blamed for poor behaviour of other dog owners that caused my DS’s phobia and all of you continuing on having a laugh potentially recreating the same scenario for some other kid. You have dogs, control them better.

Acknowledge it was wrong. Even nicking a carrot is wrong. It’s potentially upsetting. For you as an owner you see nothing wrong with it but that’s because you’re used to your dog and you love your dog.

And the lines become blurred for you because I know how lovely dogs are.

I never expected to be in this situation and had I known I would have got a dog. Our setup is hard though. I may look at borrowing or something.

That's nothing. Once we were out on a walk with our relatively recent canine addition to the family. She ran up to a couple picnicking and stole a sandwich from someone's hand. I was absolutely mortified, thankfully they saw the funny side of it. But DDog is now ALWAYS on the lead when near anyone eating.

It’s not about moving on or giving up, it’s looking for acknowledgment from their thread that dogs shouldn’t do that kind of stuff and seeing you take accountability. There have been about 10% of dog owning posters on here who have stood up for me and agreed. The rest have just attacked. Why not be accountable for your dog’s behaviour and call out bad stuff and bad posters. Whats so wrong with calling out bad behaviour

If we say we agree will you go away?

I wish Mumsnet would create a Dog Hater section then all the misery guts who are forever whinging about dogs being everywhere could post on there and stop ruining other threads.

My old boy loved carrots but they had to be topped and tailed, then peeled so there wouldn’t have been any snowman incidents from him.

He did however take out a small child when he had his first snow walk as a puppy. He was charging around in a field which was generally only used by dog walkers when a small child wandered in front of him from nowhere. It was one of those slow motion moments where I could see what was going to happen but couldn’t do anything about it. Huge collision between toddler and spaniel pup! Fortunately the kid laughed and the parents thought it was funny.

Mine would definitely go for vomit given the chance....😳Also partial to sheep poo, and placenta at lambing time....

To all the posters complaining about dogs smelling and stealing carrots and suchlike I could just like to mention:

I've worked with young teenagers in the past, and if you want smelly? My god some of them were rank. Can't imagine how disgusting their bedrooms must have been.

And you want bad behaviour? I give you the 10 and 11 year old that have been running around locally, kicking people's doors night after night, stealing other kids bikes and causing general mayhem. And I live in a very quiet area.

Yes, I realise that two wrongs don't make a right but compared to the distress and fear humans, not just young humans, cause with their behaviour, I think stealing the odd carrot or peeing on a snowman is pretty mild stuff.

Have you ever thought about trying to find someone with a PAT dog that you could slowly introduce your child to? I think really he needs to meet some calm, well-mannered dogs in a controlled situation where he can perhaps just watch them for a while before being properly introduced. It's going to be the only way that you are ever going to beat this phobia. Avoidance won't work, there are, sadly, too many badly-behaved dogs and you can never guarantee that you won't come across another one.

As others are pointing out, this thread is not the right place for this discussion, but you could think about starting a thread yourself. Hopefully not a dog-hate thread, but just asking for constructive advice on coping with dog phobia and how other people have dealt with it. There are a lot of knowledgeable and sensible dog owners in The Doghouse section and if you can manage to keep the dog-haters from taking over your thread, you might find someone with a PAT dog who can offer support.

Good luck. You do sound very stressed and anxious and I do feel for you, but you need to tackle this issue head-on or it will just get worse.

I once read a lovely story about how David Blunkett's guide dog stole a roast potato from his plate at a fancy banquet! So they're not above it at all!

@PlopSofa if we say we're so sorry and we all bow down to plopsofa and we will always keep our dogs on a lead 24/7 and only go out at night so as not to upset plopsofa will you go away?

Thank you that’s kind and helpful advice. I don’t know what PAT stands for but I can look it up.

We’re not overly stressed about it in general but I’ve realised in recent months that he finds dogs off leads difficult to be around when we’re in a park and we do go to the park quite often. We did some walks with a lovely friend a while back with a sweet dog. He knows they can be well behaved now but he doesn’t want to get close. I think it’s understanding how to deal with badly behaved ones or situations that suddenly go beyond his understanding as he’s just not used to dog behaviour in general and avoids them as much as possible, that would be great to be more knowledgeable. I just wish he loved them like I do.

He’ll even cross the road to avoid them…