Dog ate my picnic

[givingitupok]

Had a picnic with my child today in our local park. Random dog (Shar Pei) appeared out of nowhere and ran over to us. I stood up and picked up my child and ran in a panic and stood behind a tree (probably looked like a total fool doing so but there was nowhere else to go without running towards the dog!). No idea where the owner was at this point. Watched the dog eating our food and also drooling all over our lunch box. Owner suddenly appeared from a path that lead into the park screaming at her dog to 'get here now'. Dog totally ignored her and she had to grab it and literally drag it away and put the lead on it. She apologised but when I asked her if she was going to pay for our food she actually had the gall to say 'you should have picked it up when you saw him coming' !!! I have just got home and this literally only happend 45 mins ago so am still fuming. She did not pay for our food and despite initially apologising, was incredibly arsey and walked off in the opposite direction. My child is very upset and the worst bit is, he has SEN and made everything in the lunch box himself (spread the sandwiches, cut up the apples, broke the chocolate into pieces to fit it in the container, etc). This was quite a big thing for him and he's really upset. I am also on a low income and spent a lot on the food. I took a photo of her and it clearly has her face in it. Not sure why but I just felt like I had to do something. I am not going to name and shame, but I'm just so angry.

Not sure what I want from this thread. Just rather pissed off.

Are you the owner of said dog?!

Always one!!

Oh I'd absolutely be this petty...

'As the owner didn't give me any contact info , I thought it best to put this on here in the hope that she can take the poor dog to the vet...'

I am not a dog fan at the best of times, but some of them do at least have decent owners.
This woman deserves it all.

Don't be silly. It wasn't 'lying around'. We were having a picnic! Which is a completely normal thing to do in a park which requires dogs to be on leads! It's not like I went to a park specifically for dog walking and started throwing food ok the floor.

I’m not sure that is how it works from what I was told. Chocolate (theobromine) toxicity can be by weight consumed and size of dog from what I’ve read.

I’m trying to work out of this is sarcasm or someone who didn’t read the OP fully.

I can only assume this is a joke, or that you also have a badly trained dog that you expect others to accommodate. It wasn’t left lying around, and the stupid owner didn’t have her dog under control.

Seriously? Have you read what happened and that the OP and child were in the park when a dog ran from a path out of the park? Since when could people not have picnics? Typical dog owner. The OP is upset about the incident and you’re trying to make her feel worse, shame on you.

Dogs shouldn't eat chocolate or grapes OP, but don't worry, unless it ate a lot of them it'll probably be fine - with bit of luck it might just puke all over its entitled owner's carpet! 😂 And anyway, it's the owners fault that the dog was able to eat your picnic. Also, it's an offence to not have your dog under control in public and she plainly didn't.

Are you the woman in the park?

The best thing to do in this situation is to shout “NO!” loudly and firmly at the dog. If you run away, a dog is more likely to chase you and you are also passing your fear of dogs on to your child.

As others have said, this is not likely to have a good outcome for the dog, it has eaten just about the worst things possible.

Lying around at a picnic in the park? Just incase
a dog walks by? LOL

Even more reason to keep dogs on leads then.

They should have had the dog on a lead.

Oh do shut up. She was having a picnic not walked around the park throwing grapes around. What on earth are you talking about.

Absolute bollocks. They were in a park with signs saying dogs should be on leads.
The dog strayed away from its owner and the owner had no control.
100% the owner's fault for the dog not having recall.
You know that if a dog is hit by a car, the driver is not obliged to pay vet bills? The owner of the dog is obliged to pay for damage to the car.

If the dog had attacked someone rather than just eaten some food, it's be a very different story.
Besides, the OP didn't 'leave dangerous food lying around'. It was her & her child's picnic which the out of control dog raided!

It’s good of you to have posted and tried to warn her. That’s all can do really and more than you were obliged to. I hope it gives her pause for thought on how badly she treated you.

I am a dog owner and I know that mistakes can happen even when you are trying to be responsible but I would always be mortified, apologise and try to put it right and I would never try to argue that it was anyone’s fault but mine. My dog once chased a bike. The only occasion he ever did it. I should have had him on a lead but I didn’t expect anyone to be around. The lady was angry and shouted at me but I accept she had every right to be. I apologised and learnt my lesson and I do not let him off anywhere at all where bikes might be any more.

No, the best thing in these circumstances is for the fucking owner to fucking control their fucking dog.

I really hope this is sarcasm. If not I genuinely despair

You are right to be pissed off. All dogs should be under control in public places. Some dog owners are just irresponsible and I'm sorry you encountered one of those.

Complete overreaction by the OP to run away and leave all the food there IMO. Just hope the poor dog is ok

😂😂😂 seriously????

Grapes are toxic to dogs because of mycotoxins and tartaric acid. A dog would need to have level 10 luck to eat a whole punnet of grapes and not have any side effects at all.

Size and weight do play a part, but it's also fairly unpredictable because vets can't pinpoint a safe amount per kg and toxicity can occur even in modest amounts.

A standard UK punnet could be between 300-500g or 30-50 grapes.

Median weight for a sharpei would be roughly 25kg.

That means that for a small punnet of 300g or 30 grapes, this dog has eaten more than 1 grape per 1kg of its weight, possibly more.

The Merck veterinary manual estimates it's a known toxic level for dogs to ingest 1 grape per 4.5kg of bodyweight.

Although there is no safe amount and dogs have died from eating far less, even 1 grape, and some have eaten more and not had any symptoms at all so there is clearly more to it than weight alone that is not fully understood.

Symptoms usually start within 6 hours, and treatment is best started before symptoms occur, so I hope for the poor dogs sake that they aren't sensitive to grapes at all.

Well I'm sorry for being scared of dogs. The dog's safety was not my responsibility.

To run away from an off the lead Shar Pei that is running at you and your CHILD whilst its owner hollers at it to stop is not an over reaction - it’s a heat of the moment decision out of fear.

I say this as a life long dog owner.

Do remove your head from your arse.

The owner was clearly not in control of the dog, so getting out of there was an eminently reasonable instinctive reaction.