To not understand what this parent was thinking?

[Frequency]

While out with my rottweiler x this afternoon, I noticed he was panting more than I was comfortable with, so I abandoned our walk and took a detour to the nearest shop to buy him a bottle of water.

I crouched down at the edge of a very wide path to give him a drink. I wasn't paying attention to what was around me because I was watching the dog, and no one had any reason to be near us anyway. The pavement is about 8 feet wide on that street, if not wider. We were right at the edge, by the shop window.

The second I stood up, there was a toddler, eye-to-eye with my dog. He must have run up behind me while I was kneeling. He was literally nose to nose with the dog, reaching his hands out to grab/stroke the dog's face.

My dog is friendly but a little wary of small children, so I tend to keep him away from them.

Luckily, DD was with me and had spotted the kid and managed to hold his hands before he grabbed the dog's face and loudly told him, "Sorry, he's scared of kids, and he's just trying to have a drink, can you leave him alone, please?" She had to say it loudly because his mum and her friend had continued walking and were now a good 10 feet away from us. At this point, the mother then shouted at her other small child (around 7 or 8) to "get the baby," so the dog now had 2 kids to contend with while the mother kept walking away, ranting about how the young girl was supposed to be "watching the baby."

DD has anxiety and was really shaken by it, and can't stop thinking about how much worse it could have been if our dog were not friendly, or if the kid had managed to grab the dog's face and spooked/hurt him.

I still just cannot fathom what the mother was thinking, allowing her toddler to run up to a strange dog who was obviously eating/drinking, get nose to nose with him to try to grab him, and then send a second child over after she's made aware he is not a friendly dog?

Surely it is common sense to know that nose-to-nose with a strange, large breed dog, who is eating/drinking, is not a safe place to be, no matter how friendly the dog is?

This was typical bad parenting. Why is a small child walking along a pavement without holding their parent’s hand?

I often see parents walking 30-40 feet behind their young kids along a busy road. Sometimes the kids are running with a football at their feet or cycling. My heart is in mouth but the parents are oblivious.

that said - I wouldn’t own a Rottweiler either but that’s a different question.

You are obviously nervous about how your dog may react around a child. I understand that as I have a massively nervous cockapoo. But i would say it’s equally your responsibility to watch out for kids coming up to your dog and react in the way that your daughter did. It could have easily been a kid out on there own. In my experience there is a lot of people that just assume that dogs are friendly.

Happily . . .

I don't even like dogs but can't see how any of this is OP's fault.

So many people have missed the point of this thread entirely. Forget the dog. He's irrelevant.

Imagine if the thread was "toddler stops to talk to strange man and he takes toddler's hand and begins to walk away. 8yr old is sent to retrieve toddler"

Or "toddler tries to enter building site and 8yr old is sent in to get toddler".

The thread is about a toddler being unsupervised to the point of doing something potentially dangerous (even if OP's dog was Nana from Peter Pan, interacting with a dog you don't know without permission is ill advised) and the only intervention comes from another young child who should never be parentified and told off for not watching their very young sibling properly.

Its always the same , any thread about dogs and we get the self righteous brigade banging on about how awful dogs are and they all need muzzling . Why don't you read the OP and go from there, in this case OP did nothing wrong , neither did her dog . The parents were at fault for not watching what the child was doing , maybe we should muzzle the kids or at least keep them on leads !

Exactly this. It was the parenting, or lack thereof, that worried me, not my ability to manage my dog. My dog is safely under control. The child wasn't.

I will never understand why she sent an 8-year-old to collect the toddler after being told the dog was not friendly (again, just because I've noticed some posters have trouble with reading comprehension - he is friendly. DD said he wasn't for effect and to scare the mother into minding her child by a busy road)

I dont understand some people. I've taught my kids to always ask first and keep a distance until you have permision, also they go most places in their scooters and they either stop until the dog has gone passed or go real slow because we've discovered alot of dogs dont like things with small wheels. The point is the parent was NOT parenting! Its dangerous.

I don’t think anybody on this thread has supported the parent though? She was clearly being extremely irresponsible, next to a very busy road too. That is obvious.

I still just cannot fathom what the mother was thinking, allowing her toddler to run up to a strange dog who was obviously eating/drinking, get nose to nose with him to try to grab him, and then send a second child over after she's made aware he is not a friendly dog?

She didn't 'allow' her child to run over to you, from what you have said she was walking ahead chatting and wasn't paying attention to the kids at all, complete parenting fail obviously. They wouldn't have come back to you, because idiotic parents like this don't want to be told they are idiots, so the other kid came in.

You are both massively catastrophising this though to be honest, this sort of thing happens from time to time, especially when you have a cute/goofy dog, it is up to you as dog owner to deal with it swiftly and efficiently, no fuss, no muss. Unfortunately you had a lapse of attention too, so it got too close for comfort, luckily nothing bad happened though.

I appreciate it was a surprise but I do think it was handled pretty poorly, with two of you there, you should have been in a position to block and move your dog away rather than put your hands on the child, that really is a last resort option (especially with idiotic/volatile parents), which just prolongs the interaction, the better option would have been for you daughter to intercept when she noticed the child, and step in between the two of them, which would have served to push your dog's face to the side, and to have blocked the child without having to grab his hands, if she had done that nothing could have happened, and you could have just led your dog the other way while she blocked the child/children, you certainly shouldn't have just stood there while the dog then 'had two kids to contend with'.

There was no need to touch the child or say so many words to be honest, just 'no thank you!' and blocking/turning away is sufficient, the whole interaction was blown out of proportion, I've had dogs all my life, you need to learn to calmly deal with unwanted attention for their own safety and for your own peace of mind.. you can't control what other people do unfortunately.

This!!

Sadly lots of feral parents about with feral kids. Glad your DD was sensible enough to act swiftly.

There was no reason not to hold the hands of the child either. A parent not looking after their own toddler has no place getting muddy with someone that does.

Toddlers aren't made of spun sugar. They don't crack or dissolve on being touched by a human other than their mother (or in this case sibling as the mother couldn't even be arsed)

I hate dogs, but the OP did nothing wrong!

She and her daughter are wonderful dog owners.

I have a 14kg medium sized dog who is a good natured plank but I never allow a child to pet him.

Any child that approaches him gets told to ask their parents permission or I just give a sharp don’t do that

Bad parenting on adult woman's part. That's it.

Dog looks as if he has wings on his head rather than ears!

I live on an extremely busy main road. The way into the town centre is directly past our bungalow and you'd be amazed / shocked / horrified at the sheet amount of parents that let their small children either run off miles infront or they've got their head buried in their phones whilst speed walking, leaving them straggling behind with absolutely no concerns at all. They don't even look behind them at where they are or what they're doing.

A parent not looking after their own toddler has no place getting muddy with someone that does.

Of course they don't, but they are always the ones that would kick off when they are 100% in the wrong, arseholes are arseholes, and do not like to be confronted with their poor parenting, someone with terrible anxiety like OPs daughter needs to learn to deflect and ignore, rather than engage, no good will ever come of it.

This won't be the last time a child approaches their dog while their parents aren't paying attention.. you don't confront the child, you say 'no' while intercepting and blocking access, it should be second nature for dog owners to be able to immediately remove their dog from situations that may make them uncomfortable or may have an unpredictable outcome.

Such a good post OP, it’s so easy to let your children run ahead while you chat with a friend or let someone else keep an eye on them. A good reminder that while dangerous dogs are not generally off the lead, there are legitimate situations where they might be.

If your dog is not friendly around children, then you should put a muzzle on it if it could be in close proximity to strangers or young children. It's quite easy for young children to get ahead of their parents or suddenly run towards a dog, particularly where distances are close. I say this as a dog owner myself. I would never think of taking a dog out without one of it could be unpredictable. If it bit a child, regardless of where the fault lay, it would have to be put to sleep. A dog that powerful could do a lot of damage.

Poor attitude from the mum.

If your own DD suffers anxiety and your dog is wary, do you normally muzzle him for everyone’s benefit though?

Rottweilers should be made to have muzzles by law! Despite the awful parenting from the other mum. You should have taken your dog away immediately from the toddler so you also played a massive part. It is your dog and you take it away from any stray child who wants to pet a dog unknowingly! Full stop.

He’s a very sweet looking dog! Your DD has her head screwed on right, it sounds like she possibly averted a tricky situation.
IMO the mother was in the wrong, I have a young child and wouldn’t let them anywhere near a dog (or any other animal) that she doesn’t know. Even the most docile dogs can react badly if they’re startled.

The parent is negligent and completely stupid tbh to allow her child to approach a random dog without caution but you are equally responsible for your dog and would be just as negligent as you knowingly take your dog out in public where there is a likelihood small children/ toddlers will suddenly approach your dog and this has been demonstrated now. You’ve said your dog is wary of small children and you somewhat feel that your dog could react. Let’s be real, any and every dog can react no matter how soft and soppy they are. It’s not the toddlers fault they have useless parents that allow them to wander off and they shouldn’t have to suffer a dog ripping into them because of that. If you have even a tiny feeling that your dog could attack a child then it’s your responsibility to muzzle it. If you don’t want to muzzle it then take it to a large open field where there’s no or a very small chance of coming into sudden and unexpected contact with a toddler. People really need to get their heads out of their asses about dogs (Not you specifically) acting like they
are babies and humans. They are dogs and no matter how well trained they are or a family loving pet there is always the chance they can switch and have a mental episode attacking, people need to remind themselves to be quite honest. I grew up with many dogs small and large breeds so I’m not an anti dog person although I don’t own one nor have any interest in. One was a German shepherd who quite literally was that soppy babyish dog who wouldn’t even dream of snarling at a child let’s say who put their hand in his food bowl, yet one day out of nowehere he decided to grab hold of the chihuahua he grew up with nor ever had a problem with and he broke the dogs jaw, legs, back and punctured his liver. The chihuahua had to put to sleep. People can’t accept that different dog breeds have different temperament traits because all breeds can be a family or bombproof pet if it’s treated right, wrong. We also owned many horses and we imply the same agenda that different horse breeds have specific behaviour traits. Some breeds of horses are known to be scatty and unpredictable no matter how much you work on them they will always carry that trait. It was always the people that treated their horses like babies and humans too that had no control of them whatsoever and the horse had no respect for them. Same story every time. Don’t take this as a personal dig as such it’s just annoying how people act like suddenly dogs have so many rights and that if they come from a good home then there’s zero chance of something going wrong. They
put 20mph speed limits outside schools because there’s a higher chance a child will suddenly and unexpectedly run out into the road so there’s precautions in place. If authorities let a someone walk free in the streets who explicitly told them he would kidnap a small child and he then went and done that, who would be responsible the child or the authorities and the nutter who done it? Obviously not the child. So again theres the ability to prevent something from happening that you know there’s a chance it could. Of course not every dog should be muzzled as standard but if you have that feeling something could happen then you absolutely should muzzle it and not just leave the onus on parents (who obviously are completely naive and stupid in the first place) to keep their toddlers safe.

Saying “full stop” doesn’t make you right. In fact pretty much everything in your post is incorrect. It astonishes me how far some people will bend not to hold parents accountable for their shit parenting.