To be verbally abused by this dog owner

[moana1234]

This is an extremely honest account of what happened to me this evening and I am still shook up over now. Out walking my dog with my 2 sons age 2 and 6 dog is very friendly & likes to play, we pass a dog with his male owner and 3 sons near some outdoor fitness equipment both his and my dog are off lead so my dog goes over to say hello both dogs are excited and run in a circle around the fitness equipment. I turned my head and in that moment it is alleged my dog ran and knocked over the man’s son who is obviously upset. I ask if that was my dog and if so I’m sorry and hope the boy is okay. To which I am given a torrent of abuse, the man shouts at me to get my dog under control and on lead. I said sorry she is very friendly and wouldn’t have meant to it was an accident and his dog was playing too. He continued screaming and shouting at me telling me to train my dog and if I didn’t he would train it for me... I was so took aback I asked if he was joking then when he continued shouting I asked if he would just stop so I could firstly put my dog on a lead (I really didn’t need to as she had come back & has good recall but I didn’t want to provoke anything) and secondly not shout round the children (my 6 yr
old was visibly distressed) I got the dog on the lead and as I was walking away he shouted arsehole. I am ashamed to say I was so stressed and upset I actually soiled myself and can’t stop shaking and crying about this. Was I in the wrong here??

Maybe the man was just being friendly and OP misinterpreted him the same way he misinterpreted her dog…

His shouting was not ok.

However, I hate dog owners blabbing about dogs being "friendly".
I don't care how your dog "mean it", I just don't want it touching me or my children(*) and knocking anyone over. If you can't assure it, put it on the lead.

And yes, putting your dog on the lead after it knocks over a child is the very minimum. Not doing it signals that you don't take it seriously.

* and I and my children won't go and touch it (at all/without your permission)

I disagree - shouting is okay in the case of immediate danger. I’d shout if someone was driving a car at my child, or pointing a gun at them or approaching them with a knife. Dogs kill children regularly - I think shouting when one is out of control knocking your child down is the exact right approach to impress the urgency of the situation in everyone around.

Maybe the most perfectly regulated human might stop shouting once the immediate danger is over, but I think I’d be shouting until the dog was on a lead and I was sure all risk had passed.

I’m sorry you’re getting such harsh treatment on here.
In my world if you see a dog and it is off a lead then it is ok for your dog to stay off the lead and even shock horror approach it, dogs are pack animals it is in their nature to approach other dogs. So from your description your in a park/open space your dog approached the man’s dog they liked each other and started chasing each other in circles which is very normal thing for dogs to do. But at some stage your dog or maybe his dog knocked his son over I understand you didn’t see it happen did he? He then went mad a you.
You are both at fault here excited dogs chasing each other can easily knock someone over, obviously neither of you anticipated this. Assuming he wasn’t trying to stop the dogs chasing each other then it was an accident that yes could have been avoided but I don’t think it was just you or your dogs faults. It was simply an error of judgment.
IMO the only thing you should think about in the future is could these two dogs have accidently knocked over an uninvolved passer by depending on how much space there was and how busy the area is. My dogs and my friends dog do the same thing on our beach but 1. There’s no one else there and 2 it’s an enormous space. We take the view that if we get knocked over that’s our problem but I wouldn’t let them do it if other people were around.
I suspect the man was very upset that his son got knocked over (I’ve been knocked over by a large bouncy and badly behaved dog and it hurts) and knew that he was as much at fault as you but took it out on you which was unacceptable. As someone said up thread there seem to be a lot of angry people about.
If you can OP let it go only on MN do people behave perfectly in all situations and always make the right decisions and only on MN do their dogs never put a paw out of line. We all know in the real world neither are true.
You must have felt exceedingly threatened to soil yourself and afterwards you must have felt very embarrassed I hope you’ve had a chance to recover from all of this.

Only read OP's posts.

I said sorry she is very friendly and wouldn’t have meant to it was an accident

If I had a tenner every time some cocky dog owner told me that when I was out running I'd be a very rich woman. Keep your dog under control. No off lead dog should be around fitness equipment.

Of course the man should not have been so aggressive.

Ok, large dog owner with decades of experience here. Your dog being friendly is irrelevant. Any dog that is so excitable that it knocks a child over is not under effective control, it’s that simple. Your dog made the approach . Did you call your dog back? Did you ask if it was ok if your dog approached his? You say your back was turned when it happened. At no point should you be taking your eyes off a dog when it’s off lead - for its own safety as well as that of others. I’m sorry but as dog owners there’s a high expectation on us to have effective control. We can’t have our dogs bolting about knocking children over, it’s just not acceptable. Not even for friendly dogs.

A man threatening to stomp on someone's dog's head in while verbally abusing them is absolutely something the police can be called about. Threats of violence and abusive behaviour can be criminal offences irregardless of what prompted them. Saying the police can't be called is simply incorrect.

If you let your dog knock a child over you should expect a come back

OP didn’t say anything about him threatening to stomp the dog’s head in?

There is little excuse for his aggressive behaviour so that part is entirely on him, and it sounds like a very unpleasant interacion. For the part about your dog though, yes you are in the wrong for not watching him - to the extent you didn't see him knock over a child (allegedly).

However friendly he is, you should be always be watching him and aware of his actions, especially if he is off the lead. You are responsible for any consequences of his behaviour.

Sorry you shit yourself but it would have been more frightening for the knocked over child

But the man who shouted at the OP dog was also involved in the chasing and unless the OP omitted this he wasn’t making any effort to stop them and only got angry when his son was knocked over so both were at fault.
Yup the OP shouldnt have turned her back but 2 dogs racing in circles its easily done.
MN seems to be full of perfect dog owners with perfectly behaved dogs (there is no such a thing) but back in the real world certainly where I live most dog owners are conscientious owners trying their best with well behaved but not perfectly well behaved dogs.

You need a woman self defence course so you're not taken aback when someone raises their voice or acts in a threatening manner.

Yes

Only a deluded and entitled dog owner could think a threat to a dog (not carried out) would be treated more seriously than a dangerously out of control dog knocking a child over.

The wretched animal knocked his child over.

I was wondering about that, too.
The head stomp is from another poster. AFAIK, apart from the shouting (which of course would be intimidating) all the man threatened to do was train OP's dog. Not the worst threat!

If My child was knocked over and hurt by an out of control dog, then the owner chirped on about how ‘it’s just being friendly’ I’d be livid too. Maybe if you’d apologised properly instead of minimising it, he wouldn’t have reacted like that.

No. Thefloor is making shit up to pretend the police would have arrested a man for being mightily pissed off that OP's wretched dog knocked his child over.

Look you don’t sound like a great dog owner. Nothing worse than a “don’t worry, he’s friendly!” I don’t give a shit, get your dog away from me and my kids.

He sounds like an arsehole and I would have grabbed my dog and walked away.

Soiling yourself is incredibly odd and you should go see a doctor.

The responses on here are bizarre. My friend and I walk together with our dogs, we go to a large beach (with no people or other dogs) our dogs chase each other around in circles we allow them to do this as they are clearly enjoying themselves. If my friend’s dog accidentally knocked me over and accidents do happen I wouldnt scream and shout at her. We equally allowed the dogs to chase each other so it’s not her fault if I get knocked over. My reading of the OP is that the man allowed the OPs dog to chase his dog and only got angry when his son got knocked over.
If the man was requesting the OP catch her dog and she couldn’t or didn’t different story.

I love dogs and am all for them being anywhere if they're well-behaved, but they do need to not approach tiny children so boisterously they knock them over. Imagine it from the toddler's point of view, with an animal that's maybe bigger than they are. Like being knocked over by a horse for us. Maybe consider training classes?

Clearly he was an unpleasant man, no question. However, this situation would not have arisen if you’d had your dog appropriately leashed. Generally the number of “friendly” (poorly trained and overly-exuberant) dogs around that jump up, nose at you and generally roam around completely out of their owners’ control has increased hugely. The solution is very simple and you were literally holding it in your hand. Use the lead.

Obviously, abuse is unacceptable.

But ... it's ALWAYS the "mine's friendly" brigade that cause the most problems with other dogs assuming that it overrides any boundaries whatsoever with everyone else. It reflects ignorance at best and entitlement at worst.

My Border went through a period of fear aggression due to this: she never bit anything but it certainly looked unpleasant and walks became a military operation for a while. She's been great for several years but I still wouldn't risk it. And it's not just about being "friendly" but about wanting to be left in peace without any explanation required.

We have a yellow 'nervous' lead but a large percentage of walkers are either illiterate or don't care even when we keep our distance. They allow some nightmare on the end of a flexi to annoy everything else.

I have never been abusive but I don't tolerate it anymore. Your dog comes up to mine and gets told off? Your problem.

It’s not a really highly stressed situation though. It’s just a normal community disagreement. The man didn’t sound overly aggressive and I have probably responded in the same way when Ive had off lead dogs going for my dog. Move in and her your dog in lead doesn’t matter if your dogs friendly.

What an over-reaction soiling yourself.

So basically you both allowed your dogs to charge around off lead around your children. There was always going to be a risk that one of the dogs became overexcited and knocked a child over or unintentionally injured someone or the other dog. Some people will be fine and think accidents are accidents, others will react like this man did when the consequences of allowing 2 dogs to bound around together around children happen.

This is a risk you take when you allow this and if you cannot cope with the fall out without soiling yourself or the fall out distresses your children then you need to be keeping your dog on lead and not allowing it to play with strangers dogs. As for very friendly dog approaching others, it's something you might want to work on as not everyone is open and happy to have strange dogs approaching them and someone may react negatively again meaning you risk soiling yourself in public again.