Are there still any responsible dog owners left?

[Cla7]

I just got attacked by three dogs in our local park when I was out with my toddler. Knowing what might happen, I always stay right at his side so I was able to lift him up when the dogs charged at him. They started to jump up at me and nipped me, luckily not him. I screamed at the dog owners but they weren’t even that bothered, just half heartedly called them back. No apology, apparently it’s fine because they only nipped me and ‘had they actually attacked I wouldn’t be standing here talking anymore’. I have red bite marks but no broken skin. They doubled down saying that toddlers reassemble prey and that everyone with a brain should know that, so why would I take my toddler to a park where dogs are around.

Am I really expecting too much wanting to walk in the park with my toddler and not get attacked? Sadly this is not the first time it’s happened. Where have we come to and in the light of dog owners not being responsible, is it time for stricter rules?

And goes on to say that all knew that they weren't getting attacked.......

Can't imagine why these posts feel tiresome.

Sadly though it happens all the time. I don’t usually let my toddler out of the pram anymore due to previous incidents and head straight to a small, gated playground instead, but today he really wanted to run around and play, and I thought I’ll let him because the park is for everyone and I shouldn’t let me fear change my behaviour and not use the park we’re perfectly entitled to use just like everyone else. I think I’ll start pushing my council for more control or stricter rules, it can’t go on like this.

You are being massively unreasonable to judge all owners based on the awful experience you have had today. Do you judge all people of colour based on the actions of 1 individual? All Muslims based on 9/11 or 7/7?

Call the police and report the attack. Those particular owners are arseholes.

The vast majority of us are responsible and sensible.

That's exactly what you should do, OP. Problem solved. Next subject, please.

95% of dogs are well behaved with responsible owners, the remaining 5% (ish this is on personal experience) either haven’t bother training (4%) or are completely irresponsible (1%). That said I’ve never been attacked in a park but I’m fed up with yappy things having a go at the well behaved dogs snoozing with their owners outside the pub. Nearly always small untrained dogs like chiwahwas. The irresponsible owners with the aggressive dogs don’t hang out at the nice pub!

Fucking hell, they are twats. I would report them and your bite.

What a lot of dog owners (not all) don’t realise, that when parents are with their small children, it doesn’t matter how well the dog owner knows their dog, WE don’t know the dog at all.

I am a huge animal lover but even I am nervous on the inside when a dog comes near my child, I try to remain calm and polite but the risk is too high for me to not worry about it or consider danger.

All dog owners should be able to recall their dog otherwise the dog should be on a lead or walked on private ground.

If you were attacked...report.
If you are tarring all dog owners with the same brush... you are wrong.
Dog owner here . My dog ( who looks big, hairy and scary, you'd probably panic if you saw her) is gentle, placid, uninterested in strangers and her worst ever crime was stealing a dog treat in the pet shop. We are not all the same!

If I were Burnham, I’d put down every dog in the country. It’s got to a point, and it’s simply unacceptable. God bless you

It would help if you wouldn't use such hyperbolic language, attack, bites etc
You weren't attacked, you had an encounter. You weren't bitten either.

Yes, I absolutely would not like 3 random dogs running up to me but I wouldn't then post on a forum with such an obvious troll post.

No, I wouldn’t mind your dog at all, no matter how big and scary looking, as long as you have her under control and she doesn’t charge at us.

You’ve just highlighted the issue…. ‘had an encounter’. It’s exactly this attitude which is the problem.

Have you reported it?

If OP wasn’t bitten, then how come she posted

I have red bite marks but no broken skin.

Surely you don’t consider it acceptable behaviour by dog owners to allow their dogs to cause such marks?

Yep. All those dogs bought during COVID to circumvent lockdown restrictions. It's coming back to bite people. As it were.

Nobody is saying dogs attacking people is unacceptable. What you’re experiencing is shockingly bad and I believe in cases like that there should be more severe consequences.

the negative replies and the YABU votes are in relation to your question. You asked us to vote on whether you’re reasonable to think there are NO responsible dog owners at all.

if you’d asked if what you experienced was inappropriate I doubt you’d have many (if any) disagreeing with you

Not yet, but I will, and I’ll encourage other parents to do the same because I’m not the only one around here who has this problem, it’s been shrugged off for too long

3 you say ? imagine you were in such shock that you had to rush to the Internet to tell us all of your "attack"

Logs onto mumsnet way before calling the police.
Awesome.

So why suggest there are NO responsible dog owners left?

Report.
Dogs out of control in public places
It’s an offence to let a dog be dangerously out of control whether that’s in public or private.
A dog is considered to be out of control if it:

• injures someone
• makes someone worried that it might injure them

A court could also decide that your dog is dangerously out of control if:

• it attacks someone’s animal
• the owner of an animal thinks they could be injured if they tried to stop your dog attacking their animal

Priorities 🙄

First answer nails it 😆

I'm sorry to hear you were scared/attacked @Cla7 but honestly the majority of dog owners are good responsible people with lovely friendly obedient/trained dogs.

I've had a few tricky moments with dogs not under control, and I am a cat lover (still like dogs but prefer cats,) but I still hate to see these dog bashing threads (and dog-owner bashing threads...)

I don’t intent to make a 999 call as it’s not an ongoing dangerous situation. I will look up appropriate ways to contact the council about this situation, but that’s not a ‘right now’ issue.

Well said.