AIBU to be upset after a dog jumped at our baby?

[KellyK2026]

Okay, so myself, DH and baby were at a country park the other week. Baby was getting hungry so we sat ourselves down on a park bench and got some food out. A woman was walking with her family and dog and the dog must’ve smelt the food as it suddenly
comes bounding over and is jumping at baby (who is on DH knee) to get the food. We don’t know this dog and don’t know what it's capable of. I scream at the owner that we have a baby and to get her dog under control. At this point, she’s pretty far away and is taking her time to come over. My DH then kicks the dog to get it off them as it just will not stop. The woman wasn’t particularly apologetic and seemed shocked. Did we overreact?

What is your point? Only a fool would compare human rights and legal protections to dog rights and protections.

You can't kick a child legally. Campaign for a law change if you feel moved to. Good luck with it.

If you think your dog is a bite risk, take more measures to prevent it. The owner is responsible.

The issue generally is badly controlled dogs with shit owners.

Dog owner here, she was absolutely wrong. Should have been on a lead. And I have also kicked a dog that has come up off lead to my child when she was young.

I've not said anything about dog rights Vs human rights.
Thanks for asking what my point is. My point is that it is possible for another person to be in the wrong yet you don't have to over react yourself.
It actually makes life a lot nicer and easier if you want to give it a go.

@Monty36 my brother and sil have 2 spaniels. One is absolutely fine, the other is a menace. Not vicious or aggressive, but VERY jumpy, very strong and not well trained at all. I won't take my son to their house because the dog has jumped at fully grown adults and knocked them over, left bruises on legs where she's bombed them while they're sitting down and "accidentally" (as in not out of aggression) nipped my sil on the face in excitement.

She does at least have excellent recall, but if the dog in op's post was anything like how she can be, I'd have absolutely kicked of pushed the dog away if it was repeatedly jumping at my baby. And I bloody love dogs.

Its comparable.

To be completely honest, if I saw a man kicking a dog in public, I’d be concerned about how he behaved at home with his wife and child

When he was protecting his wife and child. Right.

Oh FGS.
If a dogs teeth went near my baby, it would be getting a swift kick too (dog not baby 🤣).and when I had dogs I would have expected them to be kicked for doing this

It actually makes life a lot nicer and easier if you want to give it a go. I already have a nice easy life.

There are lots of badly controlled dogs with shit owners, but they do not hamper my life.

Yep there are a lot of shit dog owners. There are also a lot of shit parents and a lot of shit people with neither children or animals.
Unfortunately that's just life.
Glad you're happy though.

When my daughter was about a year old I was pushing her in her buggy round the park. A woman with an XL bully on an extendable lead let her dog come right up to my daughter and get in her face. This was before the XL bully ban and the dog was not muzzled. Understandably I got very cross, but she genuinely didn’t seem to understand what she had done wrong. She just kept telling me how friendly the dog was. Two weeks later I was walking my own dogs in the park when we saw the woman and her dog again. This time it lunged for one of my dogs without provocation, snarling and baring it’s teeth. Luckily my dog escaped unscathed but it was frightening to think that could have been my baby.

Is it? A child went up to her dog and tried to hug it. If the child had barrelled over and been trying to jump all over her dog leaving her afraid it could seriously hurt her dog then I would agree.

Protecting them from what?

Either the OP or her husband could have moved their baby out of the way of the dog, if they were that concerned about it.

But they weren’t. They both chose to remain seated at the bench, because they were more concerned about the dog getting to their food.

He didn’t kick the dog because he was trying to protect his wife and baby, he kicked the dog because it was pissing him off.

It's not comparable, obviously, but you can't argue with batshit.

What are you not understanding about the fact that we couldn’t quickly move? The dog of course was pissing him off because it was lunging at our baby and had repeatedly put its paws on them to get the food.

Okay, if the child came over, started jumping all over the dog and making you and your leashed dog uncomfortable (who had been minding your own business) and then you asked the parents (who were on the opposite side of wherever you were) to get their kid otherwise they might get bitten, and they didn’t move and the kid didn’t stop jumping on your dog and then the dog nipped the kid, would it be your fault or the parents? Would you support the parents reporting your dog to get it put down?

Ignore it @kellyk2026 some people think any behaviour by dogs should be excused and the rest of the world should just put up with their crap standards.

You were entirely reasonable, it was the selfish owner that is the issue!

This is why I cannot abide being around dogs and why I can't go out for walks by myself. I am disabled and either use mobility aids or my wheelchair, depending on what my limbs are doing that particular day!

I used to be able to go to the country park near my house as there are benches on the way to get there, to stop off en route and then when you get to the park itself, again, there are strategically placed benches. It used to be really good for building my muscles in little stints with my walking frame but since the pandemic, dog owners have become so awful. There are strict signs that dogs should be on leads due to the wildlife but hardly anyone follows the rules and there have been multiple times when dogs have approached and/ or tried to jump up. Despite my spouse and I shouting at the owners to recall them as I'm very wobbly on my feet. Instead we just got a lot of verbal abuse back! And that was when I was with someone who grew up around dogs so knows how to handle them and tried to step in between.

It makes me so upset that people don't put dogs on leads, especially when they have no recall.

I hope you are all ok. You are definitely not in the wrong.

i would’ve been upset too. I’m a dog owner and love the dogs but feel strongly that if you can’t/won’t control your dog, it should be on a lead in a public place. Hope you feel better soon

I just think it's a little perverse and irrational to refuse to learn anything about how to interact with dogs just because you rightly shouldn't have to interact with dogs.

Like yes, you are technically in the right and I completely agree this sort of thing should not happen and is 100% the fault of the owner but why wouldn't you want to help yourself to be able to handle these situations better? It would benefit you and reduce the risk.

Sometimes it's better to be safe than right and screaming and kicking round a dog that is actually aggressive, which this one clearly wasn't, is likely to escalate the problem.

A small child wandering up hugging and lying on an unknown dog is a problem. Small children are clumsy and unpredictable and might accidentally hurt an animal without meaning to. the dog might feel threatened and through no fault of its own respond defensively. That could have serious consequences for the dog. It's a very comparable situation. The mum should have been in charge of the child but sometimes these things happen. It want intentional and there's no need to over react.

Absolutely ridiculous!

Honestly don't know if you are deliberately being argumentative or not reading the replies.
I've said the dog owner was wrong! But that doesn't mean you have to kick the dog.

I've already said that in my example it is the parents fault!! What I was trying to explain is that sometimes things happen that are not ideal and when they do, there are different ways you can deal with it.

I think kicking the dog was disproportionate. If I had got overly angry with the kid in my example, that would also be disproportionate.

I wasn’t screaming abuse, I had to shout because the owner was far enough away that I had to shout. I shouted ‘get your dog under control, we have a baby’, which the vast majority of people agree was a reasonable response. Frankly if she had reacted quickly to that, which any reasonable dog owner would, she would’ve hurried up and got her dog.

Exactly

Exactly this!