AIBU to find this rather offensive?

[Romanarama]

I put a message on freecycle asking if anyone had a stair gate to keep pup out of the kitchen, and got this back from someone . I'm amazed that someone who knows nothing about my family at all is sending me messages telling me I should give away my dog because he steals food from the table.

BEGINS

4 months of bad habits.., and your dog is not happy, neither are you.
The first lesson is training the HUMAN part of the family, before training the dog part :-)). Go to a bookshop, a public library, or Amazon.com.
Feed the dog before family meals, of course NEVER at the same place YOU have your meals. Use this moment to train him to something : sit, down, stay, come...Of course don't let him jump at the food before he has done something well.

Then have the dog stay far away during your family meals, in the garage or elsewhere.
Biting of jumping must be punished immediately, on the spot, shout at him with anger, take the dog far away from the family.
That is the price to pay to have a good and happy dog.

If you can't,or don't have time and patience, give him away, for a better future for you and the dog.

Good luck

ENDS

They are loons - ignore, ignore, ignore.

Blimey the morons are taking over! Take no notice what so ever. Complete idiots with no sense of humour whatsoever.

Just delete and ignore.
I've had weirdo emails when selling on ebay. Some people just have to comment on everything.
I use a stairgate to keep the pup in the kitchen!

stairgate such a good idea with a pup/dog regardless of how well trained - it is as much to protect then from the kids as anything else!. ignore!

Didn't know Cesar was on Freecycle....

"Then have the dog stay far away during your family meals, in the garage..."

Oh yes, that definitely sounds like the way to a "good and happy dog"

And feeding the dog in a different room won't make any difference at all, he's not taking food off the table because he thinks it's his - not unless you usually sit him up at the table with a knife and fork to eat his dinner lol!

obv a nutter

do the opposite of what they said

It's about zero degrees in our garage right now, apart from anything else!

Thank you for your comments! For some reason the msg made me feel a bit upset, but I feel much better now

Whys your dog not happy? If mine could reach the table to steal food he'd be over the moon.

Also there's no point punishing the dog, by the time you do he will have no clue what he has done wrong and will just learn that you are not a nice person.

What an utter loon. And utterly clueless. I feel sorry for any pet he has.

oh my word.

it would be cheeky if it was good advice but that is just wrong wrong wrong. and so bloody rude!

If you don't feel comfortable about using your own email address to reply, telling the respondent that he/she is a prat, please feel free to use mine!

I have the greatest admiration for anyone who could resist the urge to reply with a two word sentence, one of which would be "off"!

If it was good advice and politely put, with an explanation of the respondent's experience, fair enough, but in this case how you've held your temper and your tongue so long is beyond me. All credit to you!

They are idiots, treat them witht he contempt they desrve and ignore them. You sound like you're doing great with the puppy to me.

I'll ignore. Thanks for the morale boost Midori - tbh I'm finding it very hard work. I was sick all weekend and by yesterday evening dh looked like he'd been through the mangle. He was astonished at how much trouble the pup is to look after.

A bit off topic, but another freecycle mad message - I once put an ad up asking for any spare balls or scraps of double knit wool for knitting the little 'innocent smoothie' hats for Sainsburys.
I linked to the request and explained how Sainsbury's donated 50p for each little knitted hat to Help the Aged and the previous year, about £200,000 had been raised in this way to help older people heat their homes.

I got this really snotty reply from a bloke who had worked out how long it would take me to knit one hat and how much more effective that time could be used to 'really help elderly people' instead of 'fannying around' with bits of wool.

Nice.

(I did get loads of wool donated by nice freecyclers by the way and made 300 hats)

I love those innocent smoothie hats I have saved a couple and keep them on various bottles in my cupboard, makes me smile. (Calpol fits well)

good grief there are some fruit loops out there.
Ignore the nutter.
We still have a stairgate across the room our dog sleeps in so that he can see/hear us but not necc wander around the house at night

I'd report them to the administrator personally, see if they can be banned. It is totally unacceptable to send out mail like that.

I think you should report them too. It's a rude email. It would have been different if they had emailed andasked you if would like some advice, but that is plain rude and against the point of Freecycle.

Yes, Romanara, I remember bringing our first puppy home very well. I had a dreadful tummy bug the next day, and contary to what all the books said, puppies need to go to toilet much more often than 'every hour, after a sleep, after playing and after a meal'. I was so ill, just the smell of the puppy wa smaking me feel worse! I ended up ringing husband in desperation to come back from work!

Puppies are much harder work than babies when you first have them!

sounds like a loon.ignore.stairgate is great idea.
why not ask on here?