Annoying local dog walker

[Raigo]

Please could I ask for a little advise? I have a little 2 year old boy and we go for walks daily round the local park and woods, I love this time with him, he loves the outdoors and he loves dogs. As a responsible parent I believe It is my job to teach my boy the correct behaviour around strangers dogs, so I don't let him run up to dogs, he waits for dogs to come to him and he plays nicely if the dog owners are ok with that. However there is one lady who owns a rather young boisterous black lab and she keeps letting it run full pelt at my boy and seems to think I am being an over protective mother when I ask her to call her dog away, the dog is too big and too much in my sons face for my liking. Its important to me that my son learns to be respectful to dogs but also they should not be in his face either, this is a strangers dog, I don't know if it's wormed and my boy is only a little 2 year old. Today again she allowed her dog to run straight at my boy very fast and try and lick his face, I stood in between and asked her to get her dog, she wouldn't call her dog and said rudely "you want to keep dogs away from your child?!" I am not great at confrontation and muddled up my words trying to explain that I was trying to teach my son about dogs while I was also trying to keep her dog from jumping on my boy. I said that it wasn't the case I was keeping him away from dogs as he had played with other dogs round the corner, but I was getting frustratied because she refused to move her dog away and it was very excitable, a lady next to her smiled at me and said I was right & should teach a child how to be with dogs but the woman was still not being helpful and was giving me a really filthy look. I walked away and got extremely angry with myself for not telling her more forcefully to get her dog away from my boy and it's none of her business if I want him to keep dogs or not. I should say that I was raised with dogs, I love dogs and so does my boy, my family have dogs and i would very much like to get a dog when my little one is a little bigger. But as this keeps happening with this woman is there any advice what I should say to her? As I don't want to get into an argument with someone infront of my son. I am trying to build my confidence when it comes to confrontation, maybe if I have some prepared responses it will help stop my words muddling around.
Thank you for any thoughtful advice xx

Tell her the law states she must keep her dog under control at all times and allowing it to come at you up in your face is not keeping it under control, whether it's friendly or not makes no difference the law is the law and she should control her dog.
I have encountered a similar situation a few times at my local country Park with strange dogs off lead running up to my small chihuahua cross dog whose on lead and jumping on him. 80% of the time it's a lab with an owner not watching it's dog and when the owner is near by all I get is he's friendly or it only wants to play while my dog is terrified and squealing trying to hide behind me.
So if you encounter her again don't be afraid to speak up and tell her to get her dam dog under control.

tell her firmly to put her dog on a lead, or you wil call the police as previous poster said, she is breaking the law,
It really pisses me off. I remember one dog running up to my little girl, paws on her shoulders, licky face, and then she was down in the mud!!
And the dog owner saying 'oh he is alright'!!!!
I said NO HE IS NOT ALRIGHT.
WTF is wrong with these people?
(speaking as a dog owner)

The dog should be on a lead. It's not up to other people to dictate how you parent your son. Next time suggest that they're quite right that you teach your son how to be around dogs but that it's going to be your own terms, not the terms of a strange boisterous dog and they should control the beast!

As an adult, if a dog was to run up to me then there would be death stares aimed at the owner and quite likely words. Now since I have a small floof that I walk frequently, there are most definitely words.

Smurfit,
I agree with you about this dog that it should of been on a lead as it seems that the owner did not have full control of it.

My statement was 'I am teaching my child to be polite and well behaved around dogs, however, I can not do this of the dogs she/he meets do not exhibit the same manners'.

She is clearly an idiot, and there is no point trying to reason with idiots.

Carry on your good work of teaching your lad how to behave with sensible dogs. Pick him up and walk away from this one, telling him that unfortunately some dogs aren't very well trained and he needs to be a bit careful with those ones because they might hurt him even though they don't mean to (teaching caution without scaring him).

I hate this. I'm a dog owner too, and I know that she gets a bit excited with children so if I see any when we're out I put her on her lead. If anything did happen (the worst would be that she would run over and jump up) I would apologise profusely and not argue with the parent!
In our local park recently, there was a large lab running full pelt at the four small children I had with me and 'divebombing' them (dodging them at the last minute). I asked the owner to keep the dog under control and all he said was 'it's alright, he's only playing'. FFS!!! The children didn't know that and were all terrified.

That's a bad owner

completely reasonable request from you my boy is soft as anything but put on lead and opposite side of me away from little children

As aware he is big and could easily bowl a child over by accident . Also made to sit if the child wants to say hello

Thank you all so such for your helpful advice and support. It has helped me a lot to know that I shouldn't doubt that I was doing the right thing. All the suggestions are really good, unfortunately, as suggested, I can't pick my boy up as he is going through a phase of going completely bonkers when I do and screaming like crazy. I have called the police today & asked for the dog wardens advise, they were really helpful and said uncontrollable dogs should be on a lead and what is classes as a dangerous dog isn't necessarily one that will bite or is aggressive, it is one that scares people or children & if he scared my child he could be seen as a dangerous dog (he was just a lovely excitable boy though, the fault is 100% the lady), also the fact the dog keeps trying to lick my sons face, which I HATE, this is also seen as a health hazard. They said if I knew her address they would go round and discuss this with her & inform her of the law, I don't know her address but I am getting a call back tomorrow & they will give me more advise about the law so I can tell her if this happens again. Thank you all again, you helped a lot

Also I should say, we had shared half our walk with a man and his beagle and my son had played very happily and safely with him, then we had met a lady with two dogs, one excitable puppy which she had on a lead and she kept away from my boy and the other very calm older dog she got him to sit calmly and then allowed my son to come and say hello, absolutely perfect owners! Then I see the silly woman. She does however stand out from the crowd so at least it's good that her behaviour isn't the norm! Thanks again everyone

YANBU. At all. Good luck and everything you're doing sounds really sensible.

OP as a dog owner I would tell that woman when you next see her that you have sought advice of the police.

She is really out of order I would be mortified if my pooch behaved like that.