Was I awful to keep on walking?

[doggodramas]

Bit of background. I have a very lovely, placid spaniel. As lots of spaniels are she's totally ball obsessed and not bothered with other dogs. She's not aggressive, just totally ignores them.
I walk her on a nature reserve where dogs are allowed to be off lead. At the start of the nature reserve is a natural kids play area and the nature reserve consists of 5 adjoining fields.
Every day I walk my dog there is a lady and her toddler son on the play equipment. They have a greyhound puppy and let it run around the fields while they're on the play area.
This dog always sprints over and pesters my dog. Jumps on her, pins her down, nips at her collar etc.
Usually the woman spends about 15 minutes trying to call her dog back while I just stand there, as if I walk on then her dog follows.
Eventually she catches her dog.
Today I was so fed up and in a rush that I just kept on walking and walking (only had 30 minutes before work and didn't want to spend 15 mins waiting for her to catch her dog) And her dog kept following me. We got through 2.5 fields and this woman was struggling with a toddler and running after her dog who paid no attention whatsoever.
Eventually she caught her dog and said to me "why didn't you stop?"
Am I the bad guy? Surely if your dog has no recall then it should be on a lead!
And surely you don't let your puppy run riot pestering other dogs while you're 100m away on a play area?
Should I have wasted half of my own dogs walk until she managed to catch her dog?

Thats hilarious - i bet she wont do that again in a hurry. Well done op.

How fast where you walking that she couldn't catch you over 2 and a half fields? Was she calling the dog as she was catching up? I imagine her dog will be on a lead tomorrow!

I say 2.5 fields, but I didn't walk the perimeter of them, just cut through diagonally and over a stile. Maybe a 15 minute walk each way.

First time her pup jumped on my dog I'd have grabbed it's collar and hauled its ass back over to her and told her to get her dog on a fucking lead until recall trained.

But then I had an elderly dog who suffered pain when jumped on unexpectedly by a loose puppy whose owner was utterly useless. Makes me so bloody mad! What if a dog is scared, or recovering from an operation, or just wants peace on their walk!

Tell the ignorant bitch to look after her own dog. You are not responsible for her dog.

Next time it won’t leave you alone, slip a lead round it’s neck and walk off with it. Make her see that it’s not just lazy and ignorant not to train her own dog, it’s dangerous as well.

@VeronicaFranklin - Are you for real??? The OP isn't there to provide free puppy training, recall tips and advice to the women! If she did, there would likely be a post tomorrow 'women gives me unsolicited advice on how to control my
dog!'

If this women lets an untrained puppy off lead and toddler to the park- that is her decision and (ridiculous) choice! Its absolutely NOT the op's decision. How many other walkers have been harassed and followed by this dog off lead? How many rabbits/squirrels who knows has been chased by this untrained, puppy greyhound???

OP actions were intentionally mean and that is why, in my opinion, it's unreasonable.

OMG why do people think they have the right to let their untrained dogs off lead? I’d be fed up too OP, YANBU.

Anything to report today op?

They weren't there today. I went slightly earlier than normal as the kids woke me up at silly o clock!

Poor woman is probably at the park trying to let her toddler and dog run off some steam and is just trying to parent a toddler and a pet simultaneously and failing miserably. I imagine she probably went home, knackered at running 2.5 fields unnecessarily with a toddler in tow and cried her eyes out

There are consequences to the decisions and choices we make in life.
If you get a puppy when you have a toddler, then the consequence is that you have to find a way to exercise it.
As a pp said, that usually involves a buggy and a lead.
if you get a puppy, you have to take the responsibilty for exercise and training.

I despair of a society where we must always feel sorry for someone who is shirking their responsibility.
Sometimes they need to come face to face with their choices and face up to the consequences.

I have a dog. Walked mostly on lead because his recall is crap. If and when he approaches another dog that is my responsibility.

Once you saw she had a toddler bundled under her arm and was trying to catch up, why didn't you stop? Yes her dog should be on a lead, you could point that out to her but i do think you were in the wrong to deliberately let her dog follow you.

There's a lot of other things you can do between standing still for 15 minutes for her to catch her dog, and leading her dog away for 2.5 fields while she tries to run after you with a toddler.

It just seems an unnecessarily nasty thing to do when you could have just said to her previously "it's really inconvenient for me when your dog comes over to play, please can you put it on a lead?"

Why didn't you stop?

Because every walk is the same - you have no control over your Dog and that is your problem not mine.

But I do agree with @OldReliable that once you saw she was chasing you with a kid under her arm I'd have stopped

I think you were mean too. When you saw her chasing after you with the toddler you could have looped back or waited. its not like she wasn't trying to catch you up. While its not ideal she probably is just a mum trying to balance her kid and pet and life like the rest of us.

You did nothing wrong @doggodramas . She should not have her dog off the lead if she cannot call it back. Most especially in a nature reserve. I say this as a dog owner myself and as someone who helps to manage nature reserves, countryside sites and farmland. The torment and fatalities caused to wildlife and farm animals by uncontrolled dogs is a deeply distressing regular aspect of my work.

It was your walk and your dog was not the issue. You certainly weren't being in any way unreasonable.

Best wishes to you.

While its not ideal she probably is just a mum trying to balance her kid and pet and life like the rest of us.

Lots of us on this thread have had kids and dogs. And we know it's unacceptable to have the latter running around while we do something else with a toddler. It's also, btw, completely unacceptable to have a dog out of control in a nature reserve... madness to have a young, obviously untrained unleashed greyhound pup there. Pure luck that it chased the OP and her docile spaniel across fields rather than a rabbit or whatever into a thicket.

I would have a lot of sympathy with someone whose dog had escaped, or slipped the lead, or unexpected taken off after another dog or similar.
Or the first time you met them and they were trying to catch the dog.

But this woman is in the habit of letting her untrained dog run loose with no recall or training, while she is in the play park.
She has made the OP wait on many occasions and she does not see the issue.

So there comes a time when a point needs to be made.
the Op made it by simply going about her own business.

Christ op seems some people will be along soon advising you to knock on her door and walk her bloody ddog for her!! Her life choices are absolutely not your concern.

Or maybe the woman can walk op's ddog and op can stay home and drink tea...

Bravo. You did absolutely nothing wrong and i would have done the same.

She's an idiot. Greyhound puppies are certified lunatics! They tend to be lovely calm adult dogs, but absolute nutters before they get to that point. She's needs to put it on a lead until she has perfect recall...but this is a rarity in greys due to high prey drive.

I think you're completely right to keep on walking and should do it every time from now on. She was probably thinking that she was giving her dog social time without asking you or stopping for a moment to think how inconvenient it it for you or your DD.

She's very lucky that your dog has played nicely (mine would have drawn blood before now) and that you've stopped up until now.

She's an ignorant idiot. This has happened to me many times and now I also keep walking with the useless owners flapping along behind shouting for their dog which totally ignores them. Then always when they catch up they cannot even CATCH their dog while it runs around them. Absolutely ridiculous that people have dogs off the lead with not only zero recall but that they literally have to rugby tackle to get them back. I stopped the first few times but zero tolerance now.

Tricky.....OP you are not in the wrong, but the question you are asking is whether you were REASONABLE.

I don't think it is reasonable to let a person struggle to carry a child for 2.5 fields when you could stop and let them catch up. I think that sounds like punishment.
Yes, the woman is an idiot for letting her untrained dog off of the lead when she is also responsible for a toddler. There are lots of ways you can deal with an idiot though, aren't there?
In my opinion, it would have been more reasonable if you had mentioned your time constraints the last time you stopped and waited. Essentially, it sounds as though you have acted like everything was fine with the arrangement and then suddenly changed your approach.
If you didn't have the stomach to say that to her, you could have at least stopped short of 2.5 fields and briefly explained you were in a hurry once she caught up.

They weren't there this morning because she is mortified. She is probably scared of bumping into you again. She needs to get a handle on training her dog and keep it on a lead in the meantime, but you could have taught her that in a far less brutal fashion. You must already realise this or you wouldn't have asked Mumsnet.