A word to the wise:

[conuly]

1. If your dog is friendly, but the other dog isn't, then the fact that your dog is being SO FRIENDLY is not going to help if the other dog bites. Control your animal.

2. If your children are not large enough to restrain their dog and keep it from dragging them across the street to sniff another dog, then you should be the one walking the dog - not your (unsupervised) children.

I know exactly who gets the blame here, and it's not those kids. Luckily Moonpie is still on her "Yay, I love other dogs!" roll, and also that there was no car coming right when that dalmation dragged its children across the street. Unfortunately, it was the kids who got the lecture, even if their parents take the blame.

Teach your children (and your dogs!) not to approach other people's dogs without getting permission.

Comments

[elayna]

This is one of those times I want Dreamwidth to just have a big thumbs up emoji option.

[spikethemuffin]

I want to promulgate this!

[dewline]

You'll have to paste from Character/Emoji Viewer or Character Map or whatever the Linux equivalent is, I think.

[cosmolinguist]

This! I know my dog is not friendly! And some other dog owners react badly to me keeping as much distance as I can between him and other dogs, ideally keeping him from noticing them at all. One guy who lives near us has an old black lab that looks so sweet, whenever this guy sees me trying to rush Gary along he says something like "she's really nice! she's friendly." I'm sure she is friendly! It's because I think she is nice that I want to keep her from being barked, growled and snapped at by my demon terrier! I think I've offended him but whatever, his dog remains unmolested by mine. :)

[conuly]

Next time holler back "MY DOG IS MEAN!" and see if that helps him to shut up.

[topaz_eyes]

Jfc some adults might have trouble restraining a dalmatian depending on its size. I live in Sleepytown and it always unnerves me to watch a kid try to control a dog that weighs as much as the child. Moonpie is a Very Good Dog.

[conuly]

Yeah, and dalmatians are really *not* child-friendly dogs who tolerate all sorts of childish antics. You should not leave an untrained dalmation alone with a child. And this dog IS untrained.

[ioplokon]

Some dog people are weirdly fixated on the idea that everyone must like and interact with their dog. I'm really scared of dogs and, as a consequence, a lot of dogs pick up on it and get stressed around me/behave in unfriendly ways. But people still get offended when I keep my distance or say I am scared of dogs. Or say that I must be a bad person because their dog doesn't like me. So I think that's what leads to people being irresponsible. Like, they think it's anyone else's fault if their dog does something dangerous, rather than accept that animals can be unpredictable.

[conuly]

Yeah, except the buck stops at the other end of the leash. If your dog does something dangerous, unpredictable or not - and let's be real, half the time it's not unpredictable and any reasonable person could've predicted this - that's on you for not handling your dog properly. Which means it's only walked by a person who can keep it from bolting. While on a leash, because in an urban environment there's no excuse to not have a leash on the streets.

[cesy]

Well said.

[hilarita]

Quite. There's one person who walks a bunch of spaniels whom I sometimes see (more often in the Before Times), and after I froze up one time when she was walking her dogs close (all on leashes), she's been really good about making sure the dogs are out of my way. One dog also has a light muzzle on, I think because other people around here don't always keep their dogs on the leash, so Precautions Are Taken to stop the dog biting. And I don't mind seeing her dogs, because she obviously takes care to control them. I loathe and detest all the people who let their dog off the leash, and when I freeze up, say, "oh, he's so friendly." Well, I didn't want to make friends so keep your damn dog away. You're not filling me full of confidence. I'd rather be around the dog that might be a biter, because I'm more confident that its owner understands dogs and has things well under control.

[silveradept]

Keep the animals under control at all times unless you like being found liable. If the dog can drag the person on the other end of the leash, they're not controlled.

Very glad that wasn't a bigger tragedy.

[conuly]

Mmhm.

[adafrog]

Yes!!!

[malinaldarose]

Oh, so much this! I was walking Jack one day and this little tiny kid was walking a doberman across the street. The dog literally dragged the kid into the road on his chest to get to Jack. We stopped. The doberman stopped in the middle of the road. I told the kid, who still had hold of the leash, to get up. Fortunately, the kid's mother was watching, but it took a minute or two for her to get down the block. Also fortunately, the incident didn't put the kid off dogs; he's older now and able to handle a large dog (the doberman, alas, got sick and died not too long after that; they have labs now, I think).

[chez_jae]

Hear hear!

And, on a related topic, if your kid can't see over the top of the shopping cart, DON'T LET YOUR KID PUSH THE SHOPPING CART! Guh.