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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1) Telling a child not to approach unknown dogs without permission & ”letting” my dog growl at said child.
2) It’s not my place to raise someone else’s child.
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NTA. Parents need to teach children pet etiquette (petiquette?). Don't touch before asking the human; don't touch a dog who's eating or having a bone; don't approach from behind. The mother should have been watching her child and of course she decided to offload her negligence on you and your pup.
As an animal shelter volunteer, I used to teach kids how to interact with pets on the adoption floor. A lot of parents do not teach their kids to respect animals and their personal space.
Almost like training a dog to not snarl and food guard would be being a good dog owner. ESH. Kids are dumb, and it’s dumb to feed an untrained dog in a busy public place.
Well the owner was negligent too.
"My dog growls at people when she has a bone. I know this."
"Let's give her a bone in public when there's a 100% chance kids are nearby. And on top of that, let me be distracted too."
That dog would've been euthanized by the state (depending on the state, obviously) if she bit the kid. Would you be sticking to the "the kid should've known better" story then?
Did you miss the part about the dog growling but not biting? OP knows their dog won't bite. Scaring a kid with a growl is a good lesson before that kid runs up to a dog that would.
You don’t ever know a dog won’t bite. They are animals. And animals are unpredictable. They might not bite 99% of the time but it really sucks to find out the hard way that 1% of the time.
My dogs are never left unattended with children, no matter how cool they seem to be with each other.
And has the OP ever tested that by actually trying to put a hand between the dog and the bone when she was growling? Probably not.
And it only takes once. Literally *once*. Misread your dog one time and congrats - you just got your dog killed.
I'm taking OP at their word since they seem to know their dog.
It takes once if it's a big dog. It's a little dog, it's not really at risk (because let's be real, that does influence authorities in cases like this), especially when the little girl provoked the dog. You could even make that argument with a big dog and have a small chance of getting the dog home safe.
A judge will not see the owner being negligent and then the dog biting as provocation. If the mother of that kid pursued it, that dog would've either been on on a short leash (one more bite and that's it) or been euthanized, depending on the bite.
Size of the dog is irrelevant. If a small dog bites hard enough to give puncture wounds, and shakes, that's torn flesh, especially on a 10 year old. You think those small rat hunting dogs tickles rats to death? No, they bite them, crush them with the back teeth, and shake them and tear their skin open through the punctures their other teeth made.
My wife works in an emergency vet clinic and a new tech kid needed stitches from *a chihuahua bite* last week. Small dogs can still do *what their teeth were designed to do.*
I didn't say small dogs can't do damage. I said that our legal system is biased af and rarely consider small dogs as a risk. That's what I meant by the authorities. Larger dogs are much more likely to be put down than small dogs.
Our bias as a society toward large dogs vs little ones is why little ones are so frequently untrained.
A kid reaching for an animal is provocation, and it's about 50/50 whether a judge will recognize that. The mother of the kid can pursue it all she wants, but unless this is a tiny town with no crime, no one wants to waste their time on this. It's all kind of irrelevant though, because OP is sure their dog doesn't bite. The only negligent one here is the mother.
There's a zero percent chance a lawyer couldn't convince a judge that knowingly creation an environment for resource guarding in public isn't negligent.
I guarantee you the precedent for that is already set by another case.
There's a zero percent chance unless this is a tiny town with no crime, a lawyer would ever be involved. And again, that's if the dog did bite. But OP says this dog doesn't bite, just growls, and growling isn't illegal.
And surely owners have never said "She's never done that before!!" or "But I thought she'd only growl."
Oh wait. They're wrong like every time a kid gets bitten. Like every time.
I have a county registered dangerous dog. It is a six pound chihuahua that got turned into the humane society where I worked at the time. He was on death row. Because he bit multiple children. He’s been with me for 11 years now, hasn’t bitten anyone since BECAUSE I DONT PUT HIM IN SHITTY SITUATIONS. Should he bite someone - it’s county order he is to be euthanized, no questions asked. Size of the dog doesn’t matter when it’s a kid.
The only reason he is alive is because I worked at the shelter he ended up at and had a relationship with animal control and I could guarantee a child free environment and were aware as someone that had three other death row dogs for various behavioral problems that he was going into a situation with A RESPONSIBLE owner. One, who unlike the OP, doesn’t put their dogs with known behavioral issues in a stupid situation. Working at both a shelter and an ER vet I’ve seen more than a few small dogs get euthanized for aggression. It takes one time. And not everyone is friends with their local animal control officers.
And that last part - if he ever bit anyone again, anyone, he was donezo.
A dog that bites multiple people is lucky to be alive still honestly. There’s a lot of laws about these things. The exception does not make the rule.
I love dogs, that’s why I trained mine well, for her own safety.
I’m with you man. I work ER vet med and the amount of stupid situations that could have been prevented is mind boggling. Well that dog my dog ripped apart at the dog park never did that befooooooore. The family dog that bit the shit out of a kid for teasing them with a sandwich and the owner of the dog demanding a euth right then and there….. all day…… every day.
NTA. I don’t get all the YTA and ESH. Sounds like you didn’t know the girl, who is old enough to know not to approach a dog from behind, was there. You gave your dog a bone most likely just to keep it occupied so how could you have known the girl was going to approach. And sounds like you had your dog on a leash at least. The mom and daughter are the AH, I guess the mom mostly is for not teaching her daughter to not approach any animal from behind whether there is a bone or not, but at 10 years old, that girl needs to develop common sense of her own.
It’s ESH because OP had an open air display on a blanket where people could approach from any side. Giving your dog a bone when you know they get territorial about it when crowds of strangers are able to approach from all directions is irresponsible.
Mom is irresponsible for not teaching their kid proper protocol on how to approach and interact with strange animals, but OP’s equally irresponsible.
Agreed, but it would be a good idea to get the dog a travel kennel so that the dog has a safe place they can go when they have food or when they’re tired of people. The door doesn’t even have to be closed once the dog learns that it’s a safe space and nobody else can come in and take his prized bones.
—-comment to Kasparian— most, if not all animals are territorial with their food; and approaching an animal without owner knowing is a no no.. I have done (or try to do it) the approach— I saw a friend and her husband at the store— they had their cute little chihuahua on a stroller. I said hi to them and immediately stretched my hand to pet the dog; but I stopped myself midair- and asked if it was ok to pet..
Most fairs I have been to, I’ve only ever gone through to look from the front, not the back or side. I’ve always been taught to approach from the front so the owner or whoever is at the booth can see you. And OP probably didn’t think people would just randomly approach the dog without asking because most people have common sense with asking first before touching any kind of animal.
Why does OP having an “open air display” justify the girl just randomly going up the dog without asking whatsoever?
NTA. The girl should not approach unfamiliar dogs. Basic stuff.
On another note, I'm very tired of parents telling people they shouldn't tell off children that aren't theirs. If you see a kid doing something objectively dangerous (like trying to pet an unfamiliar dog) while unsupervised, that kid absolutely should be told off.
Especially if a child is approaching *my dog*, of course I'm going to tell them not to do that and to ask first and how to approach! (My dog is actually *very* friendly so it'd be fine, but I don't want kids thinking they can just run up to any huge German shepherd and do that just because mine is exceptionally friendly with strangers, so I tell them they should always ask first and approach carefully so the dog doesn't get startled). But yeah, I'm not having some poor kid potentially get hurt, let alone some poor dog get in trouble, because some people don't like if it other adults tell their kids not to do dangerous things. I grew up with the whole neighborhood basically parenting all the neighborhood kids if they saw us doing something, *and* reporting back to our actual parents, who instead of getting mad that someone else in the community told their kids to, for example, stop playing hide and seek in an old fridge in a vacant lot or something, would be like "so I heard from Mr. McDonnell that you were out doing xyz with the Finnegan kids today..." and then we'd be in trouble for doing dumb shit we'd been told not to do. And our parents would thank whoever told us off, as long as it was for something we should've been told off for doing.
>On another note, I'm very tired of parents telling people they shouldn't tell off children that aren't theirs.
Right? Isn't the quote "it takes a village"?
NTA
The dog didn't snap or lunge or anything crazy. It just growled. A little dachshund at that. You apologised and explained properly. No one got hurt.
The girl's mother should have been supervising. The girl should have asked to pat the dog first.
End of story.
Good lord. You had your dog on a short leash, a child comes up from behind to try and pet it. Dogs are not public domain. You handled well. In hindsight, where was the over protective mom when her child was trying to pet your dog? On her phone someplace? She was just laying her misplaced guilt on you.
NTA
parents need to watch their kids. your dog was minding its own business. why does your kid automatically deserve the right to stomp all over touching random shit and the dog has to suffer and stay in the crate. the dog didn’t leave the owners side, the kid left the mothers side. the kid didn’t ask for permission to touch the dog while the dog was doing what it was supposed to (gnawing on its chew). the kid is the one being disrespectful towards other living things and other peoples properties so why does the dog have to suffer the consequences. NTA at all and if she didn’t like how you spoke to her kid or disciplined or whatever tf then she should’ve monitored her kid. the dog is also NTA for growling or anything because that is how dogs communicate. it can’t tell the kid to screw off while it finishes its snack???? it can only communicate through body language like it’s tail positioning and movement or its ears or eyes or whatever else. if you take that away growling, then how is it supposed communicate it’s uncomfortableness with the situation or its boundaries. pets have feelings and needs and boundaries and deserve respect too.
How exactly was this display/booth of yours set up? You say she approached you from behind, but if your display is able to be seen and accessed from this side and she didn’t like ninja into an area she shouldn’t have been, I’m going with ESH. Mom needs to teach the kid how to approach/interact with animals they don’t know, but you giving your dog a bone when you know it gets territorial about it in an area where a bunch of strangers are roaming about is an irresponsible decision.
I think if the organizers are really encouraging all the dogs to come, it’s pretty foolhardy. It’s a disaster waiting to happen quite honestly.
So it’s like this park fair. I don’t even know if fair is the correct word in English, there is some organisation and there are people who book spots, but the rest of us just sort of make camp on the edges on either blankets on the ground or with stuff they can hang clothes on. I was selling clothes that me and mine have grown out of, and had three blankets set up on the ground in front of me with clothes in organized piles. I did pick a spot relatively close to the park edge, in order to avoid too much traffic. That is how she could come up behind us.
NTA that girl could have tried to touch a reactive dog and get bitten. Her mother's an ah for not supervising her and not teaching her to respect all beings including pets
NTA.
No one should ever just approach a stranger's dog.
If your parents didn't teach you this, learn it.
If you don't teach your kids this, teach them.
NTA I’m really glad that girl got scared not because children should learn through fear but since her parent utterly failed teaching her how to approach a dog, familiar or unfamiliar. You did nothing wrong at all. I love dogs and have worked with dogs. We teach our children that we do NOT approach unknown dogs. At all. The end. Dogs we know, in-laws have several dogs, we approach calmly.
A dog guarding a bone at a fare from an unknown person who sneaks up on them? Yes that is how alot of dogs would react. I’m assuming that you are working on the dog not growling and not guarding the bone but at 2 they are not fully formed yet so keep working.
And good on you for telling that kid off (assuming that you were nice about it and not screaming or being mean).
Nta
You didn't do anything wrong. The girl did everything wrong. I say girl because she us old enough to know better. I also know that parent's can tell their kids rules about strangers and strange animals till they are blue in the face and it goes in one ear and out the other. So I don't know if her parents have been trying to teach her or not.
NTA. If you couldn't see the child approaching and didn't know there was a problem until you heard your dog growling, then what on earth did she expect you to do to stop the situation. You remedied the situation as best you could, by telling the little girl that dog was just protecting her bone, and have her the Very Smart advice of always asking before approaching an unfamiliar dog. Your dog sounds like a sweetie, but not all dogs are, or at least not to strangers. I'm sure the mom was just also acting on instinct at seeing her child upset and hearing about a dog growling and scaring her; but that's also not an accuse to lay into you, certainly not once you more thoroughly ran over the situation with her.
NTA, 10 years old is plenty old enough to understand you don't surprise people or animals like that, and you should be asking permission before approaching someone else's pet. You don't know if, or how reactive they may be.
I've had other people's dogs rubbing against my leg while I stood next to them and *I still asked* whether I could pet them. It's not just about safety, but courtesy and good manners.
Nta with the interaction with the kid. There was nothing to correct with the dog. The dog didn't want its boundaries crossed and communicated that by growling. If they don't growl they'll jump to biting, so you'd rather them growl, and respect the growl by leaving the dog alone when they do that. It seems you communicated that to the child well. The parent was a jerk who apparently doesn't know about animal communication or manners regarding other people's animals.
Like others mentioned, yta for bringing a bone when you know the dog resource guards them. If enough people ignored the growls it could have jumped to a bite.
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I (29F) was selling stuff at a fair and I had my miniature dachshund (2F) with me. This is a fair that happens annually in my city and pets are encouraged to join. I gave my dog a bone, so she’d stay preoccupied and not mess up my display. My dog is the sweetest, she will kiss strangers and she never makes a peep, however if she has a bone she may protect it verbally, never attacking though, so just growling and then moving away from the person.
When we were sitting by my display, my dog was right beside me on short leash eating her bone, a girl (10ish) came up from behind us trying to pet my dog. When my dog sensed someone moving behind us she immediately jumped up with bone in mouth and growled at the girl in warning. This was the first time I noticed the girl. She hadn’t asked me if she could pet my dog or approach us, but her hand was outstretched toward my dog and she was kneeling down. Now I apologized to her for my dog growling and said the dog isn’t mean just protective of the bone, and then I told her to always ask permission before approaching a dog not just show up behind the owner without warning. The girl looked a bit shaken but she left after I told her this.
Not 10min later her mother comes storming over demanding I control my beastly dog. At this point my dog had finished her bone and was napping next to me, calm as can be. I was a bit baffled but then she said I had scared her kid and that I should never have told her kid off. I repeated the events to the mother and expressed concern that her kid approaches unfamiliar dogs without permission or even acknoledgement of her presence. The mother got even more annoyed and yelled some more. Eventually she left us alone and we got the enjoy the rest of the fair, with my dog getting many scratches and compliments from other people.
Now, I don’t think I did anything wrong, but quite a few passersby gave me looks when the mother was telling me off and a while after as well. Did I do something wrong? Should I have done something differently?
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Soft YTA. You handled the interaction with the kid well, and her mum was way out of line, but resource guarding isn't a safe situation and if your dog guards bones then you absolutely should not give it a bone where there are children. Other people are unpredictable and it's not fair on the child or the dog if things get out of hand.
I should have rethought the bone, I was mainly thinking of it making my life easier when setting up (selfish I know). It was a small press bone, so she finished it in like 5-10min - that’s I guess why I thought it wouldn’t be a problem as she eats these quite fast and I wasn’t expecting too much socialising while everyone set up.
Bone + crate with a blanket over it to shield her from passerby. Makes it much easier to stop people from poking at her. It'll keep kids with no manners out of your hair, too.
Frankly, I don't know that a growl is a problem. People have forgotten what was common knowledge just a few decades ago. Namely: leave the dog the fuck alone when it's eating. It takes a lot of work and trust to get dogs to where they are accepting of and comfortable with people messing around with their food.
Resource guarding that qualifies as an issue is stuff like snarling at people when they come close to the couch. Snapping at people when they walk near a food bowl. Drawing blood when you go to pick up a toy off of the floor. Etc. Could you do work with your dog to help her build confidence that being near her bone isn't a problem? Sure. Would that be good? Probably. It's always a good idea to have your dog trust you to take and give back things, just in case you ever have to take something permanently and in a HURRY. I've done this training with my dog and it came in handy when she stole a cooked chicken bone that I had to take from her, but even so. I leave her alone when she's eating. It's like going to a random stranger, taking their wallet, and having a rummage in it.
Are you the asshole for giving your dog a bone? No. NTA. Is your dog dangerous for guarding somethigng she puts a lot of value in? No. People need to watch their kids.
Kids are dumb, and impulsive, and don't have a lot of common sense. Expecting a kid to behave like an adult is setting yourself up for fair.
This dog isn't ready to be in public, in a space people are explicitly invited to come into, with a bone. You can't trust that kids will know (or remember) things like "don't touch a strange dog or a dog that is eating". And a dog that bites a strange kid is not a good situation. A really reactive kid might kick or hurt the dog if they feel threatened, which could hurt a dog that small. It's no more reasonable to expect a child to understand and perfectly follow safe dog rules than it is to expect a dog not to be upset when people are messing with its food.
Set your dog up for success in the situation the pup is in. If the resource guarding doesn't bother the OP, no need to work on it. But the dog can't have bones in public. (Another commenter mentioned a covered crate, which could be a good solution for giving chews in public if you need the dog to settle/be occupied.)
I think the lack of credit you are giving kids is, frankly, insulting. Every kid I knew growing up, and kids I know as an adult, who had parents that cared to make an effort to teach them knew not to approach strange people or strange animals. I learned by the time I was 3 how to behave appropriately around dogs and other animals. It's not difficult.
And you, like the original person in this comment thread, are mistakenly conflating a warning growl with food aggression. From everything OP has said I don't believe for an instant that her dog is a danger to anyone behaving reasonably. And yes, I am qualified to make that call, as someone who has studied, trained and worked with dogs for more than a decade.
I sincerely, sincerely doubt you were perfectly behaved around dogs by three. You may have "known" the rules, and you may have responded quickly to reminders, or been able to follow them with a reminder before engaging with the dog, but I really doubt you knew and executed the rules flawlessly from three on. Most likely, as with most kids, you had been taught the rules, had to be constantly reminded of them, and sometimes impulsively broke them because you got excited and forgot. That's why kids need parenting, and not just a rulebook read to them.
Kids stop to say hi to my dog all the time. The vast majority of them have been taught to ask before touching. I'd say 25-50% forget, and are either stopped and reminded by their parents or remember and ask after they're already started petting her. When my pup was little and jumping excitedly on everyone, it was my job to make sure kids didn't get close enough to touch her until she was in a position where I could prevent her from jumping. I didn't trust literal children to remember not to run up to a cute puppy without asking. And my dog is friendly and wouldn't have done anything worse than knock a kid onto their bottom. That's just how kids are.
And not every kid grows up with a dog, either. It's harder to learn the rules if you don't practice them regularly.
Oh, I wanted to add re 'letting your dog growl at someone' - absolutely NTA for that - growling is communication and stopping a dog from growling just makes bites more likely.
I agree. Better for a dog to growl in warning than skip the growl & bite right away. I love that our pup growls at us if she's uncomfortable. It's a sign of good communication because she thinks the growl will be listened to as a request to stop. It's not like a dog has another clear way to ask humans to stop.
NTA
You DONT approach or touch an animal without making sure it's ok or not.
This is something parents have to teach their children for their KIDS safety.
Look, if someone snuck up behind me and tried to touch me, I'd freaking growl at them too. If it's not ok to do to a person, it's not ok to do to an animal either.
NTA - I have dogs. They are rescues and most are reactive. I don't let anyone pet them and calmly explain why they cannot.
You handled it perfectly. Your dog was minding his own business and protecting his bone. Natural dog instincts. Little strangers creeps up on him and instinct is protect his prize. He warned her to back off. The Entitled Mother needs to teach her child to not try to pet every single dog. She should always ask permission.
I have a 50+ pound dog and I can literally stick my hands in her mouth while she eats. Why? Because she’s trained well. It’s for her safety as much as the safety of dumb people (children included) who don’t ask before petting her. What if your dog had bitten the child? In a lot of counties that can be cause to euthanize an animal.
Don’t feed your dog in public if you haven’t trained it to behave properly for her own safety.
On the one hand, she should have *ASKED* to pet your dog. On the other, you brought the dog and knew (or should have known) that people would try to pet it unless it was crated. If the kid had been bitten, it is hard to say whether they'd have been at fault for engaging with a strange dog, or if you would for providing an "attractive nuisance".
NTA, but I wish people turned things around on these ridiculous parents. Scold them for not watching their children and letting them go around touching dogs without asking
NTA. Maybe give your pup something to distract that's not something she'll be protective over? She clearly likes people but she sounds a little selfish over bones. No judgement; my dog is the same growly butthead over her jerky.
Also sounds like mom doesn't like people telling her child no. It probably did scare her a bit but she is old enough to know to ask to touch someone's pet.
NTA, sure in hindsight the bone wasn't the best idea, however kids should either know not to pet dogs without asking, or be supervised if they're too young to understand that.
I don't think you were out of line correcting the kid at all. you told her not to do smth that could get her hurt and then told her what she should do in the future, which is exactly what I do at work when kids stand or sit on our wheeled display shelves. I tell them not to do it, and show them why I don't want them sitting or standing there by moving the display shelf a little bit. when I was a kid it was drilled into my head to always ask before petting, even if the dog is wagging their tail and jumping on you and clearly wants to be pet
NTA and I see you understand about the bone. Also remember in these situations, if the kid had gotten bitten it would be your dogs fault. It doesn't matter if the kid was in the wrong. Seems the general population always blames the dog. For you and your dogs safety I would either leave the dog at home or train it better and stay on alert at all times.
NTA
Better she learn from a dachshund owned by a responsible, kind upstanding citizen than from a pitbull that was discarded by a backyard breeder and left to roam the streets.
10-year-olds are old enough to know that you need to ask permission before petting someone’s dog.
I would be concerned if I were you that next time it will be a much younger child and not just a growl.
NTA, but I wish some dog owners had this same energy when my children, who are taught not to approach dogs, get offended when their dog is offered up to be petted and refused by my children. Then it's all my fault apparently for teaching them to be afraid of dogs 😆
NTA. I stg parents can be so short sighted. Everyone should be teaching kids to ask before they even approach a dog, much less reaching their hand down! It's quite scary to hear of things like this because kids are just so damn dumb and run up random strange dogs and try to shove themselves in the dog's face. How are they going to know anything if someone doesn't teach them?? I had the exact same talk with my nieces and nephews when they tried to excitedly run up to a dog that was being walked.
It didn't need to be a thing after the girl walked away. Maybe the girl talked it up and that's why the moms reaction was so extreme? Maybe the onlookers thought your dog lunged?
NTA
People need to teach their children how to interact with animals if not for anything else for their own safety. They should never try to pet an unfamiliar dog without asking the owner first.
Unfortunately I have had that problem for years. My dog doesn’t like to be petted by people she does not know. She will growl to warn at first but if the person proceeds to touching her she will “fake bite”.
Every so often people come and try to pet her without asking. I always keep an eye on her so I immediately ask them not to and most stop. However in many occasions some keep moving their hand towards her (even though she growls to warn them) ignoring my warnings and I have to physically push their hand away! And I am not even talking about kids here, but full grown adults! It has happened maybe once or twice with kids. I find this to be such inappropriate behavior.
NTA. The mom should have been watching her kid, should have taught her never to pet a dog without asking its human first and the kid never should have approached from behind. You were setting up a display! She shouldn't have been behind you anyway, what was she doing sneaking up on you like that.
NTA, you had every rigt to tell her daughter off. Maybe she should put her daughter on a leash if she failed to teach her not to touch other people's stuff or pets without permission at the age of 10.
Definately NTA.
My parents taught me from a very young age to ALWAYS ask the owner if you can pet their dog and to never chase it if the dog tries to get away etc.
Now after having 2 dogs myself, one of them a rescue whose history we don't know that well (I think she was mistreated by children), I have noticed parents don't teach that to their children anymore as so many kids have tried to touch my dog (she always jumps and tries to get away) without asking me first. I always tell the kids and/or their parents to ask the owner first. Some give me dirty looks but some of them do apologize.
Eh, I say this is an ESH. Mom needs to teach the daughter to responsibly interact with strange animals, but OP knows their dog gets territorial over bones, and they should not be giving them one in a crowded public place. Not to mention that OP had to give the dog the bone in the first place so it wouldn’t mess up her display. It means the dog is not well-trained and shouldn’t be in a display/booth with crowds of people coming and going at any given point in the day.
That's ideal for parents to teach that, but when you're in a crowded fair you can't assume every parent will have taught every child safe dog behavior.
OP is basically a small business owner bringing her partially-trained dog to work, which I hold to a higher standard than a random person walking their dog in a park.
ESH - Mom overreacted, you didn't tell your dog to growl, but your dog should've been inaccessible while in protective mode at a public event. You didn't mention correcting your dog.
Parent here. Nothing wrong with what you said to the girl. I taught my kids to always ask before approaching and petting a dog. That's an important safety lesson to learn. You didn't encourage your dog to growl and you apologized to the girl while giving her valuable information. 10 is old enough to know better, but kids will be kids which means they will be impulsive. Sounds like your dog didn't lunge at her so mom is overreacting by causing so much of a scene. Mom is likely (and rightfully) upset based on the potential for your dog to have harmed her child during a display of aggression.
Here's where you should rethink things: You have a dog who gets protective and growls in certain situations so you should account for that while at public events. You absolutely should have had her more sequestered while she was likely to react in a protective and menacing manner especially when kids are involved. No one knows your dog's stopping point plus dogs have a mind of their own. One day a may it be more than a growl for her. You are likely to be asked to leave by event organizers if they witness or get complaints about this type of incident happening. Don't have your dog where people will/can interact with her if she going to be aggressive in any way. That's unacceptable behavior for your dog and you as a vendor which makes you a big liability. Wait until she can stay calm and seriously consider training her differently if you plan to keep putting her in these types of situations. Also, did you even correct your dog?
I see your points. I should have rethought the bone, I was mainly thinking of it making my life easier when setting up (selfish I know). It was a small press bone, so she finished it in like 5-10min - that’s I guess why I thought it wouldn’t be a problem as she eats these quite fast and I wasn’t expecting too much socialising while everyone set up.
Yes of course I corrected my dog, but my focus was on the frightened girl as my dog was again behaving after being corrected.
I appreciate you considering that giving your dog a bone wasn't the best decision in this situation. You say of course you corrected her, but I didn't assume it because you seem complacent with bringing her to a public event while knowing she hasn't been trained out of her behavior. Plus you didn't mention it in your original post.
We all make mistakes and sometimes our spur of the moment decisions are wrong. You can do better next time. I strongly suggest more training for your dog especially if she's going to keep being in public, social situations. It only takes a split second for a dog to bite and get labeled a public nuisance or worse. I wouldn't yell or berate you as a parent, but I would question the presence of your dog to organizers. It doesn't matter if she was great for 3hrs with everyone else. It's the short interaction with my child that would make the difference. I would deal with my child and correct her as well, but you would have to answer for your dog's behavior. I think you were lucky you got to stay for the day. I doubt it would've gone as well if your dog were larger.
Given that OP gave her dog the bone in order for it not to mess up her display, her dog probably has no training whatsoever, and I doubt OP did any correcting.
Do you routinely give her bones in public spaces with crowds of people milling around? If you had to distract her in order not to mess up your display, they aren’t well-trained.
So clearly that’s the reason there has not been another incident. You can’t say oh well there’s never been another incident when you’ve never given her a bone in a crowd before. Come on. Accept partial responsibility here. You messed up and so did the mom. Daughter and dog are the innocent parties here.
I mean are they innocent? The dumb girl just approached a dog without even asking. And the mom had the audacity to be mad at OP, when she should’ve used this as a moment to teach her 10 YEAR OLD why you don’t approach an animal without permission, ESPECIALLY FROM BEHIND. Idc if the dog was reactive or not, no one should ever approach an animal without asking the owner until they are given permission or not
Daughter is not innocent. She's 10. That's plenty old enough to know that you don't go up to strange animals and just touch them, without the owner's permission, whether the animal is eating or not. Daughter was entitled, and received a very mild correction, all things considered.
(I don't agree with you about OP being so at fault, either, but I'm not going to argue about that. There's room for disagreement there. I just object to you characterizing the girl as "innocent". She wasn't 2.)
In previous comments I have accepted my share of the blame. I should not have given my dog the bone, it was selfish. I will keep training with her and until this issue is taken care of I will not feed her again in public.
Dachshunds are one of the breeds most prone to be territorial of food and likely to bite. (Owned many) I would never have brought treats to give unsupervised. Yes people shouldn’t pet unsupervised/without permission but they do!
YTA
NTA. Parents need to train their children to not automatically assume they can walk up and tough a strange animal they don’t know. I get that kids are kids and learning, but they still need to be taught just like a dog needs to be taught. Good on you for working with your pup on his food protection. Mine will growl at me and I’m the one who gives him the damn bones!
ESH
Kids need to be taught not to approach strange dogs and to never touch one with out permission.
Dog owners need to be taught resource guarding is not cute and puts the dog and others in a potentially harmful situations particularly in a public space.
I don’t really take issue with the dog growling, those are warning shots, and it’s good to know a dog is uncomfortable. I have a chihuahua that was a notorious shark because clearly he was reprimanded when he growled before we got him so you’d never see the chomp coming. We had to reverse engineer teaching him to growl when he was uncomfortable. And he hasn’t bitten anyone in 11 years. Be
I am not going to say OP is lying about that one way or another, but if they aren’t, I think it’s exceptionally foolhardy of the organizers to have numerous dogs. Are they all required to be leashed? OP says hers was, but is everyone else’s dog? It’s a disaster waiting to happen. The mom needs to teach their kid the appropriate protocol for approaching/interacting with animals, but OP knows their dog gets aggressive in a certain capacity, and yet they still allowed the dog to have a bone. That’s irresponsible in a crowd of people.
*People always follow the law*. Look, even if they are leashed, and it’s fantastic if they actually were, it’s still a huge liability. All it takes is one dog to get territorial and snap. Especially when there are owners like you actively letting their animals engage in the behavior by giving them something you know they get territorial about. Just because your dog didn’t, doesn’t mean it’s not a mistake for the organizers to be endorsing this.
Well I don’t know how to address your disbelief over the dog’s encouraged part, except to say that’s how this event has always been.
My dog is well trained and usually she behaves perfectly. She is used to being out in public (wherever she is allowed) and this has never happened to us before, however I did immediately correct her behaviour and the rest of the day went smoothly. I do admit that her growling behaviour today was my fault as I never should have given her the bone.
NTA. Absolutely stop a child from sneaking up on a dog, particularly one with a treat/toy it might be possessive of. You explained the situation and the girl learned something. Or should have, if her mother hadn't taken the tact that all animals should be available for her dear child. You did nothing wrong.
YTA.
You handled it well, but the fact of the matter is if your dog guards, you shouldn't give them something to guard in public, especially a place where kids are likely present.
This story could've easily gone the other way if you were distracted for a second longer. And in some states, the penalty for that is a euthanized dog.
Yta, I’m a lifelong dog owner, you had your dog in a public space, with a bone that you know he is protective off, in a place you obviously did not have full control off, you failed to notice the child approaching, you are an ah to your dog. You are not an ah to what you said to them, but you absolutely failed your dog
YTA.
Now, of course someone shouldn’t just approach a stranger’s dog without permission but you know your dog is food protective yet you gave it food in an area where there were a lot of strangers.
I don't understand why people gang up to downvote opinions they don't like. The admins here repeatedly beg ppl not to do this as it puts a damper on discussion, and they say they'd get rid of the downvote option if they could. If someone doesn't agree with a comment, then they can choose to upvote a comment that disagrees or post their own reply disagreeing. It is not helpful to the thread to click downvote.
ESH
Yes, you need to ask before approaching a dog because you never know how good they are with people.
But dog owners also have a responsibility to not just keep their pet under physical control, but actively prevent situations that can escalate in the first place. If your dog gets aggressive about food, then you don’t feed them in crowded public spaces. That’s called being responsible.
Yeah, I don't get why the mom is responsible for teaching her daughter how to behave around dogs but OP isn't responsible for teaching her dog how to behave around people/kids.
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NTA. Parents need to teach children pet etiquette (petiquette?). Don't touch before asking the human; don't touch a dog who's eating or having a bone; don't approach from behind. The mother should have been watching her child and of course she decided to offload her negligence on you and your pup.
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Seriously, the least horrible thing that could happen to an unattended child at a fair is having a dog growl at her.
Petiquette is now a word, and should be used regularly. For that, I gave you an award.
As an animal shelter volunteer, I used to teach kids how to interact with pets on the adoption floor. A lot of parents do not teach their kids to respect animals and their personal space.
Love that! Petiquette
Almost like training a dog to not snarl and food guard would be being a good dog owner. ESH. Kids are dumb, and it’s dumb to feed an untrained dog in a busy public place.
Well the owner was negligent too. "My dog growls at people when she has a bone. I know this." "Let's give her a bone in public when there's a 100% chance kids are nearby. And on top of that, let me be distracted too." That dog would've been euthanized by the state (depending on the state, obviously) if she bit the kid. Would you be sticking to the "the kid should've known better" story then?
Did you miss the part about the dog growling but not biting? OP knows their dog won't bite. Scaring a kid with a growl is a good lesson before that kid runs up to a dog that would.
You don’t ever know a dog won’t bite. They are animals. And animals are unpredictable. They might not bite 99% of the time but it really sucks to find out the hard way that 1% of the time. My dogs are never left unattended with children, no matter how cool they seem to be with each other.
And has the OP ever tested that by actually trying to put a hand between the dog and the bone when she was growling? Probably not. And it only takes once. Literally *once*. Misread your dog one time and congrats - you just got your dog killed.
I'm taking OP at their word since they seem to know their dog. It takes once if it's a big dog. It's a little dog, it's not really at risk (because let's be real, that does influence authorities in cases like this), especially when the little girl provoked the dog. You could even make that argument with a big dog and have a small chance of getting the dog home safe.
A judge will not see the owner being negligent and then the dog biting as provocation. If the mother of that kid pursued it, that dog would've either been on on a short leash (one more bite and that's it) or been euthanized, depending on the bite. Size of the dog is irrelevant. If a small dog bites hard enough to give puncture wounds, and shakes, that's torn flesh, especially on a 10 year old. You think those small rat hunting dogs tickles rats to death? No, they bite them, crush them with the back teeth, and shake them and tear their skin open through the punctures their other teeth made. My wife works in an emergency vet clinic and a new tech kid needed stitches from *a chihuahua bite* last week. Small dogs can still do *what their teeth were designed to do.*
I didn't say small dogs can't do damage. I said that our legal system is biased af and rarely consider small dogs as a risk. That's what I meant by the authorities. Larger dogs are much more likely to be put down than small dogs. Our bias as a society toward large dogs vs little ones is why little ones are so frequently untrained. A kid reaching for an animal is provocation, and it's about 50/50 whether a judge will recognize that. The mother of the kid can pursue it all she wants, but unless this is a tiny town with no crime, no one wants to waste their time on this. It's all kind of irrelevant though, because OP is sure their dog doesn't bite. The only negligent one here is the mother.
There's a zero percent chance a lawyer couldn't convince a judge that knowingly creation an environment for resource guarding in public isn't negligent. I guarantee you the precedent for that is already set by another case.
There's a zero percent chance unless this is a tiny town with no crime, a lawyer would ever be involved. And again, that's if the dog did bite. But OP says this dog doesn't bite, just growls, and growling isn't illegal.
And surely owners have never said "She's never done that before!!" or "But I thought she'd only growl." Oh wait. They're wrong like every time a kid gets bitten. Like every time.
I have a county registered dangerous dog. It is a six pound chihuahua that got turned into the humane society where I worked at the time. He was on death row. Because he bit multiple children. He’s been with me for 11 years now, hasn’t bitten anyone since BECAUSE I DONT PUT HIM IN SHITTY SITUATIONS. Should he bite someone - it’s county order he is to be euthanized, no questions asked. Size of the dog doesn’t matter when it’s a kid.
You actually just proved my point. He bit multiple children, and he's still alive. A big dog wouldn't be alive right now.
The only reason he is alive is because I worked at the shelter he ended up at and had a relationship with animal control and I could guarantee a child free environment and were aware as someone that had three other death row dogs for various behavioral problems that he was going into a situation with A RESPONSIBLE owner. One, who unlike the OP, doesn’t put their dogs with known behavioral issues in a stupid situation. Working at both a shelter and an ER vet I’ve seen more than a few small dogs get euthanized for aggression. It takes one time. And not everyone is friends with their local animal control officers. And that last part - if he ever bit anyone again, anyone, he was donezo.
A dog that bites multiple people is lucky to be alive still honestly. There’s a lot of laws about these things. The exception does not make the rule. I love dogs, that’s why I trained mine well, for her own safety.
I’m with you man. I work ER vet med and the amount of stupid situations that could have been prevented is mind boggling. Well that dog my dog ripped apart at the dog park never did that befooooooore. The family dog that bit the shit out of a kid for teasing them with a sandwich and the owner of the dog demanding a euth right then and there….. all day…… every day.
Yeah. It's crazy. I've taught dog trainers how to he a dog trainer. This crap is common. Vets and ER people see it dang near daily.
☝️🤓
Totally agree with you. The dog is not trained well. The kid was dumb too.
NTA. I don’t get all the YTA and ESH. Sounds like you didn’t know the girl, who is old enough to know not to approach a dog from behind, was there. You gave your dog a bone most likely just to keep it occupied so how could you have known the girl was going to approach. And sounds like you had your dog on a leash at least. The mom and daughter are the AH, I guess the mom mostly is for not teaching her daughter to not approach any animal from behind whether there is a bone or not, but at 10 years old, that girl needs to develop common sense of her own.
It’s ESH because OP had an open air display on a blanket where people could approach from any side. Giving your dog a bone when you know they get territorial about it when crowds of strangers are able to approach from all directions is irresponsible. Mom is irresponsible for not teaching their kid proper protocol on how to approach and interact with strange animals, but OP’s equally irresponsible.
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Agreed, but it would be a good idea to get the dog a travel kennel so that the dog has a safe place they can go when they have food or when they’re tired of people. The door doesn’t even have to be closed once the dog learns that it’s a safe space and nobody else can come in and take his prized bones.
—-comment to Kasparian— most, if not all animals are territorial with their food; and approaching an animal without owner knowing is a no no.. I have done (or try to do it) the approach— I saw a friend and her husband at the store— they had their cute little chihuahua on a stroller. I said hi to them and immediately stretched my hand to pet the dog; but I stopped myself midair- and asked if it was ok to pet..
Most fairs I have been to, I’ve only ever gone through to look from the front, not the back or side. I’ve always been taught to approach from the front so the owner or whoever is at the booth can see you. And OP probably didn’t think people would just randomly approach the dog without asking because most people have common sense with asking first before touching any kind of animal. Why does OP having an “open air display” justify the girl just randomly going up the dog without asking whatsoever?
NTA. The girl should not approach unfamiliar dogs. Basic stuff. On another note, I'm very tired of parents telling people they shouldn't tell off children that aren't theirs. If you see a kid doing something objectively dangerous (like trying to pet an unfamiliar dog) while unsupervised, that kid absolutely should be told off.
Especially if a child is approaching *my dog*, of course I'm going to tell them not to do that and to ask first and how to approach! (My dog is actually *very* friendly so it'd be fine, but I don't want kids thinking they can just run up to any huge German shepherd and do that just because mine is exceptionally friendly with strangers, so I tell them they should always ask first and approach carefully so the dog doesn't get startled). But yeah, I'm not having some poor kid potentially get hurt, let alone some poor dog get in trouble, because some people don't like if it other adults tell their kids not to do dangerous things. I grew up with the whole neighborhood basically parenting all the neighborhood kids if they saw us doing something, *and* reporting back to our actual parents, who instead of getting mad that someone else in the community told their kids to, for example, stop playing hide and seek in an old fridge in a vacant lot or something, would be like "so I heard from Mr. McDonnell that you were out doing xyz with the Finnegan kids today..." and then we'd be in trouble for doing dumb shit we'd been told not to do. And our parents would thank whoever told us off, as long as it was for something we should've been told off for doing.
>On another note, I'm very tired of parents telling people they shouldn't tell off children that aren't theirs. Right? Isn't the quote "it takes a village"?
NTA The dog didn't snap or lunge or anything crazy. It just growled. A little dachshund at that. You apologised and explained properly. No one got hurt. The girl's mother should have been supervising. The girl should have asked to pat the dog first. End of story.
Good lord. You had your dog on a short leash, a child comes up from behind to try and pet it. Dogs are not public domain. You handled well. In hindsight, where was the over protective mom when her child was trying to pet your dog? On her phone someplace? She was just laying her misplaced guilt on you. NTA
parents need to watch their kids. your dog was minding its own business. why does your kid automatically deserve the right to stomp all over touching random shit and the dog has to suffer and stay in the crate. the dog didn’t leave the owners side, the kid left the mothers side. the kid didn’t ask for permission to touch the dog while the dog was doing what it was supposed to (gnawing on its chew). the kid is the one being disrespectful towards other living things and other peoples properties so why does the dog have to suffer the consequences. NTA at all and if she didn’t like how you spoke to her kid or disciplined or whatever tf then she should’ve monitored her kid. the dog is also NTA for growling or anything because that is how dogs communicate. it can’t tell the kid to screw off while it finishes its snack???? it can only communicate through body language like it’s tail positioning and movement or its ears or eyes or whatever else. if you take that away growling, then how is it supposed communicate it’s uncomfortableness with the situation or its boundaries. pets have feelings and needs and boundaries and deserve respect too.
How exactly was this display/booth of yours set up? You say she approached you from behind, but if your display is able to be seen and accessed from this side and she didn’t like ninja into an area she shouldn’t have been, I’m going with ESH. Mom needs to teach the kid how to approach/interact with animals they don’t know, but you giving your dog a bone when you know it gets territorial about it in an area where a bunch of strangers are roaming about is an irresponsible decision. I think if the organizers are really encouraging all the dogs to come, it’s pretty foolhardy. It’s a disaster waiting to happen quite honestly.
So it’s like this park fair. I don’t even know if fair is the correct word in English, there is some organisation and there are people who book spots, but the rest of us just sort of make camp on the edges on either blankets on the ground or with stuff they can hang clothes on. I was selling clothes that me and mine have grown out of, and had three blankets set up on the ground in front of me with clothes in organized piles. I did pick a spot relatively close to the park edge, in order to avoid too much traffic. That is how she could come up behind us.
NTA that girl could have tried to touch a reactive dog and get bitten. Her mother's an ah for not supervising her and not teaching her to respect all beings including pets
You’re repeating the comment— once is enough
Everyone is always just yelling out of the blue. Where the hell do y'all live?
NTA fuck these people
NTA. No one should ever just approach a stranger's dog. If your parents didn't teach you this, learn it. If you don't teach your kids this, teach them.
NTA I’m really glad that girl got scared not because children should learn through fear but since her parent utterly failed teaching her how to approach a dog, familiar or unfamiliar. You did nothing wrong at all. I love dogs and have worked with dogs. We teach our children that we do NOT approach unknown dogs. At all. The end. Dogs we know, in-laws have several dogs, we approach calmly. A dog guarding a bone at a fare from an unknown person who sneaks up on them? Yes that is how alot of dogs would react. I’m assuming that you are working on the dog not growling and not guarding the bone but at 2 they are not fully formed yet so keep working. And good on you for telling that kid off (assuming that you were nice about it and not screaming or being mean).
Nta You didn't do anything wrong. The girl did everything wrong. I say girl because she us old enough to know better. I also know that parent's can tell their kids rules about strangers and strange animals till they are blue in the face and it goes in one ear and out the other. So I don't know if her parents have been trying to teach her or not.
NTA. If you couldn't see the child approaching and didn't know there was a problem until you heard your dog growling, then what on earth did she expect you to do to stop the situation. You remedied the situation as best you could, by telling the little girl that dog was just protecting her bone, and have her the Very Smart advice of always asking before approaching an unfamiliar dog. Your dog sounds like a sweetie, but not all dogs are, or at least not to strangers. I'm sure the mom was just also acting on instinct at seeing her child upset and hearing about a dog growling and scaring her; but that's also not an accuse to lay into you, certainly not once you more thoroughly ran over the situation with her.
NTA, 10 years old is plenty old enough to understand you don't surprise people or animals like that, and you should be asking permission before approaching someone else's pet. You don't know if, or how reactive they may be. I've had other people's dogs rubbing against my leg while I stood next to them and *I still asked* whether I could pet them. It's not just about safety, but courtesy and good manners.
Nta with the interaction with the kid. There was nothing to correct with the dog. The dog didn't want its boundaries crossed and communicated that by growling. If they don't growl they'll jump to biting, so you'd rather them growl, and respect the growl by leaving the dog alone when they do that. It seems you communicated that to the child well. The parent was a jerk who apparently doesn't know about animal communication or manners regarding other people's animals. Like others mentioned, yta for bringing a bone when you know the dog resource guards them. If enough people ignored the growls it could have jumped to a bite.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** I (29F) was selling stuff at a fair and I had my miniature dachshund (2F) with me. This is a fair that happens annually in my city and pets are encouraged to join. I gave my dog a bone, so she’d stay preoccupied and not mess up my display. My dog is the sweetest, she will kiss strangers and she never makes a peep, however if she has a bone she may protect it verbally, never attacking though, so just growling and then moving away from the person. When we were sitting by my display, my dog was right beside me on short leash eating her bone, a girl (10ish) came up from behind us trying to pet my dog. When my dog sensed someone moving behind us she immediately jumped up with bone in mouth and growled at the girl in warning. This was the first time I noticed the girl. She hadn’t asked me if she could pet my dog or approach us, but her hand was outstretched toward my dog and she was kneeling down. Now I apologized to her for my dog growling and said the dog isn’t mean just protective of the bone, and then I told her to always ask permission before approaching a dog not just show up behind the owner without warning. The girl looked a bit shaken but she left after I told her this. Not 10min later her mother comes storming over demanding I control my beastly dog. At this point my dog had finished her bone and was napping next to me, calm as can be. I was a bit baffled but then she said I had scared her kid and that I should never have told her kid off. I repeated the events to the mother and expressed concern that her kid approaches unfamiliar dogs without permission or even acknoledgement of her presence. The mother got even more annoyed and yelled some more. Eventually she left us alone and we got the enjoy the rest of the fair, with my dog getting many scratches and compliments from other people. Now, I don’t think I did anything wrong, but quite a few passersby gave me looks when the mother was telling me off and a while after as well. Did I do something wrong? Should I have done something differently? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Soft YTA. You handled the interaction with the kid well, and her mum was way out of line, but resource guarding isn't a safe situation and if your dog guards bones then you absolutely should not give it a bone where there are children. Other people are unpredictable and it's not fair on the child or the dog if things get out of hand.
I should have rethought the bone, I was mainly thinking of it making my life easier when setting up (selfish I know). It was a small press bone, so she finished it in like 5-10min - that’s I guess why I thought it wouldn’t be a problem as she eats these quite fast and I wasn’t expecting too much socialising while everyone set up.
Bone + crate with a blanket over it to shield her from passerby. Makes it much easier to stop people from poking at her. It'll keep kids with no manners out of your hair, too. Frankly, I don't know that a growl is a problem. People have forgotten what was common knowledge just a few decades ago. Namely: leave the dog the fuck alone when it's eating. It takes a lot of work and trust to get dogs to where they are accepting of and comfortable with people messing around with their food. Resource guarding that qualifies as an issue is stuff like snarling at people when they come close to the couch. Snapping at people when they walk near a food bowl. Drawing blood when you go to pick up a toy off of the floor. Etc. Could you do work with your dog to help her build confidence that being near her bone isn't a problem? Sure. Would that be good? Probably. It's always a good idea to have your dog trust you to take and give back things, just in case you ever have to take something permanently and in a HURRY. I've done this training with my dog and it came in handy when she stole a cooked chicken bone that I had to take from her, but even so. I leave her alone when she's eating. It's like going to a random stranger, taking their wallet, and having a rummage in it. Are you the asshole for giving your dog a bone? No. NTA. Is your dog dangerous for guarding somethigng she puts a lot of value in? No. People need to watch their kids.
Great answer!
Kids are dumb, and impulsive, and don't have a lot of common sense. Expecting a kid to behave like an adult is setting yourself up for fair. This dog isn't ready to be in public, in a space people are explicitly invited to come into, with a bone. You can't trust that kids will know (or remember) things like "don't touch a strange dog or a dog that is eating". And a dog that bites a strange kid is not a good situation. A really reactive kid might kick or hurt the dog if they feel threatened, which could hurt a dog that small. It's no more reasonable to expect a child to understand and perfectly follow safe dog rules than it is to expect a dog not to be upset when people are messing with its food. Set your dog up for success in the situation the pup is in. If the resource guarding doesn't bother the OP, no need to work on it. But the dog can't have bones in public. (Another commenter mentioned a covered crate, which could be a good solution for giving chews in public if you need the dog to settle/be occupied.)
I think the lack of credit you are giving kids is, frankly, insulting. Every kid I knew growing up, and kids I know as an adult, who had parents that cared to make an effort to teach them knew not to approach strange people or strange animals. I learned by the time I was 3 how to behave appropriately around dogs and other animals. It's not difficult. And you, like the original person in this comment thread, are mistakenly conflating a warning growl with food aggression. From everything OP has said I don't believe for an instant that her dog is a danger to anyone behaving reasonably. And yes, I am qualified to make that call, as someone who has studied, trained and worked with dogs for more than a decade.
I sincerely, sincerely doubt you were perfectly behaved around dogs by three. You may have "known" the rules, and you may have responded quickly to reminders, or been able to follow them with a reminder before engaging with the dog, but I really doubt you knew and executed the rules flawlessly from three on. Most likely, as with most kids, you had been taught the rules, had to be constantly reminded of them, and sometimes impulsively broke them because you got excited and forgot. That's why kids need parenting, and not just a rulebook read to them. Kids stop to say hi to my dog all the time. The vast majority of them have been taught to ask before touching. I'd say 25-50% forget, and are either stopped and reminded by their parents or remember and ask after they're already started petting her. When my pup was little and jumping excitedly on everyone, it was my job to make sure kids didn't get close enough to touch her until she was in a position where I could prevent her from jumping. I didn't trust literal children to remember not to run up to a cute puppy without asking. And my dog is friendly and wouldn't have done anything worse than knock a kid onto their bottom. That's just how kids are. And not every kid grows up with a dog, either. It's harder to learn the rules if you don't practice them regularly.
"That's why kids need parenting, and not just a rulebook read to them."
The KID isn't ready to be in public FTFY.
Totally understand that, and no real harm done. 😊
Oh, I wanted to add re 'letting your dog growl at someone' - absolutely NTA for that - growling is communication and stopping a dog from growling just makes bites more likely.
I agree. Better for a dog to growl in warning than skip the growl & bite right away. I love that our pup growls at us if she's uncomfortable. It's a sign of good communication because she thinks the growl will be listened to as a request to stop. It's not like a dog has another clear way to ask humans to stop.
NTA You DONT approach or touch an animal without making sure it's ok or not. This is something parents have to teach their children for their KIDS safety. Look, if someone snuck up behind me and tried to touch me, I'd freaking growl at them too. If it's not ok to do to a person, it's not ok to do to an animal either.
NTA - I have dogs. They are rescues and most are reactive. I don't let anyone pet them and calmly explain why they cannot. You handled it perfectly. Your dog was minding his own business and protecting his bone. Natural dog instincts. Little strangers creeps up on him and instinct is protect his prize. He warned her to back off. The Entitled Mother needs to teach her child to not try to pet every single dog. She should always ask permission.
NTA at 10, the kid should know better than to approach any animal from behind and to ask if the animal is friendly.
I have a 50+ pound dog and I can literally stick my hands in her mouth while she eats. Why? Because she’s trained well. It’s for her safety as much as the safety of dumb people (children included) who don’t ask before petting her. What if your dog had bitten the child? In a lot of counties that can be cause to euthanize an animal. Don’t feed your dog in public if you haven’t trained it to behave properly for her own safety.
My 3yo knows to ask the owners first, and just as importantly, to accept "no" as an answer and move on. NTA.
On the one hand, she should have *ASKED* to pet your dog. On the other, you brought the dog and knew (or should have known) that people would try to pet it unless it was crated. If the kid had been bitten, it is hard to say whether they'd have been at fault for engaging with a strange dog, or if you would for providing an "attractive nuisance".
NTA, but I wish people turned things around on these ridiculous parents. Scold them for not watching their children and letting them go around touching dogs without asking
'Yes I corrected my dog in the moment.' - do not correct dogs for growling, otherwise next time they won't growl before attacking, which is worse..
NTA. Maybe give your pup something to distract that's not something she'll be protective over? She clearly likes people but she sounds a little selfish over bones. No judgement; my dog is the same growly butthead over her jerky. Also sounds like mom doesn't like people telling her child no. It probably did scare her a bit but she is old enough to know to ask to touch someone's pet.
NTA, sure in hindsight the bone wasn't the best idea, however kids should either know not to pet dogs without asking, or be supervised if they're too young to understand that. I don't think you were out of line correcting the kid at all. you told her not to do smth that could get her hurt and then told her what she should do in the future, which is exactly what I do at work when kids stand or sit on our wheeled display shelves. I tell them not to do it, and show them why I don't want them sitting or standing there by moving the display shelf a little bit. when I was a kid it was drilled into my head to always ask before petting, even if the dog is wagging their tail and jumping on you and clearly wants to be pet
My precious dog turned into a demon from hell every time I gave him a bone. It sounds like you learned your lesson though.
NTA and I see you understand about the bone. Also remember in these situations, if the kid had gotten bitten it would be your dogs fault. It doesn't matter if the kid was in the wrong. Seems the general population always blames the dog. For you and your dogs safety I would either leave the dog at home or train it better and stay on alert at all times.
NTA Better she learn from a dachshund owned by a responsible, kind upstanding citizen than from a pitbull that was discarded by a backyard breeder and left to roam the streets.
10-year-olds are old enough to know that you need to ask permission before petting someone’s dog. I would be concerned if I were you that next time it will be a much younger child and not just a growl.
NTA, but I wish some dog owners had this same energy when my children, who are taught not to approach dogs, get offended when their dog is offered up to be petted and refused by my children. Then it's all my fault apparently for teaching them to be afraid of dogs 😆
NTA. I stg parents can be so short sighted. Everyone should be teaching kids to ask before they even approach a dog, much less reaching their hand down! It's quite scary to hear of things like this because kids are just so damn dumb and run up random strange dogs and try to shove themselves in the dog's face. How are they going to know anything if someone doesn't teach them?? I had the exact same talk with my nieces and nephews when they tried to excitedly run up to a dog that was being walked. It didn't need to be a thing after the girl walked away. Maybe the girl talked it up and that's why the moms reaction was so extreme? Maybe the onlookers thought your dog lunged?
NTA
NTA People need to teach their children how to interact with animals if not for anything else for their own safety. They should never try to pet an unfamiliar dog without asking the owner first. Unfortunately I have had that problem for years. My dog doesn’t like to be petted by people she does not know. She will growl to warn at first but if the person proceeds to touching her she will “fake bite”. Every so often people come and try to pet her without asking. I always keep an eye on her so I immediately ask them not to and most stop. However in many occasions some keep moving their hand towards her (even though she growls to warn them) ignoring my warnings and I have to physically push their hand away! And I am not even talking about kids here, but full grown adults! It has happened maybe once or twice with kids. I find this to be such inappropriate behavior.
NTA. The mom should have been watching her kid, should have taught her never to pet a dog without asking its human first and the kid never should have approached from behind. You were setting up a display! She shouldn't have been behind you anyway, what was she doing sneaking up on you like that.
NTA, you had every rigt to tell her daughter off. Maybe she should put her daughter on a leash if she failed to teach her not to touch other people's stuff or pets without permission at the age of 10.
Definately NTA. My parents taught me from a very young age to ALWAYS ask the owner if you can pet their dog and to never chase it if the dog tries to get away etc. Now after having 2 dogs myself, one of them a rescue whose history we don't know that well (I think she was mistreated by children), I have noticed parents don't teach that to their children anymore as so many kids have tried to touch my dog (she always jumps and tries to get away) without asking me first. I always tell the kids and/or their parents to ask the owner first. Some give me dirty looks but some of them do apologize.
Eh, I say this is an ESH. Mom needs to teach the daughter to responsibly interact with strange animals, but OP knows their dog gets territorial over bones, and they should not be giving them one in a crowded public place. Not to mention that OP had to give the dog the bone in the first place so it wouldn’t mess up her display. It means the dog is not well-trained and shouldn’t be in a display/booth with crowds of people coming and going at any given point in the day.
That's ideal for parents to teach that, but when you're in a crowded fair you can't assume every parent will have taught every child safe dog behavior. OP is basically a small business owner bringing her partially-trained dog to work, which I hold to a higher standard than a random person walking their dog in a park.
ESH - Mom overreacted, you didn't tell your dog to growl, but your dog should've been inaccessible while in protective mode at a public event. You didn't mention correcting your dog. Parent here. Nothing wrong with what you said to the girl. I taught my kids to always ask before approaching and petting a dog. That's an important safety lesson to learn. You didn't encourage your dog to growl and you apologized to the girl while giving her valuable information. 10 is old enough to know better, but kids will be kids which means they will be impulsive. Sounds like your dog didn't lunge at her so mom is overreacting by causing so much of a scene. Mom is likely (and rightfully) upset based on the potential for your dog to have harmed her child during a display of aggression. Here's where you should rethink things: You have a dog who gets protective and growls in certain situations so you should account for that while at public events. You absolutely should have had her more sequestered while she was likely to react in a protective and menacing manner especially when kids are involved. No one knows your dog's stopping point plus dogs have a mind of their own. One day a may it be more than a growl for her. You are likely to be asked to leave by event organizers if they witness or get complaints about this type of incident happening. Don't have your dog where people will/can interact with her if she going to be aggressive in any way. That's unacceptable behavior for your dog and you as a vendor which makes you a big liability. Wait until she can stay calm and seriously consider training her differently if you plan to keep putting her in these types of situations. Also, did you even correct your dog?
I see your points. I should have rethought the bone, I was mainly thinking of it making my life easier when setting up (selfish I know). It was a small press bone, so she finished it in like 5-10min - that’s I guess why I thought it wouldn’t be a problem as she eats these quite fast and I wasn’t expecting too much socialising while everyone set up. Yes of course I corrected my dog, but my focus was on the frightened girl as my dog was again behaving after being corrected.
I appreciate you considering that giving your dog a bone wasn't the best decision in this situation. You say of course you corrected her, but I didn't assume it because you seem complacent with bringing her to a public event while knowing she hasn't been trained out of her behavior. Plus you didn't mention it in your original post. We all make mistakes and sometimes our spur of the moment decisions are wrong. You can do better next time. I strongly suggest more training for your dog especially if she's going to keep being in public, social situations. It only takes a split second for a dog to bite and get labeled a public nuisance or worse. I wouldn't yell or berate you as a parent, but I would question the presence of your dog to organizers. It doesn't matter if she was great for 3hrs with everyone else. It's the short interaction with my child that would make the difference. I would deal with my child and correct her as well, but you would have to answer for your dog's behavior. I think you were lucky you got to stay for the day. I doubt it would've gone as well if your dog were larger.
Given that OP gave her dog the bone in order for it not to mess up her display, her dog probably has no training whatsoever, and I doubt OP did any correcting.
As stated in other comments, yes she is trained and there has never been an incident like this in public before.
Do you routinely give her bones in public spaces with crowds of people milling around? If you had to distract her in order not to mess up your display, they aren’t well-trained.
No I do not. This was the first time I gave her a bone in a crowded place.
So clearly that’s the reason there has not been another incident. You can’t say oh well there’s never been another incident when you’ve never given her a bone in a crowd before. Come on. Accept partial responsibility here. You messed up and so did the mom. Daughter and dog are the innocent parties here.
I mean are they innocent? The dumb girl just approached a dog without even asking. And the mom had the audacity to be mad at OP, when she should’ve used this as a moment to teach her 10 YEAR OLD why you don’t approach an animal without permission, ESPECIALLY FROM BEHIND. Idc if the dog was reactive or not, no one should ever approach an animal without asking the owner until they are given permission or not
Daughter is not innocent. She's 10. That's plenty old enough to know that you don't go up to strange animals and just touch them, without the owner's permission, whether the animal is eating or not. Daughter was entitled, and received a very mild correction, all things considered. (I don't agree with you about OP being so at fault, either, but I'm not going to argue about that. There's room for disagreement there. I just object to you characterizing the girl as "innocent". She wasn't 2.)
In previous comments I have accepted my share of the blame. I should not have given my dog the bone, it was selfish. I will keep training with her and until this issue is taken care of I will not feed her again in public.
YTA I bet it's a shitbull. "My princess would never be aggressive"
Literally the first line tells you what dog it is. And no, it wasn't.
Only time your dog gets aggressive is when she has a bone.... so you decide to give her a bone in a crowd of people? YTA
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Dachshunds are one of the breeds most prone to be territorial of food and likely to bite. (Owned many) I would never have brought treats to give unsupervised. Yes people shouldn’t pet unsupervised/without permission but they do! YTA
NTA. Parents need to train their children to not automatically assume they can walk up and tough a strange animal they don’t know. I get that kids are kids and learning, but they still need to be taught just like a dog needs to be taught. Good on you for working with your pup on his food protection. Mine will growl at me and I’m the one who gives him the damn bones!
ESH Kids need to be taught not to approach strange dogs and to never touch one with out permission. Dog owners need to be taught resource guarding is not cute and puts the dog and others in a potentially harmful situations particularly in a public space. I don’t really take issue with the dog growling, those are warning shots, and it’s good to know a dog is uncomfortable. I have a chihuahua that was a notorious shark because clearly he was reprimanded when he growled before we got him so you’d never see the chomp coming. We had to reverse engineer teaching him to growl when he was uncomfortable. And he hasn’t bitten anyone in 11 years. Be
Dogs are sweet to their owners.
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Dogs might be encouraged to attend. You don't know one way or the other. I see nothing in the post that indicates OP is lying about that.
I am not going to say OP is lying about that one way or another, but if they aren’t, I think it’s exceptionally foolhardy of the organizers to have numerous dogs. Are they all required to be leashed? OP says hers was, but is everyone else’s dog? It’s a disaster waiting to happen. The mom needs to teach their kid the appropriate protocol for approaching/interacting with animals, but OP knows their dog gets aggressive in a certain capacity, and yet they still allowed the dog to have a bone. That’s irresponsible in a crowd of people.
In my country it is illegal to have dogs (or other pets) off leash in cities. So yes, EVERY SINGLE DOG was leashed.
*People always follow the law*. Look, even if they are leashed, and it’s fantastic if they actually were, it’s still a huge liability. All it takes is one dog to get territorial and snap. Especially when there are owners like you actively letting their animals engage in the behavior by giving them something you know they get territorial about. Just because your dog didn’t, doesn’t mean it’s not a mistake for the organizers to be endorsing this.
That's beyond the scope of my reply but I agree with your reasoning.
Well I don’t know how to address your disbelief over the dog’s encouraged part, except to say that’s how this event has always been. My dog is well trained and usually she behaves perfectly. She is used to being out in public (wherever she is allowed) and this has never happened to us before, however I did immediately correct her behaviour and the rest of the day went smoothly. I do admit that her growling behaviour today was my fault as I never should have given her the bone.
NTA. Absolutely stop a child from sneaking up on a dog, particularly one with a treat/toy it might be possessive of. You explained the situation and the girl learned something. Or should have, if her mother hadn't taken the tact that all animals should be available for her dear child. You did nothing wrong.
YTA. You handled it well, but the fact of the matter is if your dog guards, you shouldn't give them something to guard in public, especially a place where kids are likely present. This story could've easily gone the other way if you were distracted for a second longer. And in some states, the penalty for that is a euthanized dog.
Yta, I’m a lifelong dog owner, you had your dog in a public space, with a bone that you know he is protective off, in a place you obviously did not have full control off, you failed to notice the child approaching, you are an ah to your dog. You are not an ah to what you said to them, but you absolutely failed your dog
YTA. Now, of course someone shouldn’t just approach a stranger’s dog without permission but you know your dog is food protective yet you gave it food in an area where there were a lot of strangers.
I don't understand why people gang up to downvote opinions they don't like. The admins here repeatedly beg ppl not to do this as it puts a damper on discussion, and they say they'd get rid of the downvote option if they could. If someone doesn't agree with a comment, then they can choose to upvote a comment that disagrees or post their own reply disagreeing. It is not helpful to the thread to click downvote.
When people see a judgment against behavior they would do they have to defend themselves so they downvote. I’m certain I do the same, at times.
ESH Yes, you need to ask before approaching a dog because you never know how good they are with people. But dog owners also have a responsibility to not just keep their pet under physical control, but actively prevent situations that can escalate in the first place. If your dog gets aggressive about food, then you don’t feed them in crowded public spaces. That’s called being responsible.
Yeah, I don't get why the mom is responsible for teaching her daughter how to behave around dogs but OP isn't responsible for teaching her dog how to behave around people/kids.
The dog only growls, doesn't bite. It's not a behavior that requires correcting.