We were walking through the park minding our own business this morning. M’laddo was wearing his exciting new helmet as he tentatively tried out his new scoot(er) that his grandparents kindly got him for Christmas. After an icy patch, he decided discretion was the better part of valour and he was going to walk.
Then an over excited Yorkshire Terrier that was as big as he was and off the leash decided to jump up at him and scrabble at his face with its paws. Quick as a shot I scooped it up under its tummy and slung it away, making loud shoo’ing noises.
It’s owner, a flat capped gent, was a hundred yards away, saw the size of me and decided against coming back for his dog. Shame that a couple of middle aged dog owner busy bodies decided to interfere really.
From my altercation with this reality challenged couple I gathered the following intel about what middle aged dog owners think:
- allowing a dog the size of a small child to jump up and paw a small child doesn’t give that child a fear of dogs;
- parents who shoo dogs away that are attacking their children give the child an unwarranted fear of dogs;
- children should always be encouraged to pet strangers dogs;
- people who put the safety of their children over the well being of a dog that is attacking the child are “evil”;
- it is possible to “un-see” drawn blood on the face of a two year old if it doesn’t reconcile with your view of a dogs place in the world.
To be fair to this pair of middle aged morons, I did get over-excited at more than one point- after the woman called me “evil” I did call her a “deranged battleaxe” and her husband a “cretin”. He must have been a cretin, because despite showing him the fresh blood on my son’s face, it “wasn’t even mud, let alone blood.”
I’m not tarring all dog owners with the same brush by any means. There’s a 30 something chap with a young collie who often walks her in the park. She’s really well trained and excellently behaved- on the way back we saw them, and the dog ran up to us, sat down 5ft away and dropped the ball she’d been carrying, as if to say “here’s my ball, you can have it if you want to.”
It is now getting to the point where we’re reticent to walk through the park with M’laddo because today’s occurrence isn’t unique by any stretch. People in this country have the right to own a dog but a two year old also has rights, and the right to walk through the park unmolested has to be pretty high on this list of his rights. If this had been done by an adult, he would currently in sitting in a prison cell. And as far as I’m concerned if a person can’t control their dog, they shouldn’t be allowed to own one.