What do you think?

What are your opinions:

1. Would you let your 10/12 year old walk your dog aggressive large breed dog in public areas?

2. Would you let said dog of the lead (with child on their own) in a very public place although it appears to ignore dogs as long as they don't get too near?

3. Would you tie said dog up outside the local newagents on the village green where other dogs/walkers may be passing and get too close to tied up dog without knowing it's aggressive?

4. Would you be wary of the potential for something to go wrong and and incident occur, even though, thus far, all has been fine?

(Maybe this should be in Discussions? not sure)

I would never allow any of the above.

NO NO NO AND no.

I dont beleive any child should be allowed to be responsible for any dog no matter the size as isnt just their abilities you have to consider but other owners who let their dogs loose. I dont believe a child could deal with a ppossible dog fight. and they shouldnt have to.

If a parent cant be bothered walking the dog then they shouldnt have it.

I do allow my two year old on occassion to hold our dog's lead but I have another lead attached which is the one that is controlling Bruno. If i see another dog I ask luca to drop his lead so he doesnt get hurt if Bruno does pull.

Its just common sense.

As for the tying up outside, I only ever use to tie Bruno up outside the POst Office as it had a plate glass window so you could see the whole shopping area if anything was coming, however i stopped doing that when I watched a wee girl of about 3 run up to him and thump him on the head ( thats a different story)

So now if i have to go into shops then bruno stays at home.

I would never let a child walk either of my two! Personally, I would never tie mine up outside a shop, but that's cos I know they can be unpredictable.

My god-daughter who is 17 has been on a walk with us, and they have 4 dogs - 3 Boxers and a Lab, and she is very dog-savvy. She couldn't hold Max or Murphy as they pulled too much.

Big fat NOPE from me too !!

No, No, No and yes....If I had a large breed aggressive dog, that had so far been fine (although if I knew it was aggressive then the 'thus far everything has been fine')
I would always be worried about something going wrong.

No, no, no and yes! i wouldnt let a child walk Fly who's 14 and plods along, just in case! I have tied Shadow up out the shop once to nip into a small corner shop to get water for him, because I forgot it but I hated doing it and was gone less than a minute, and wouldnt do it again - even though he was quite happily sitting there waiting lol. And I'm a BIG worry wart!

This is what I think also, I just wasn't sure that I was making a fuss over nothing.

I asked those questions in relation to a dog in our village which is walked my the kids and I'm really nervous of an incident happening and with the summer holidays coming up we've no doubt going to see it around much more.

I guess I should just steer clear huh? Or what would you do?

a word to the dog warden? Surely a child cant legally responsible for a dog - so thus is breaking the law, where a responsible person should have to have dog under control??

Thanks for your reply.

Thing is I don't know who the people are or where they live exactly and as the dog hasn't actually done anything then all my concerns are just hypothetical.

I just feel extremely uncomfortable when I see them around and think maybe I'm amking a fuss over nothing?

The only thing the dog has ever done is go for my firends JRT when it (the other dog) was tied up outside the shop. To be fair the JRT gave back as good as it got, but it was pretty scary. I gave it a wide berth as it was obvious from its posture that it wasn't friendly.
Then the little boy came out and they went on there merry way.

I can just envisage many a situation where it could all go wrong.....I'm a terrible worry wart!