Oscar has his own lead to walk my lot so I have overall control and he feels he's contributing to the walk.

Also, I thought it was illegal fo ra child under 11 to be in control of a dog?

I saw two children (around 8 and 11 years) walking an akita the other day! It totally ignored Teg, who I made walk by my side as soon as I saw them, but if it had wanted to go somewhere there was no way they could have stopped it.

There's a young Rottie I see at our local park that's a nice dog, but the kids are allowed to walk him. The kids are about the same age as mine (8 and 12). OK, so the dog is friendly, but his doggy manners are only average at best, he does a lot of posturing which some dogs may find offensive. Even if he didn't start a fight, can you imagine if another dog started on him when the kids are in charge? And there are some naughty dogs at the park sometimes!!!!

I only let my kids hold Rogue's lead (tiny JRT) and not by main roads either. I know that if they were to drop the lead she'd just stop walking, and she doesn't pull. I wouldn't let them hold the big guys though, too much risk.

I hadn't heard it was illegal for a child under 11 to walk a dog?

The worst thing I saw was when a 3 year old was left holding the lead of a Staffy outside the chemists which is literally a few feet away from the road!

I had to walk across the road with mine as Parker would "kick off" if a Staffy approached him when he was on-lead so I was hoping and praying that the child wouldn't be dragged across the road by the dog after mine. You would think people would have a bit more sense than this.

I was in the vets a couple of months ago we where the only ones in there with a women her child of about 3 or 4 and they had a young golden retreiver the mother passed the lead to the child while she answered her phone and the dog pulled it straight over to the door which was luckily closed. It did make its way over to us with the child pulling back but Ted gave the dog a look and it didn't come any closer thankfully but if Ted had taken a dislike to it all hell could have broke loose with the poor child on the other end of the lead

I do allow my young cousins to hold Ted's lead but only somewhere i can see all around and i'm right next to them so i can grab his lead or collar if i see something he might react to.

You didnt say what the mother's reaction was. That would be interesting to know. Did she look and appear guilty as what you said to her made total sense. Some parents are just unbelievably stupid with dogs and kids....GGRRRRR!

Its not only kids walking big dogs that is a concern. Even a child with a Yorkshire Terrier is concerning.

They only have to be distracted for a couple of seconds, and the dog could pull the lead and run into a road.

Kids and dogs don't mix very well without an adult present

She just looked at me, I wasn't sure she had understood what I said so I repeated it. I wasn't trying to be snotty-I was just concerned for the child as if it had been Cherry with me rather than Izzy (I wish ) then her dog would have been headbutted if I had not seen her coming along so quickly towards us and been able to move out of the way fast enough.