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Location: East Midlands, UK
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 8,775
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Isn't this sad though ... it's one of my pet hates when parents "allow" their children to be scared of dogs in this way. It is heartbreaking IMO to have a little child cringe with fear when Tai walks past. With patience and understanding, and Tai's help, I can usually encourage them to pluck up the courage and stroke his lovely soft fluffy undercoat ! It often seems to me to be the parents who are terrified, and they transfer THEIR fear and phobia on to their children, which seems to me to be a terrible shame. Whereas children need to be brought up with a respect for dogs and an awareness that some are not as friendly as others, and therefore you do not rush up to dogs and fling your arms around their necks, to have a child screaming with fear standing on a picnic table is so sad.
We were out biking the other day with Tai on a disused railway line, Tai running alongside us. This is a very popular place for bikers with and without dogs, walkers and horse riders. Dogs are very rarely on a lead, and there equally very rarely seems to be any trouble. In the distance ahead of us was a young woman with a small child. As we got closer, she started screaming and waving at us, so we immediately stopped with Tai beside us. She wanted us to put Tai on the lead because he was terrifying her child !
Tai was sitting there looking rather bemused at all the attention he was causing. We just biked past, with Tai beside us ... polite words failed me ! It was quite clear that it was the mother who was by far the most frightened, so one wonders why she was walking down a busy public right of way where you can guarantee always meeting loads of dogs! Some sort of aversion therapy perhaps ? Clearly, if it was, it wasn't working