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agonyaunt2022-12-02 01:12 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2022-12-02 01:12 am
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Dear Prudence: Help! A Kid Messed With Our Dog Despite Being Warned. Now His Mother Is Threatening U
My girlfriend rescued a small, fluffy, abused dog. We have been working on the training, but one behavior will not go away: the dog hates kids. He will growl and try to hide if one approaches him. Taking him on walks is hazardous because there is apparently an uncountable number of idiot parents who think letting their screaming spawn run up to an unknown dog and stick their hands in its face is fine. Half the time I have to pick up my dog because they will not listen when I say not to approach and my dog isn’t friendly. I actually had a mother argue with me that her kid “knows” when a dog is friendly and implied my dog would be better off put down than out in public. I told her she was better off putting a leash on her own kid.
So, my sister knows all about the situation with our dog. She came over with her new girlfriend … and the girlfriend’s 8-year-old kid. We put the dog in the upstairs bedroom and closed the door. My girlfriend explained that he was a rescue and not good around kids, so no going upstairs. The adults went out on the porch for drinks and the kid was playing on their tablet. The next thing you know, the kid comes out bawling and says the dog attacked him. He went upstairs, into the bedroom, and tried to drag our dog from under the bed.
Once we made sure the kid hadn’t been bitten, the fur flew. My sister’s girlfriend started to rant and rave about our “dangerous” dog and threatened to report our dog to the authorities. My girlfriend lost her cool. She told my sister’s girlfriend that she was a “moron” and a “bad mom” considering her kid refuses to follow basic instructions and thinks going through a private area is okay. At that point, I told my sister it would be better if they leave. My sister is furious with my girlfriend and demands an apology or she is skipping Christmas. This has my parents very upset. The thing is, I think the girlfriend owes my girlfriend an apology. We explained the situation and put our dog in our bedroom. The fact her son thought it was alright to wander throughout home and stress out our dog—that is on his mom.
— Dogsbody
Dear Dogsbody,
A couple of rules to live by: Don’t tell people to put their children on leashes and don’t call those children “human spawn.” Don’t call anyone a bad mom or an “idiot parent.” These things make it kind of hard for you to claim the moral high ground. And don’t spend too much time worrying about whether a person who’s mad at you owes you an apology. I mean, what’s the point if you know the person doesn’t mean it?
That said, you and your girlfriend were right when it came to how you handled the dog, and your sister’s girlfriend made a bad choice when she left her son alone in the house, presumably knowing about his capacity to follow instructions. Sure, from a legal and trying-to-avoid-having-your-pet-taken-by-the-authorities perspective, you would have been smarter to refuse to allow a child to be unsupervised with access to an aggressive animal. But you didn’t do anything that justifies your sister’s anger.
She can skip Christmas if she wants, although I think she’s bluffing and will actually be there. You and your girlfriend don’t have to do anything at this point—except hire a really, really good dog trainer.
So, my sister knows all about the situation with our dog. She came over with her new girlfriend … and the girlfriend’s 8-year-old kid. We put the dog in the upstairs bedroom and closed the door. My girlfriend explained that he was a rescue and not good around kids, so no going upstairs. The adults went out on the porch for drinks and the kid was playing on their tablet. The next thing you know, the kid comes out bawling and says the dog attacked him. He went upstairs, into the bedroom, and tried to drag our dog from under the bed.
Once we made sure the kid hadn’t been bitten, the fur flew. My sister’s girlfriend started to rant and rave about our “dangerous” dog and threatened to report our dog to the authorities. My girlfriend lost her cool. She told my sister’s girlfriend that she was a “moron” and a “bad mom” considering her kid refuses to follow basic instructions and thinks going through a private area is okay. At that point, I told my sister it would be better if they leave. My sister is furious with my girlfriend and demands an apology or she is skipping Christmas. This has my parents very upset. The thing is, I think the girlfriend owes my girlfriend an apology. We explained the situation and put our dog in our bedroom. The fact her son thought it was alright to wander throughout home and stress out our dog—that is on his mom.
— Dogsbody
Dear Dogsbody,
A couple of rules to live by: Don’t tell people to put their children on leashes and don’t call those children “human spawn.” Don’t call anyone a bad mom or an “idiot parent.” These things make it kind of hard for you to claim the moral high ground. And don’t spend too much time worrying about whether a person who’s mad at you owes you an apology. I mean, what’s the point if you know the person doesn’t mean it?
That said, you and your girlfriend were right when it came to how you handled the dog, and your sister’s girlfriend made a bad choice when she left her son alone in the house, presumably knowing about his capacity to follow instructions. Sure, from a legal and trying-to-avoid-having-your-pet-taken-by-the-authorities perspective, you would have been smarter to refuse to allow a child to be unsupervised with access to an aggressive animal. But you didn’t do anything that justifies your sister’s anger.
She can skip Christmas if she wants, although I think she’s bluffing and will actually be there. You and your girlfriend don’t have to do anything at this point—except hire a really, really good dog trainer.
Discussion of letter
Jenée Desmond-Harris: I was thinking about this in combination with the heated twitter debate this week about whether parents should be able to play videos out loud for their kids on flights, and I have to say I’m just really, really surprised a civil war hasn’t broken out in this country between parents and non-parents. I mean, the contempt for children in this letter!
Joel Anderson: It’s true. And we can both admit this is part of the reason we’ve been dreading taking our sometimes “screaming spawn” onto a plane for any reason whatsoever. Maybe I was ignorant of it before, but I really didn’t understand the intensity of resentment that some people have for children. That said, to be at least a little self-aware, I also know that many parents sometimes can be so entitled and inconsiderate in a public space that it likely rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
But for just a second, I want to linger on the way this LW seemingly talks to people. “Screaming spawn.” Putting a leash on another person’s child. Being cool with your girlfriend running up on the sister’s girlfriend in an aggressive manner after their child did something very child-like. I’m not saying that the LW is out looking for fights every day.
I will say that, you know, maybe LW should think about the way they and their partner talk to other folks.
Jenée: Right, we are both a little extra self-conscious and dread causing a disturbance, so as a result our child will probably experience air travel for the first time at 15 and won’t spend much time at adult gatherings at other people’s homes until he can be fully engaged by a chapter book and reliably follow instructions. Oh well.
Anyway, they are chaotic people. And I’m not saying that’s WHY the dog is the way it is, but its behavior kinda matches their personalities.
Joel: Lol. So the dog is an asshole because they’re assholes, eh? But seriously: Obviously they care about their very surly pet very much.
I will say this: Did they ever consider not having guests over to their home? Perhaps guests don’t quite understand how hard it is to manage their dog. And given that, especially when children are part of the equation here, maybe they should discourage guests and meet their family and friends somewhere there’s absolutely no chance for interaction with the dog. The LW said the sister understood the situation but … obviously they didn’t. Because if someone told me, “Hey our dog is an asshole who hates children,” I probably would want to keep my kid or kids away.
Jenée: Right, it was clear from the first line that they were not taking a lot of responsibility for the dog. “Taking him on walks is hazardous because there is apparently an uncountable number of idiot parents …” Ummm, no, taking him on walks is hazardous because he is a dangerous wild animal!
Anyway, I still think the sister’s girlfriend was in the wrong when it came to putting her child in danger after being thoroughly warned and then blaming the dog owners for what happened. But LW and GF are no angels.
Joel: Absolutely. At this point, I think your original advice is the right one: There’s not much for them to do if they’re not willing to apologize. They’ll just have to find out if the LW’s sister is bluffing or not.
But maybe there’s a way to mend this: Apologize for being so aggressive and insulting in their approach to the sister’s girlfriend, and say that they understand that it must have been a frightening experience for the sister and her child. Be open to the idea that they need to visit a dog trainer. And remind the sister that if they were to come over again, maybe the girlfriend’s child shouldn’t be left unattended and they can volunteer to watch him in shifts while they socialize.
Seems like it’s all too far gone right now, especially since the sister’s girlfriend already has CPS on hold. But this situation doesn’t have to be this bitterly contested. That said: it doesn’t sound like they’d have a great holiday gathering anyway.
Jenée: Not at all.
Re: Discussion of letter
Re: Discussion of letter
kids is the fact that a ton of parents allow their kids to run rampant,
Some of it definitely is. But as ever there are people who use reasonable annoyance as an excuse for unreasonable bigotry. Some suggestions I've heard for dealing with problems with parents, all of which I think would not help:
1) stop offering maternity leave because it encourages people
2) fire pregnant women
3) ETA: ban anyone under 5, or 8, or 20, from air travel
4) forcibly sterilize women "who won't be good parents", often BIPOC (I've been told I should be one of those forcibly sterilized, more than once)
As ever the unreasonable make it harder for the reasonable to be reasonable.
Re: Discussion of letter
In a literal sense, sure. A ton of people is actually not very many people, even if they're all underweight.
But I see people make this claim over and over again, and I gotta say - it never matches my perception, which is that most kids are about as reasonably polite as most adults.
in fact scream at everyone else that its their fault that precious Susie refused to listen and got scratched
I've never seen this
Or precious Liam tripped the waiter because you all had him running around in the restaurant and refused to get him to sit down, but hey, its the waiters fault somehow
or this
precious Jenny has just turned over a pile of clothing in the store and well isn't it your job to clean it up? How dare you be pissed off at the extra work for shit pay
or this!
And like why would you not have headphones for folks who are watching media on a plane bus or any enclosed area? Of course loud as hell media on in already uncomfortable and enclosed space is bloody annoying!
I *have* seen this. It is just as likely to be adults only who are playing their music and videos without headphones - and the sneering resentment I got the one time I told a couple to turn it down because my two niblings had massive crippling migraines and we just had half an hour more before we were home and they could go to bed. Like, wow.
Re: Discussion of letter
Re: Discussion of letter
Re: Discussion of letter
--Kids are loud, kids run around and make noise and touch things they aren't supposed to touch. If a family with kids leaves, everyone in the whole library immediately notices the noise reduction. This is pretty much regardless what the parents are doing because: kids, no volume control. But if this is your only exposure to kids, you're going to see this as a 'kids out of control' problem.
--One adult cannot effectively supervise more than about three under-sixes by themself in a public place while also doing other things. They just can't. They can probably keep them from running into traffic but that's about it. (There are more families like this than you might think if you don't spend time in public spaces that explictly invite them in, because the parents are *very aware* that this is true.)
--Some parents are really bad at attempting even minimal supervision of their kids. This is a parent problem, not a kid problem, but it's still a problem.
--The worse a parent is with their kid, the more likely they are to throw a fit at anyone who tries to improve the situation, or make a giant fuss if the kid gets hurt or upset (and by "worse" I don't mean "kid throws a loud tantrum" or "three-year-old is high energy", those parents apologize and are sweethearts. I mean "pays absolutely no attention to them" or "encourages them to commit property damage".) Unfortunately, once they have encountered two or three of this sort, most people just assume all parents with loud kids are that way, because it's not worth the risk of finding out.
(Vast majority of parents: kid they were supervising closely manages to trip and hit their head on furniture, is bleeding profusely. Parent comes to the desk and asks if we have a paper towel or something because they're afraid they made a mess. We have interrogate them to even find out there was an injury and talk them into even borrowing the first-aid kit.
Small yet very consistently loud minority: kid they were completely ignoring in favor of their phone trips stumbles slightly while running full-speed across the room, worried staff member politely reminds them no running in the library, parent suddenly appears and cusses them out for trying to parent *their* #%W$ kid who they know what's best for, get the @#%W# away from us, they'll sue.)
Re: Discussion of letter
I've been the waitress in this type of situation. Back in late 2007/2008 I was working a few shifts a week at a pizza place - parents and two kids came in on a busy night, their son was wearing Heelys and kept skating around the dining room. I asked him a couple times to please be careful, within earshot of the parents, because their table was right next to the area where I had to pick up pizzas to deliver them to tables - kid skated right into me and a hot pizza fell on him, the parents threw a fit, and the family had their entire bill comped. I'm pretty sure that the only reason I didn't get fired was because the table next to them told the manager they'd heard me tell the kid to be careful and saw him slam right into me as I turned around from the pizza window
Re: Discussion of letter
which, also, idk, it is good for kids to learn that not all animals are friendly & that they should respect the autonomy of creatures smaller than themselves? i mean, ideally not through rushing up to a clearly terrified dog and getting swiped at.
anyway, lw and gf are in the right in terms of the things they actually are doing. but then the stuff they say is super jerky and mean. especially w/ like... your actually family that you want to maintain a relationship with. like, yeah, people aren't going to want to hang out with you if you call them idiots and bad parents, no matter what the situation was.
Re: Discussion of letter
The impression I got was the kid was a surprise addition to the proceedings, so: Yes, actually, they did!
"taking him on walks is hazardous because he is a dangerous wild animal!"
Danger levels here are -- Dog on leash: low. Dog not on leash: higher. And, now that I read closer, LW doesn't specify if the dog IS on a leash when they take walks. I was all set to be defensive on LW's behalf, but that's unknown, so: use a leash LW.
And, I grudgingly admit, get professional training, if that's not what you're doing already.