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Care and Feeding: Two On Dogs

I Want to Kick My Neighbor Out of the Camp Carpool Because She Doesn’t Like Dogs

If she responds this way to friendly face kisses, how will she be around kids?
Advice by Jamilah Lemieux

Dear Care and Feeding,

My new neighbor started off our first interaction in June on a very rude note, and now she’s about to be part of the kids’ August camp carpool list, and I feel like I need an apology and an explanation before we drive each other’s kids. I haven’t mentioned this to the other moms in the neighborhood, but I will have to bring it up if I want to find someone to cover her spot.

What happened: We have a friendly, loving, high-energy golden retriever. He’s just out of the puppy stage, so he’s just as energetic but doesn’t know his own size. He’s never hurt anyone, he’s just very excitable. I was walking him through the neighborhood when he slipped off his leash and ran up to her, giving face kisses and wanting to be petted. I assured her that she was friendly, but she replied “I’m not” and shoved him off of her, hard, at me, and basically threw herself into her front door. We haven’t spoken since, and I’m worried if she’s like this with dogs, she’s like this with kids. I also would like an apology. How do I start this, or at least get her out of this group where she has access to my kid, if she is like this?

—Kid and Dog Mom

Dear Kid and Dog Mom,

There are plenty of people who don’t like dogs and are capable of treating children with respect. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that a person who is unkind to dogs would do the same with children. Dog lovers tend to forget that not everyone has the same affinity for pups that they do (“face kisses” is a telling way of referring to getting unexpected animal saliva on one’s face). For all you know, this woman could be afraid of dogs, she may have even been attacked by one in the past. Her reaction to your dog doesn’t guarantee anything with regards to how she’d behave with your child. Simply put, it’s not fair to resent this woman for not liking dogs.

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However, you do still need to clear the air with her before the carpooling. Let her know that you all may have gotten off to a rough start and that you’d like to properly introduce yourself, as your kids are supposed to be riding together. Give her a chance to show you who she is. If she’s truly rude and nasty, then make arrangements to swap your car pool days so you don’t have to drive each other’s children. If she’s a pleasant enough person who just doesn’t like dogs, try your best to look past that. Dogs simply aren’t for everyone, regardless of how sweet and friendly yours may seem to you.

My Brother’s Dog Viciously Attacked My 6-Year-Old. His Reaction Has Left Me Shaken. I responded as any father would, but he’s somehow mad at me?
Advice by Jamilah Lemieux

Dear Care and Feeding,

Last month, while visiting my parents, my brother’s dog attacked my 6-year-old son. My son was running after a ball when the dog ran across the yard, knocked him over, and attacked. Luckily, he was bundled up in layers and a puffer coat. His clothes were ruined, and he had nasty bruising on his neck, shoulder, and upper torso from the bites, but his skin wasn’t broken. It would’ve been so much worse if it had happened in warmer weather.

Of course, I reported the attack to the county and gave my brother a heads-up. Well, he was LIVID and said a lot of hurtful, dismissive things to me, even comparing his dog to my son in terms of importance. We had a falling out over his reaction. (By the way, nothing even happened to the damn dog besides the dog warden coming to talk to my brother.) Before this, my brother and I got along fine but weren’t close. Most of my son’s contact with him has been at family gatherings with my parents. I have decided we won’t be going to any gatherings with my brother for the time being. His callous, selfish response to my son’s attack has shaken me.
My parents “don’t want to get in the middle of it” and invited both our families to Easter as long as the dog doesn’t come.

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Should I explain to my son why we aren’t going to Easter at Grandma and Grandpa’s like we usually do? Or do I just tell him we’re doing something different this year for fun? If I tell him the truth, how do I ensure he doesn’t feel like it’s his fault?

—Change in Plans

Dear Change in Plans,

You can present this year’s alternate plans as something to be excited about, simply a change from the norm. However, if you’re going to be missing many more functions, then in the future, you can let your son know that you and your brother aren’t getting along right now and that you need to take a break from each other. If he presses for more information, let him know it was a disagreement between adults and nothing for him to worry about. There’s no need to tell him that your issue with your brother is related to the biting incident; as you note, it would be too easy for him to feel responsible.

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I am one of those "not a dog person" people, and would be upset at a rambunctious dog jumping on me and slathering my face. Ick. And yes, that has zero to do with how I interact with children.

Same here. There are a lot of dog owners who need to realize that dogs are not actually the same thing as children.

Hard agree.

Honestly I am frequently told I'm good with children and I do enjoy them but if a 75 lb child I had never met ran up to me on my front porch, jumped at me, and started try to lick my eyeballs I would probably be rude too. And even ruder to a parent who tried to claim it was nothing. (control you damn dogs, people, or at least have the courtesy to be apologetic when you can't.)

I _am_ a dog person and I consider a dog jumping up on me and giving uninvited face kisses to be a poorly-trained dog and its handler to be insufficiently in control.

It's not that hard to teach a puppy not to jump on people and give kisses uninvited.

Do Kid and Dog Mom's human kids also jump up and slobber on total strangers they encounter in the street? If not, I would think carpooling arrangements are probably going to be okay.

1. The neighbour's reaction to the incident is perfectly understandable and in no way indicative of how she treats kids. LW 1 is way out of line here. Her dog got out of control and jumped her neighbour. LW1 needs to profusely apologize to the neighbour, keep the dog on a stronger, non-slippable leash whenever he's outside, and take her dog to behavioural training now, before the dog ends up hurting a person.

2. LW2's brother is way out of line. Frankly, his house is not safe for anyone since he refuses to keep his dog under control. The brother is lucky that LW2's son was not severely injured or killed; and he actually got to keep the dog. Maybe he should be thinking of that, rather than resenting LW2 for doing the right thing by reporting the dog. The next time, brother might not be so lucky.

The son may figure out they don't see LW2's brother anymore because of the dog attack. LW2 needs to reassure his son that the attack was not his fault.

Edited (added words) 2025-04-03 15:57 (UTC)

Ugh, ugh, ugh — and this is why I really struggle with some dog people, because they seem to think that their pets can do no wrong, while slobbering on or even attacking other people!!

I was attacked as a child by a dog — unprovoked, a neighborhood dog who was a known problem, and was supposed to be kept chained up and behind a fence — and I really, really don’t like dog mouths coming near my face.

After a lot of work to try to desensitize myself against an outright phobia, I can still get along with dogs who are well-behaved, and whose owners are attentive and courteous, but a strange dog running up and licking my face would absolutely give me a panic attack!!

LW1 is completely out of line, especially with the idea that their neighbor is somehow going to mistreat children because she didn’t want an untrained dog charging her and licking her face!

I like dogs just fine but assume that a dog on a leash is under their human's control, and would be very upset if a dog escaped their leash and immediately leapt on me! I have no way of knowing that your dog is safe! The neighbor here deserves an apology and the LW to commit to training their dog.

I never assume a dog on a leash is under their human's control anymore. I've seen too many times where the dog pulls the owner with them in trying to approach another dog or human, while the owner struggles to contain the dog. I'm especially nervous when the dog is medium size or bigger, and the owner is of small stature and/or a child. A leash is not sufficient; a dog who pulls their owner and ignores commands to stop is imho not trained.

I used to have a tenant with a ~100 pound 8-month-old Great Pyrenees (and this woman was maybe 110 pounds). She called us one time in the winter to say that the building courtyard's sidewalks hadn't been salted and that she slipped and fell on the ice - the courtyard camera footage showed our maintenance guy salting the sidewalk about 15 minutes before her fall, and showed that the fall happened because her dog decided to charge at another dog and dragged her into a bench.

1. A large dog who jumps up on somebody can hurt them even if they're just being friendly! If your dog is big enough to lick somebody in the face then it's big enough to knock that person down. It's even more imperative than usual that you teach your dog manners.

2. I'll be the first to say that children should be taught not to run past unfamiliar and unrestrained dogs, especially if those dogs are big enough to seriously harm them, precisely because so many people do not train their dogs.

However, the fault here is with the dog owner for neither training nor restraining nor muzzling his animal.

As for Grandma and Grandpa, they've chosen sides, and the side they've chosen is Brother's.

I’m a “dog person” and it would still be upsetting to have a random dog jump on me. When they’re running at me I have no idea if they’re a safe dog or not, so it’s automatically frightening. Also I don’t want anyone licking my face; saliva grosses me out. One can love dogs in general, not have a phobia, and consider LW1’s actions (in excusing her dog’s behavior and not training him to avoid jumping at people) wrong.

As for LW2, if it was my kid I’d be explaining that Brother has an unsafe dog and so we can’t be around that dog, and Brother is being a dangerous uncle by excusing his dog’s behavior, so we can’t be around Brother either. If Brother stops being dangerous in the future, then we can get together with them again, but until then, we need to protect ourselves from Brother and his dog.

But I’ve never had a problem with placing blame where blame is warranted, including when that’s on family members. If they don’t want to have their poor behavior openly discussed, then they should stop behaving poorly. It’s not on me to lie to my kid to cover for someone else’s wrongdoings.

And if folks are worried about a six-year-old internalizing blame, I used to volunteer with 5-to-7 year olds and got a lot of experience with talking them through upsetting experiences. My suggestion is to ask the kid, “If you were playing with a ball at school, and another child ran after you and punched you so they could take your ball away, who did something mean and wrong: them or you?” Pretty much any kid will recognize the injustice in that situation and will say it was the other kid. Then you follow with, “Brother’s dog is that child being mean on the playground. You were just playing nicely by yourself, and Brother’s dog suddenly attacked you.”

Putting things into an analogy the child will understand really helps them contextualize these kinds of things.

And if folks are worried about a six-year-old internalizing blame, I used to volunteer with 5-to-7 year olds and got a lot of experience with talking them through upsetting experiences. My suggestion is to ask the kid, “If you were playing with a ball at school, and another child ran after you and punched you so they could take your ball away, who did something mean and wrong: them or you?” Pretty much any kid will recognize the injustice in that situation and will say it was the other kid.

THANK YOU for doing Heaven’s work. There are kids whose parents’ reaction to reports of bullying is, “Well, what did you do to bring it on?”

Yes, or what I got was that it was all due to my ~sensitive nature (which also meant my family had to bully me to toughen me up. This was... counterproductive tbh)

*laughs ruefully in “I have those parents and that’s why I’m not like that”*

That was Dad. Mom’s advice was, “They just want attention—-ignore them and they’ll leave you alone.”

Great idea.

Yeah. I really don't like the advice about how to talk to the kid in LW2. "We're not talking to Brother any more for reasons I'm not going to explain or mention again" is frankly way worse for the kid than "We're not spending time with Brother because his dog could have hurt you really badly, and he won't promise not to let it happen again, or even apologize."

The first one teaches the kid that their parents may just cut them off at any time for reasons they'll never get to understand. The second one teaches the kid that you need to apologize if you cause someone to get hurt or they might not want to spend time with you anymore. I know which one *I* think is a better lesson for kid!

And kids are splendid are making up answers for Missing Reasons, and usually those Missing Reasons revolve around them because small kids’ understanding of the world revolves around them. “We’re not talking but it had nothing to do with you” can easily become, in a child’s mind, “They’re not talking and it must be about me but Dad doesn’t want to tell me.” (Which, ironically, is actually true in this case.) And it can easily extend to becoming things like “he doesn’t want to tell me because [he’s secretly upset at me and doesn’t want to talk with me/Uncle hates me because his dog got in trouble/it’s my fault and he’s hiding it because he’s my Dad/etc].”

So yes, 100% agreed with you that the columnist’s advice was dogshit.

LW1 thinks "he's friendly" means it was fine for her dog jumping on a stranger, but when the stranger pushed the dog off and fled, that becomes "shoved him off her, hard, at me."

LW is the one who knows the dog is "just excitable" and "never hurt anyone"--and even she doesn't want him to land on her unexpectedly.

Also, she seems to be assuming that the new neighbor didn't tell people what happened. I doubt this is the first time the dog got away from her and jumped on someone: the new neighbor may have told someone and gotten a reply like "Oh, I see you met Mary" or "is Dog still doing that?"

Did the first one get posted here before? Or am I mixing it up w/ another Dog Letter. I imagine they're pretty high engagement, so advice columnists run a lot of them...

Anyway, if a dog licked my face, I would cry.

The letter seems to be from 2023, so it may have been here before.

What a lot of dog owners don’t seem to understand/except is that, when a strange dog comes running up and leaps on you, you have to undergo the thought process of “Is my day going to end up in the hospital, or — gods forbid — the morgue?”

The dog owner “knows” (more precisely, “believes,” since there can always be exceptions to behavior) the other dog won’t bite, but the*stranger* doesn’t know that!

That behavior could land the dog in the hospital, the morgue, or the death chamber, especially if they’re large and/or a stigmatized breed—-and even before law enforcement enters the picture, consider the possibility (your userinfo places you in the US) that the stranger is armed and trigger-happy.

I have learned, through unfortunate experience, that when a dog is running at me, I have to scream as I run away, or the dog owner does not notice or care. The last time this happend (~October), I remember making the conscious thought that I need to spare breath to scream as I ran.

I don't give a fuck if your dog is "friendly". I want it under your control and away from me.

Also all those dogs that have chased me are off leash, and there have been local (and building) leash laws in all of those places. So. Also maybe obey the law????

Edited 2025-04-03 18:28 (UTC)

Exactly. I once got berated by a dog owner for turning and running back to a stile as their three large dogs charged at me, and even so I got their muddy prints on my coat. Apparently, it wss my fault, and I should have just stood there because they were just being friendly. Since they were labrador-retrievers, they probably were just being "friendly" in their doggy intent, but there were three of them, they would have easily knocked me off my feet, and I could not actually tell this as they raced at me from a hundred metres away.

I vastly preferred the owner of the enormous fluffy german shephers, which were exquisitely behaved, but who understood that people found them intimidating and so kept them on leads and when someone approached in the opposite direction on their walk would always step aside from the path and command them to sit.

Jamilah should have advised LW1 to open her call on her neighbor with a sincere, understanding apology for not controlling her dog. Goldens need a lot of training and absolute discipline to not develop habits like running up to people and jumping on them; a poorly-trained puppy is going to be a difficult-to-train 80- to 90-pound dog very soon.

If LW1 the sort of person who confuses her dog with her children, then she should consider withdrawing from the carpool before her dog bites one of the kids because she insists on bringing the dog everywhere with her in her car.

yeah, LW1 owes the neighbor an apology and should take obedience classes, WTF. And I wouldn't trust LW1 with a kid (not their own); they absolutely wouldn't respect a kid's allergies, or a dog phobia, or just a desire not to have a dog in their face.

Edited 2025-04-04 03:07 (UTC)

A) I like dogs. I say hello to them and pat them (if their owners assent) when I take walks. NONETHELESS...

B) Dear LW #1: Dogs and kids are different things. People treat them differently. You will find that many people don't actually want to be licked. I do, but I am an outlier. Learn 2 control yr dog.

C) On LW #2: I'm not sure about the advice, but I am damn sure that the parents choosing the brother over the LW (as they functionally have) is ridonkulous. Dogs biting is *dangerous* and this kid could have been *seriously hurt*. Grr.

Dear LW #1: Dogs and kids are different things. People treat them differently.

Yes. If human children bite someone, that is painful and annoying and might need antibiotics,

but I have never heard of a bite from human children being fatal.

I have, on the other hand, seen multiple news articles about free-roaming dogs, (not feral dogs, rather pet dogs without their human present), killing adult humans by biting them.

Ugh. Even if first LW's account is completely true (which really it does not sound like), I do not like friendly dogs that are big enough to knock me over jumping up and licking my face. Not because I have an irrational phobia of dogs. Not because there is a risk that this time will be the exception when the dog gets aggressive and bites me or tries to kill me. Even if it really truly is being friendly and asking for petting, the dyad of dog and owner aren't able to ask for consent for that interaction, and I do not want any part of it.

If the children are for any reason unable to understand a verbal no and haven't yet absorbed social norms about physical interaction with vague acquaintances, and are also big enough that I can't physically restrain them from jumping on me, then... I probably am not the right person to carpool them.

Same goes for LW2, really. It's not about whether you love dogs less than or as much as human children. If my child had attacked my brother's dog in a way that injured and really scared him, I would certainly not expect my brother to be completely chill about it. And if my dog were attacked by a child I would not let my dog be around that child unless I was really sure the behaviour had been fully addressed.

LW1 and the brother of LW2 need to stop ruining things for responsible dog owners.

Yeah. Both the people around them and the dogs themselves deserve better.

I like dogs a lot, but some dog owners are on really thin ice, man...

LW1 is being so oppressed here as a dog owner and parent, is there any way we could all get together and contribute one zillion dollars to their GoFundMe?

Clearly, everyone who experiences fear or discomfort at having their face licked by a large dog who has slipped his leash will surely relish any kind of violence toward children. Every time one of LW1's kids runs up to the neighbor, grabs them so they can't escape, and slobbers all over their face, the neighbour will definitely body slam the innocent child to the ground and probably also punch them in the face. One cannot risk the car pool being polluted by such abusive conduct.

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Care and Feeding: Two On Dogs

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