So the community I live in has a very large private park. Early weekend mornings me and my 9yo dog walk down and I fish in the ponds a bit, she sniffs around, but mostly just lays down to enjoy the smells and watch me.
There’s a dog trainer who is usually there on the weekends with clients. I have no idea whether he lives within the community or not, tons of people come from the surrounding area to the park, this doesn’t bother me. It’s a really nice park, a really big nice park. Lots and lots of space.
Today, I’m fishing. Dog trainer is with his client, they’re training off leash commands and control. Not allowed, but again I don’t care, my dog is off leash too.
Anyways, today, trainer decides to stand 20ft from me and my dog, and he is using my “big scary dog” as a prop, like, the clients dog keeps eyeballing my dog and they’re trying to call the dogs attention back to its owner. Now, since they keep gesticulating to my dog, now my dog is like “what’s going on? I thought we were just chilling, what’s all this about now” so she starts to get kinda agitated.
I try to keep fishing, but they just won’t move on. The trainer is literally using my dogs presence as a training aid. So finally I call out
“Hey, I don’t appreciate you using my dog as a prop for your training session.”
He gets defensive right away, “I’m working with a client here, not you”
“Yeah, but you’re using my dog as a prop, which is distracting to her and to me, and I don’t appreciate you doing that in our area.”
“This is a public park, buddy”
“Yes. A very large park.”
The argument kinda devolved from there, him trying to turn it into me trying to say you cant stand here or whatever and me trying to bring it back to the fsct that he was using us in a way I wasn’t ok with, anyways he leaves all miffed.
Anyways, did I become the park asshole or was I in the right? I’m not bothered that he was crowding us so much as im bothered that he had to involve a 3rd party against their will into his training session.
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So the community I live in has a very large private park. Early weekend mornings me and my 9yo dog walk down and I fish in the ponds a bit, she sniffs around, but mostly just lays down to enjoy the smells and watch me.
There’s a dog trainer who is usually there on the weekends with clients. I have no idea whether he lives within the community or not, tons of people come from the surrounding area to the park, this doesn’t bother me. It’s a really nice park, a really big nice park. Lots and lots of space.
Today, I’m fishing. Dog trainer is with his client, they’re training off leash commands and control. Not allowed, but again I don’t care, my dog is off leash too.
Anyways, today, trainer decides to stand 20ft from me and my dog, and he is using my “big scary dog” as a prop, like, the clients dog keeps eyeballing my dog and they’re trying to call the dogs attention back to its owner. Now, since they keep gesticulating to my dog, now my dog is like “what’s going on? I thought we were just chilling, what’s all this about now” so she starts to get kinda agitated.
I try to keep fishing, but they just won’t move on. The trainer is literally using my dogs presence as a training aid. So finally I call out
“Hey, I don’t appreciate you using my dog as a prop for your training session.”
He gets defensive right away, “I’m working with a client here, not you”
“Yeah, but you’re using my dog as a prop, which is distracting to her and to me, and I don’t appreciate you doing that in our area.”
“This is a public park, buddy”
“Yes. A very large park.”
The argument kinda devolved from there, him trying to turn it into me trying to say you cant stand here or whatever and me trying to bring it back to the fsct that he was using us in a way I wasn’t ok with, anyways he leaves all miffed.
Anyways, did I become the park asshole or was I in the right? I’m not bothered that he was crowding us so much as im bothered that he had to involve a 3rd party against their will into his training session.
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> 1. I yelled at someone at the park.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
Why do you think you might be the asshole?
Nta and I would consider writing a review of them company. He put your dog at risk, who is to say that dog isn’t dog reactive and would have bitten yours
Nta
When you gave him that feedback he should have said “no problem, didn’t mean to offend,” and then walked off.
The fact that he doubled down and made it a thing makes him the ah. Using your dog for the training sesh wasn’t necessarily bad, if you’re okay with it. The second you weren’t, he should have backed off.
This gives off major ‘But mom, he is looking at me’ vibes.
NTA! Your dog was agitated and the trainer was acting entitled and being unprofessional.
Bring loud and obnoxious in public is ALWAYS in poor form. 🙄
ESH. The trainer was wrong. You were also wrong for having your dog off leash. Put a damn leash on your dog, you aren’t special.
NTA, it seems incredibly unprofessional to use another dog in this way without prior agreement to train his clients dog, not only this you and your dog were clearly trying to keep to yourselves and you were being constantly interrupted. You were not aggressive with the way you spoke to the trainer and again his response seems very unprofessional, you simply set a boundary and the trainer likely felt embarrassed and became defensive. He was TA not you.
Seems like this would have been a more successful encounter if you’d started off with asking them to move away rather than accusing them of using your dog as part of the session. People generally are more receptive to requests and accusations.
I am a dog trainer. You were NTA. That’s way too close with a stranger and the trainer was being irresponsible—he didn’t know your dog! Your dog could have been reactive, or the other dog could have been, or either of them could have just had a bad day and turned it into a fight. When you’re training recall in the presence of distractions, it’s okay to be in public (the dog will have to exist in public and real-world practice is genuinely important) but it’s not okay to involve someone else’s animal without checking with them first.
In the future, though I don’t think you were wrong in how you spoke to him, it might be most effective to lie and say your dog’s reactive and they’re too close. That might get through to him better.
ESH
Everyone’s dogs should be leashed.
>Dog trainer is with his client, they’re training off leash commands and control. Not allowed, but again I don’t care, my dog is off leash too.
>The argument kinda devolved from there, him trying to turn it into me trying to say you cant stand here or whatever
But that’s exactly what you were saying by saying “it’s a very large park”
ESH. The trainer for his behavior, but both of you for having your dogs off-leash. You can have the best-behaved dog in the world, but you never know when something unexpected is going to happen until it happens. The price for the rest of society tolerating your animal in these spaces is a leash. If you’re not willing to pay that price, you shouldn’t be in that space.
A neighbor’s dog was always off-leash and never attacked anyone… Until the day she was triggered by whatever and tore up my sister’s leg for no reason while she was just out walking her own dog (safely on a leash, doing her best to avoid other dogs).
ESH
Leash your dog
You aren’t special