Most animal lovers want the best for each other’s pets, but when one pet tries to attack another, that goodwill can come up short.
That’s the situation a person on Reddit found themself in when they had to call the police on an unleashed dog that repeatedly tried to attack their pet bird.
They weren’t sure about how they handled the situation, so they went to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit for input.
The Original Poster (OP), who goes by JulesUtah on the site, asked:
“AITA fo calling the police on a dog?”
They explained:
“Weird title, I know. Today is a nice day out, not too hot, not too cold, and I actually worked up the ambition to leave the house. So, I decided to go for a walk and take my cockatiel since he hasn’t been for one in awhile, and he likes them.”
“I have a special backpack for him with holes so he can breathe and he can get some ventilation, and it has a plastic dome on the front so he can sit on a perch inside of the backpack and look out at the world and judge the outside birds. It also has water cups so he can drink when he needs to.”
“Well, I was on the walk, listening to my headphones and he was singing happily. All of a sudden, I felt something jump on my back, and quickly realized it was a dog that was unleashed. My poor bird was losing his mind, and but I was able to shake the dog off.”
“It kept trying to get at my back, but I didn’t want to remove the pack and shake my bird up worse, I thought it would be safest if he stayed on my back.”
“The dog was pretty large, I don’t know what kind it was, but it was smaller than a Great Dane and bigger than a boxer. The thing just kept trying to go at my backpack and I kept trying to get it to go away. I didn’t want to run and make it worse.”
“Finally I kicked the dog. Not hard, but my telling it no was not working, I thought if I nudged it with my foot it would take the hint. It didn’t and just grabbed onto my shoe, but luckily it didn’t bite me.”
“That is when the owner came out of their house and started threatening to call the police on me for kicking their dog, and said that if I am going to carry a dog’s prey on my back that it’s my own fault if the dog attacks. I told him to go ahead and call the cops because he let his dog out unleashed.”
“He told me to ‘F off’ which got me riled up, so I called the police myself. The dog wasn’t confiscated (I told the police I didn’t want that to happen, and there have been no other reported issues with this dog) but the dude got a ticket for letting his pet out without a leash. I told a friend and they think I am TA because the dog could have been taken by the county and since myself and the bird are ok I should have let it go.”
People on Reddit were then asked to evaluate who was wrong in this situation using the following acronyms:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
And they had very little sympathy for the dog owner.
“NTA. Everyone needs to control their pets. Your pet was controlled. Their pet was out of control to the point that it needed to be kicked. What if it was a kid with a sandwich that the dog mauled. Further, the dogs owner doesn’t get to tell people to f off when he was in the wrong.” —thisishowicomment
“NTA. It’s not unusual to walk a bird. There are leashes FOR BIRDS! What if someone were walking their cat? Or a small fluffy dog?”
“If you don’t have borderline PERFECT recall of your dog, unless you’re at a beach or dog park, don’t let your dog off leash. That dog could very easily get hurt or hurt someone/something else. If he does it again, call the cops again. People like that don’t deserve animals.” —Maxibon1710
“NTA. Your friend is an idiot. The dog owner needed an incentive to stop allowing his giant, unruly pet off leash and he got one. His response to you indicates the guy took no responsibility for what happened and if it took calling the cops to rectify the situation, so be it.”
“I adore dogs. But would I want to be suddenly tackled by on oversized breed that weighs almost as much as I do? Hell. No.” –valerian_spiel
“NTA. The dog owner’s the one who escalated this to a police matter when he could’ve just leashed his dog.” —mm172
“NTA why should this persons pet be more important than yours? You had a well contained bird, they had a large dog on the loose. One of these things is not like the other.”
“They chose to escalate by threatening to call the police, and then telling you to fu*k off of public property. That attitude indicates every intention to continue to allow a large poorly trained dog to free roam. This sounds like a classic case of play stupid games win stupid prizes.” —Justhebean
“NTA.”
“You weren’t injured, but you could have been. What if it was a small kid with his small pet ?”—Maauve91
“NTA. You didn’t injure the dog. The dog’s owner irresponsibly let out his dog without a leash, probably aware that the dog behaves that way. And then tried to blame it on you. You should be able to walk with your bird without having to worry about getting jumped by a dog.” —gasoline_flavored420
“NTA. I’m pretty familiar with how animal control works, and the only reason they would possibly take that dog away from the owner (as your friend feared) was if it had a history of hurting people.”
“So long as you were off of their property, you had ever right to defend yourself and your pet from their dog, and calling the police was the correct thing to do.” —Claycastles
The bottom line is, nobody should have to defend themselves from anyone else’s pet.