this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
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When I was 8/9, I was walking to school on the sidewalk and a dog ran out of a front yard, barking and bit me in the leg from behind before I could even react.
Granted, most of the blame goes to the owner, who didn’t lock their gate properly, but still. I was just walking to school.
And the other two times, I also got attacked from behind without warning. In these cases, inside though. To be fair, the dog is a traumatised rescue who doesn’t like anyone besides a very select few with an asshole-to-humans owner who doesn’t care that their dog already bit me and multiple collegues. But then again, it still just bit me because I dared walking by the room it was in. Twice. Without warning.
Cannot read body language, if I can’t see the dog
i didn’t mean to move the responsibility of dog ownership onto the potential victim.
i was simply reacting to the “no reason” part of the statement. dogs, same as humans, are pretty simple creatures. we operate on a trigger > reaction basis.
we may not know what the trigger for the dog is (hell, we often don’t know what the trigger is for us), but that doesn’t mean there is none. and unfortunately, parents often don’t teach kids correct approach to stranger’s dog (probably because they themselves don’t know it), but that does not seem to be your case.
yeah, that’s fair, seems like the owner’s fault.