Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : So I live in a small city that doesn’t have a lot of dog parks. One just opened near me, and I was ecstatic. My dog is super friendly, hyper, and great with other dogs. 

But here’s the thing: he’s a 10lb toy poodle. He always plays great with other dogs, is never aggressive, and some of his best friends are an 80lb Bernese mountain doodle and a 70lb pit bull/Rhodesian ridgeback mix. My dog is perfectly happy playing with dogs a lot bigger than him, and he can generally hold his own. And, I keep a close eye on him to make sure everything is going okay. He loves the park. It’s the highlight of his day. And it makes me so happy to see him be happy.

Anyways, every now and then, there will be a dog at the dog park that is overly aggressive, has behavioral issues, or won’t leave my dog alone. Last night, a dog who was maybe 40lbs got obsessed with my dog, was barking in my dog’s face nonstop and trying to nip at him. And when my dog came to hide between my feet, and I bent down to pet him and reassure him, the other dog lunged at my dog, almost knocked me over, and and nipped my dog so hard that he started screamed. 

I tried to intervene, and I couldn’t because the aggressive dog kept dancing away when I got close, and then lunging at my dog to bite him again. I called the owner over and asked him to control his dog. 

The owner went on a rant at me about how **I** was the asshole for bringing my small dog to the park (there’s no small dog area or other dog park anywhere near us). He said that small dogs have no place at the park, and he shouldn’t have to worry about his dog hurting a small dog “by accident” when his dog is just “playing normally.” 

I took my dog and left, but it made me angry, and got me to thinking. Why should the onus be on me to protect my dog from over-aggression? To me, this seems similar to victim blaming. He thinks it’s not his dog’s fault for being aggressive, it’s my dog’s fault for being so small and easy to bully. It reminds me of when people tell women it’s their fault they got assaulted because they put themselves in a dangerous situation for drinking alcohol or wearing revealing clothes.

And, his 40lb dog plays with 70lb dogs all the time, and the 70lb dog owners would never dream of telling him not to bring his dog to the park because he’s “too small to play safely.” So why should a 40 lb dog owner be able to tell me that? 

I get that I should protect my dog and not put him in dangerous situations. But as I’ve already said, my dog has NEVER had a problem playing with dogs that are significantly larger than him, **unless** the other dog is aggressive and has behavioral issues. And when that happens, I remove my dog from the situation. 

So, am I the asshole for taking a 10lb dog to the park? Should I just give up on my dog’s happiness, so that people with aggressive dogs don’t have to put any time or effort into training their dogs? 