I've been wanting to share something that a friend and I witnessed yesterday - I think it's related to the topic, but if it's inappropriate, please any of the mods feel free to move it.
We were out in the woods with our dogs, generally enjoying ourselves. We'd sat down on a bench to have a brew, with 2 of our 4 dogs tied up with us, when this westie came running up excitedly, and proceeded to trot round us and dogs to have a good sniff and say 'hello', despite the (I guess) mother of a family with 4 kids frantically calling him and running after him to catch him. He wasn't threatening and didn't cause any trouble really (apart from one of the dogs thinking that a leftover crumb of biscuit was threatened ), and we told her not to worry, our dogs were cool and he'd come with her once his curiosity was satisfied. She didn't say a word to us, but panicked after the westie. Then the husband (?) came closer and called, and the westie came away and trotted past him, at which he lashed out with the leather lead and hit the poor dog as hard as he could over his back We could not let this pass and let him know in no uncertain terms what we thought of the abuse, but he cast us a few evil looks and walked off, leaving the family stood there, looking all confused and all. Then the litte girl said (and it so shocked us) "oh, that was easy". We were about to get up to have a word with the mother about her husband's behaviour, when we saw them standing there together, casting embarrassed/shy (can't come up with the right description) looks and don't ask me how but both my friend and I had the distinct feeling that a) this wasn't a one off, and b) it struck us both as if this guy's behaviour wasn't limited to the poor dog. Made me feel really angry and sad at the same time.
Again, sorry if this isn't appropriate in this thread. It's been popping up in my head regularly since we saw this happening yesterday and, like I said, I wanted to share it. I asked my friend if she thought that my reaction had been OTT, or if there was anything else that we could/should've done, but she thought that any more of a provocation of this guy would likely result in him taking it out on the poor dog/family.
What do other people think?
I mean, I can't watch people or animals being abused without at least saying something. But would I cause even more trouble for the poor victims of these abusers if I did?
