It’s every dog owner’s dream to have their pup perfectly trained to walk next to them when they’re out in public.

But unfortunately, that takes a lot of training for most dogs, and at least in the USA, there’s not a lot of places that allow owners to train their dogs off-leash.

But when this user was trying to get her pup some off-leash training, she was accosted by a park-goer, despite the park allowing off-leash dogs!

Was she wrong to refuse to leash her puppy?

Decide for yourself!

AITA for having my puppy off lead in a park where kids are

I(19 female) have a 11 month old malamute that is very well trained and is a very sweet girl.

I normally always go to a certain park to walk her off lead there because it’s a big park but it also has kids there.

Some people always say I should go to a different park but I always ignore.

And let me clarify this by saying dogs ARE ALLOWED to be off lead in this park (not a dog park but she is allowed off lead) as long as they are under control.

And OP assured us that her good girl was always well-behaved…

Which my dog is always under control and I always have a harness on her as I have to cross roads to get to this park.

Well earlier I went to the park today and took the leash off which she stayed directly at my side.

She wasn’t wondering off and nor was she even paying attention to anyone.

We sat down at a bench and I gave her some water.

That’s what a man walked up to me and told me to put my dog on a leash since dogs are supposed to be on leashes here.

OP told him that unfortunately for him, dogs actually WERE allowed to be off-leash.

I corrected him, my dog was absolutely allowed to be off lead at this park and told him my girl wasn’t bothering him nor any one else so he shouldn’t even have a problem.

He told me that his kids are scared of dogs and that it’s my responsibility to control my dog.

I told him again that my dog was very much under control and that If his kids were scared of dogs he shouldn’t even be at a park where dogs are allowed to be off lead at.

I told him that his kids fear of dogs wasn’t my problem and that my girl wasn’t bothering them at all.

So this curmudgeon decided to cut his losses and walk off, but not before getting one last snide comment in….

He got annoyed but didn’t say much else and just walked off.

While walking off he basically said he hated entitled dog owners who never has their dogs off lead.

I legit watched him walked far away from me to his kids and I don’t even know how his kids noticed my dog with how far away from me they were.

Let me clarify this by saying it’s not really a kids park but just this big park where people normally walk or run the trails.

I know the rules of the park and absolutely know that my dog is allowed off-lead.

This park is also the only big park in my area that I can walk to without park.

And OP said that the dog parks in their area were just not suitable for her puppy..

There are some dog parks but they are either super small, small dogs and big dogs in same area, or untrained dogs there so I don’t go to dog parks.

I genuinely do not feel like I am in the wrong as she is allowed to be off lead.

But my friend said I am a jerk but I feel like her opinion doesn’t matter as she legit hates dogs and her opinion on dogs is normally always clouded by the fact she hates dogs.

So AITA?

It would be a different story if the park specifically banned dogs being off-leash, but it’s explicitly allowed! OP is absolutely right, take your kids somewhere else if it bothers them!

Reddit responded that OP was following the rules, even if an off-leash dog park was pretty foreign to most US commenters.

This user pointed out that it wasn’t like OP’s dog was harassing the kids in the park.

This dog owner said that if people don’t like the rules of the park, find another one to go to.

Finally, while this person said it might have been courteous of OP to leash her dog, it was by no means required.

It’s an off-leash dog park for Pete’s sake!