Training a dog can be difficult, but with the right effort it can lead to years of great companionship.

What would you do if people kept trying to tell you how to train your dog when you are already doing it correctly?

The dog owner in this story has experienced many rude people, so she has learned how to tell them to mind their own business.

Let’s learn more about these experiences…

Entitled strangers try to school me on how to raise my dog.

For a little bit of context, I have a seven month old Doberman puppy and she is a pretty difficult dog, even for her breed.

This requires me to be strict and have some very clear rules. She responds well to this and things are honestly going as well as they could.

Anyone who has raised a puppy knows how difficult they can be at this time and she is definitely no exception.

You’d think that people being helpful would be good, but my experience so far has been that people aren’t being helpful but being rather entitled.

The first situation involved another dog.

I can count the amount of people who have actually been friendly about it on one hand, though I have lost count of the ones that are judgemental and condescending. Anyway, here are some of my experiences.

Story number one was when I’d just gotten her and I saw this man with a really big and off-leash dog approaching, so I tried to tell him that our dogs probably shouldn’t meet.

I didn’t know him or his dog and didn’t think it was the appropiate time.

I guess I was both super tired and just caught off guard, because I stumbled through my words a lot.

This guy sounds scary.

He demanded to know why I didn’t want them to meet and when I struggled to explain why, he seemed to get really angry.

I managed to explain that I was thinking of training her to be a service animal, but before I could explain anything else he basically started yelling at me.

He went on about how I was abusing her and what not.

I was honestly super stressed because it was in the middle of nowhere, with no one to ask for help and nowhere to run to, so I don’t remember exactly everything he said.

I do remember saying that she has dog friends, but I guess unless I let her meet every dog we come across it is not good enough.

He walked off, but then stopped in the distance and started yelling some more.

The stranger was clueless how he was affecting the dog.

It really seemed like he was going to turn back around and do something worse, so I took my chance and quickly walked back to the train station and I didn’t stop until there were a few people in sight.

Luckily he didn’t follow me.

My dog was kind of anxious around strangers (both humans and dogs) after that and it’s only now that she’s finally back to where we started (mostly just to get her to ignore people and dogs again because I was forced to let her meet a bunch of strangers until she was no longer scared).

I really did my best to be as calm as possible, but this guy was honestly terrifying.

He was so busy accusing me of traumatizing my dog that he didn’t even care to think he was doing just that.

The next story involves two more dogs.

Story two is a lot less scary.

It’s a short one, but I keep thinking about how stupid it is.

I was walking my dog and on walks I do not let her meet other dogs for various reasons (she does go to the dog park often).

I see a stranger with two tiny dogs walking in the direction where I’m going, so to make sure my puppy doesn’t get too distracted (which would result in me having to correct her) I walked the other way and gave her lots of rewards for succesfully keeping her focus on me.

What kind of person yells like this?

This guy yells at me that I don’t need to walk the other way.

I looked back but then decided to ignore him, as at this point I knew not to argue with strangers who want to give “advice”.

He yelled at me again saying that I need to socialise my dog.

He didn’t sound angry like the other dude, but I still don’t understand why you’d yell this at a stranger.

You don’t know me, my dog or why I am doing this, so why judge?

There could be a thousand different reasons why I decided to do that and none are his business.

For all he knew it is to keep HIS dogs safe.

People need to control their dogs.

Story three happened today and is pretty similar to the last, though with this one I have a “history”.

His really dominant and rather mean dog approached my puppy once, when he was off-leash and my terrified puppy (nine weeks old at the time) was screaming at the top of her lungs and he refused to call his dog back, saying he wouldn’t listen anyway and that my puppy would just have to learn.

This dog was just standing over her and invading her personal space, while she was so young and small and absolutely terrified.

Although my puppy overreacted in the situation, there is no way she would learn to feel safe that way.

This went way too far and I made sure not to walk in that area again.

She is still terrified of big dogs, even though she likes all other dogs.

The interaction could’ve been worse.

I ran into him again, though this time the dog was leashed.

I made my puppy sit and look at me so the man could pass and surprisingly, she did incredibly well.

What wasn’t surprising was that the other dog tried to pull his owner towards us, though he luckily did keep walking.

Not before yelling at me to give my dog more freedom, though, followed by how I need to socialize her and that now there was no way she would amount to anything.

I was already having a bad day and this made me mad, but I ignored him and my dog actually did really well.

People on the Internet can be the worst.

Story four is a bit different, as it was on social media.

I posted a few pictures of my dog on my Instagram, not really bothering with a description or anything.

They were just random cute pictures.

However, on the Internet you are apparently guilty until proven innocent and I kept getting comments from a few people telling me that my dog is dangerous and basically demanding that I justify myself by assuring them I am training her well.

Blocking them was probably the best solution.

They kept asking me questions and making assumptions, even though there was absolutely no reason to think I am not doing a good job nor that I didn’t do any research.

I never replied to these comments until I had a bad day and I told them it wasn’t any of their business.

I soon realized this wouldn’t help and just blocked them all, after which I took a break from social media.

It was just so weird that these random people are assuming the worst about me for no reason.

This time, someone wants to pet the puppy.

Last story. This isn’t about someone giving me advice per se, but definitely an entitled person.

I was walking my puppy and two women walk by.

I greeted them, before one stopped and told her friend to wait because she was going to pet my puppy.

She didn’t ask me, didn’t look at me and didn’t hesitate for even a second.

She basically just informed me that this was about to go down and her tone was absolutely awful.

Why does everyone assume they can pet anyone’s dog?

No matter how much you like a dog you see and no matter how cute you think it is, don’t just go and pet a stranger’s dog without permission.

When she was still very little, dozens of people walked over and just reached over to pet her without even looking at me, completely ignoring the FOUR “do not pet” signs she was wearing.

I think only like three people in total ever asked if it was okay.

Anyway, I politely told her that I didn’t want her to pet my dog.

The woman was not at all understanding.

She asked if my dog was aggressive and I said no, so she demanded to know why she wasn’t allowed.

I told her I am training her right now.

She informed me that I do need to socialize my dog.

I told her that I would happily do that whenever I see fit, which wasn’t right now.

Sometimes you have to put your foot down.

I guess even though I was polite, I made it clear I wasn’t about to argue with her, because her attitude changed and she walked off while her friend laughed.

Having a Doberman has really done wonders for my confidence and the way I handle things, especially if you look back at the first story.

Long post, I know.

The dog can be social.

Considering how a lot of these stories are about people accusing me of not socializing my dog, let me just assure you that I HAVE done that and will continue to do so.

It’s just that walks are not the right time for this because of her personality (trust me, lol), but also because of what I am trying to achieve with my training.

She gets to meet dogs and people at moments where it is appropiate and safe to do so, with people who know how to act around my dog.

Here’s what the dog owner learned…

I have a ton of experiences just like this and it’s honestly so frustrating, but I will not make this post any longer than it already is.

If anything, I have learned that other people have bad opinions, everyone is a dog expert and that I should just ignore people who are quick to judge based on extremely limited information.

Most people are just not worth your time, really.

People really can be terrible when it comes to giving unsolicited advice.

Check out what some of the people in the comments on Reddit had to say.

People want to be helpful, but usually aren’t.

Great advice.

Here is someone who suggests being even more assertive.

Here is someone who loves Dobermans.

This person understands dogs better than people.

These people need to mind their own business.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.