Imagine being an older dog owner with a bad knee. Would you be happy to let the neighborhood kids run around with your dog so he could get exercise, or would you hire a dog walker?

In this story, one man is in this exact situation, and he used to think it was great for his dog to play with the kids. Now, he has changed his mind and isn’t sure how to handle the situation.

Keep reading for all the details.

WIBTA if I stopped letting neighborhood Kids play with my dog?

I (63m) live by myself with my 2 year old black lab/golden retriever mix named Finn.

My neighborhood has quite a few kids (~15) that play together every night. These kids love Finn and usually knock on my door to ask if he can play too.

Of course I let him out because Finn loves playing with the kids, and usually he comes back a few hours later.

It seems like a win win situation.

I live in a gated community with very little to no traffic and everybody follows the speed limit.

Finn has been playing with these kids pretty much every night for his whole life.

This is definitely great for me because I can’t walk him as much since I injured my knee so he gets his exercise through playing with the kids.

But then, there was a problem.

A few days ago Finn came home with gum in his hair.

I was a little annoyed but it happens with kids I guess.

Luckily he has long hair so I was able to just cut it out and you can’t even tell.

The next day, when the kids asked to play again I asked them all to not put gum in his hair and they all promised they wouldn’t.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

It happened again.

Yet again I cut it out but then the next day when the group came and asked for Finn I told them he couldn’t play today because someone put gum in his hair again.

The kids were very disappointed and so was Finn but I don’t want to keep cutting gum out of his hair.

I’m pretty sure I know which kid is the culprit but I don’t know how appropriate it would be for me to go to his house and talk to his parents.

He’s not sure what to do.

I could hire a dog walker to walk Finn so he could still get his exercise but I feel like he’d miss the kids.

I don’t really know how to go about fixing this without banning the kids from playing with Finn.

WIBTA if I stopped letting neighborhood kids play with my dog?

Should he talk to the kid’s parents, hire a dog walker, or something else? Let’s see what Reddit suggests.

Here’s a vote for talking to the kid’s parents.

One person suggests contacting all of the kids’ parents.

Maybe peer pressure will be effective.

It’s too bad when one kid has to ruin the fun for everyone.

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