Dog parks are supposed to be fun, but sometimes, it only takes one bad experience to ruin everything.

What would you think if a 120-pound dog started displaying dominance over your 40-pound dog to the point where it made your pet yelp and nip at the other one? Would you take the blame and apologize for the situation? Or would you think the entire situation was the other dog owner’s fault?

In today’s story, one dog owner finds herself in this situation and wonders if she was in the wrong. Here’s the full scoop.

AITA for bringing my dog to the dog park?

My dog isn’t overly defensive or aggressive, but he does get anxious around crowds and lots of dogs.

He’s medium-sized, 40 lbs, well-socialized, and spends 2 days a week in daycare playing with other dogs his size or larger.

I take my dog to the dog park because even though he gets nervous around large groups of dogs, he does just fine when it’s not crowded. He’s gentle, playful, and has no history of biting.

There were only a few dogs at the park.

Last weekend I took him to our favorite dog park.

Only 4 other dogs there: two labs, an aussie shep mix, and a ginormous Anatolian shep mix. This was a big boy. He was LORGE. Around 120 lbs. I let the dogs sniff each other through the fence first before letting him in. All seems well. Then I unleash my dog and let him inside.

There are 20 seconds of “let’s all go sniff the new guy,” then the big boy immediately tries to mount and **** my dog.

The big dog’s display of dominance did not sit well with her dog.

Normally, this is undesirable but sort of expected, and we give the dogs a chance to sort it out before intervening. But size is a factor here. Around 120 lbs of weight on my 40lb dog’s hips. It hurt my dog.

He yelped loudly, took one quick nip at Big Boy’s neck, and backed away with his hackles raised and his tail between his legs.

I grabbed my dog’s collar and walked him away to de-escalate, but the big boy growled and backed us into a corner. I yelled out for the owner to please call their dog away, but their dog didn’t listen.

Everyone left the park at the same time.

So the owner sends his 10ish-year-old son to haul the dog away, which obviously doesn’t work out. So he finally comes over and leashes his dog, then says, “You should know better than to bring a defensive and anxious dog to the park.”

He waits a bit as if he expects me to leave, then huffs and leaves with his dog and son.

At this point, I leashed my dog and decided to walk him around the perimeter of the park to cool off. The other dog owners left too, all at once, as if someone had pooped in the punch bowl.

AITA?

Yikes! It’s easy to see both sides of this, but a large dog like that can be dangerous.

Let’s check out what the folks over at Reddit think should’ve happened in this situation.

This person doesn’t think she was in the wrong.

Here’s someone who thinks you have to be careful with large dogs.

This reader explains the problem with dog parks.

For this reader, her dog was only defending himself.

That poor dog and child. The man should be ashamed of himself for being such an irresponsible pet owner.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.