AITA for refusing to train a dog because of what the owner said about their kid?
me (41M), run a training kennel, live alone with five dogs. board and train, mostly reactivity work. guy calls about a two year old shepherd mix. talking through history, he says the dog snapped at his son (6M) twice and "the boy needs to learn to leave it alone or the dog's gone." i asked what leave it alone meant. he described the kid climbing on the dog while it eats. i told him i won't take the dog. i said the dog is telling him something and the training he needs is for his son, and that if the plan is to rehome a dog for warning a child at a food bowl i'm not the guy. he got loud. said he's asking for help and i'm calling him a bad father. i said i'm telling him the dog isn't the problem. my sister thinks i just guaranteed that dog gets dumped at a shelter with a bite history, and that i could have taken it and taught the family something in the process. she might be right. i keep thinking about where that dog is.
What People Are Saying
Could you call him back? Not to take the dog. Just to say the same thing more slowly. People hear things on the second pass they can't hear on the first.
Refusing was honest. It also means the last professional who could have gotten in that house is now out of it. Both.
this is the thing i've been circling for a week. i was right and i still might've made it worse.
NTA. a six year old climbing on a dog at a food bowl twice is a parenting emergency and you named it. some people need to hear it from a stranger.
ESH nobody in this story is looking out for the dog including you at the moment you hung up
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@r.oyelaran_rn+151
NTA on the read, but your sister's version is the one that saves the dog. Turning him away didn't protect anybody — it just moved the problem somewhere with less expertise.