Being a dog owner gives you a lot of responsibilities. But can simply letting your dog do their business be a cause of being called an a-hole?
For some non-owners, the answer would probably be yes. Some people just hate seeing a dog on the street, let alone a dog peeing or pooing. Some treat dogs as a nuisance for their existence alone, and my brain is incapable of understanding that kind of mentality, so I won’t even try.
Now we have one dog owner who’s asking Reddit if he’s an a-hole and thinking that he is one, for letting his dog pee in the street because his neighbor is apparently asking him to apologize for it.
The OP starts the post by saying that he was out walking the dogs with his wife on their typical route. He mentions that the route passes by a house with a very nice, manicured lawn and that they have even complimented the homeowners for it while they’re walking by.
OP added, “I usually try to heel the dogs closer to me for better control because usually around this part of our walk my dogs need to poop, and I don’t want them pooping in anybod[y’s] yard.”
A responsible pet parent, clearly. He then added that his dogs are notorious for stopping to pee on any little debris pile they see in the street. “Dogs will be dogs,” he wrote.
So during their walk, they passed by the house with the beautiful lawn while the homeowner lady was out doing some yard work. OP mentioned that his big dog happened to urinate on a small pile of leaves on the sidewalk on the street next to the lady’s lawn. OP and his wife continued their walk along with their dogs and newborn and the homeowner paid them no mind.
As OP’s family were heading home though, the homeowner lady pulled up on them in her car. The lady rolled down her windows and asked the couple a “favor” – to refrain from letting their dog pee next to her driveway/sidewalk going forward. “Mind you, this was not on her property. It was on the street next to her property,” OP wrote.
OP thought that the lady mistook them for someone else at first, but he grew annoyed soon after when he realized that their neighbor was indeed upset that his dog peed on the street next to the neighbor’s yard. So naturally, OP told the neighbor that it’s a public street and that he will not, and definitely can’t, stop his dog from peeing in a public space.
The neighbor then argued that she intended to pick up the pile of pine needles that OP’s dog peed on. “[She] went as far as to suggest to me I should apologize to her for her troubles like I’m some sort of clairvoyant who intentionally is making her life harder th[a]n need be.”
Instead of arguing back, OP suggested that their neighbor use a shovel to pick up the leaves instead of doing it by hand, but the neighbor’s not having it. OP didn’t apologize to the neighbor but wrote that if his dog peed on the neighbor’s property, then he would understand their frustration.
So is OP the a-hole? Reddit says no.
As any sensible person would say, the street is public property, and owners can’t control when their dogs pee. And another important point is that the neighbor is upset about something that happened outside of their property, albeit somewhere close. It doesn’t really justify the way they approached OP’s family and demanded an apology.
See the original post below!
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