AITAH for shouting at my brothers kid cause of the way he approached my dog?

A Reddit user (f20) is questioning if they were in the wrong after an incident at a family dinner involving their dog and their brother’s almost 2-year-old child. The child had repeatedly stepped on the dog’s paws and tail despite being told to stop, and when the child attempted to kick the dog, the user shouted at them.

The child ran to their parents, and the atmosphere soured, leading to the brother’s family leaving early. After apologizing, the user is still unsure if they overreacted, as their brother hasn’t responded to their attempts to make amends.

‘ AITAH for shouting at my brothers kid cause of the way he approached my dog?’

So I (f20) was invited to dinner on at my parents house and both my brother’s were also there with there wife and kids. Both my parents, my siblings and I have a dog (my parents dog is medium size, around 25 kg).

For the context, this wasn’t the first family dinner we had together and the kids from my siblings know the dogs from an early age on. My dog is only 1.5 years old and doesn’t yet have much experience with children (but loves the little ones),

so whenever my brothers are there with their children, I keep an eye on my dog and intervene if he gets too wild and if necessary put him on a leash and take him to me so that he calms down a bit.

Now one of my brother’s children (almost 2 years old) has stepped on my parents dog’s paws or tail several times on purpose, which is of course extremely painful for the dog. Of course they had told the little one to stop it several times and my brother has also said that he should leave the dog alone.

Now the story: My dog was lying on the carpet, my brother’s child came up to my dog and lightly stepped on his paws several times, but my dog stayed calm and just turned away. I told the child to stop. The child laughed at me and swung his foot out to now kick my dog ( who was now lying the other way round).

This was too much for me. I jumped up from the sofa and shouted “hey, not like that!” in a relatively loud tone, whereupon the child froze for some seconds just looking at me and then ran crying to his parents. After that the mood was very bad and 10 minutes later my brother’s family went home.

Since this incident (wich was on Thursday) I have mixed feelings cause my brother hasn’t answered my messages and phone calls even though I apologized cause I may shouted a bit to loud. On the other side I think that he should raise his child better and teach him to approach dogs. Any advice would be appreciated.

Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:

Briiiiiiyonce −  NTA. You weren’t screaming at him until you had foam coming out of your mouth. You urgently shouted to get his attention because what he was doing was a bad thing.

There have been MANY times I had to yell at my best friends son when he was doing like that. Your brother needs to relax and teach his child the proper way to touch animals.

aeroeagleAC −  NTA, if your brother is really  that upset by this then he is just a s**t parent.

ChunkyBubblz −  NTA. Someone needs to teach that kid not to abuse animals before he grows up into Jeffrey Dahmer.

gorillaboy75 −  NTA. In our family we have an understanding that we can correct each other’s children if something is off and their parent isn’t around. I don’t understand this whole “no one else can correct my child’s awful behavior” attitude. I honestly feel like getting yelled at by an adult who is not your parent is more impactful anyway.

Simple_Proof_721 −  YTA for apologizing, YOU ARE supposed to protect your dog, now your bother who is a bad parent has the idea that by you apologizing he’s not in the wrong and his parenting is fine, which means the child won’t get taught how to interact with animals and more pets will be steeped on and hurt

inkslingerben −  NTA You tried to tell the boy in a normal tone of voice to stop and he didn’t. Then you had to use a more authoritative voice to get the kid’s attention before he harmed the dog,

DaniCapsFan −  Something is wrong with that kid if his response to being asked to leave a dog along is to try to kick him. You were right to yell at the child and shouldn’t have apologized except for “I’m sorry my response scared your son, but I do not want him hurting my dog.”. NTA

First-Actuator-8273 −  NTA, if his parents weren’t going to intervene someone needed to. You didn’t continue to scream at him, but did enough to startle him and get him to stop. Your dog may be very well behaved and tolerant, but even the most well behaved dogs have a threshold ,

and you stopped the situation before the dog started growling, or worse. In the future, when the child starts to mess with your dog(stepping on his paws), just bring the dog to you and tell the child “puppy is done playing and needs a break”, and if the child continues, move the dog somewhere else.

chaingun_samurai −  “My f**king dog understands personal space better than those feral creatures you call kids.”

Lurky_Mish_7879 −  Think of it this way… if you hadn’t of shouted and let the kid carry on and your dog attacked the child, what would your brother say then?
Probably blame you and the dog for that too.

Do you think the user was justified in their reaction, or was shouting at a toddler an overreaction? How would you handle a situation like this with your family and pets? Share your thoughts and advice below!