I'm at a friend's house playing Catch Phrase, and one of our friends has a 13 year old nephew here. The dog here has repeatedly growled and snapped at the kid and no one is doing anything about it!!! I can't believe this. They're just telling him to be a good boy. I'm appalled. When do you step in and take control? No one is taking this seriously and this dog either needs to be crated, put outside, or corrected. I've said a few things and just get blown off. These aren't dog savvy people. What would you do? I'm so frustrated!!

Katie, You bring up a difficult subject that has taken awhile for me to come to the two part conclusion of.

1st part: So long as no law is being broken I cannot change how someone chooses to live with their dog until they are ready to change something.

2nd part: A mind not seeking wisdom will find none.

What I have discovered is I can tell people they're doing things wrong until I'm blue in the face. Rarely will that person accept my advice,suggestions, accusations unless they are truly open to change. Until that point I'll point out casual observations and offer to help but otherwise I'm normally wasting my breathe if I start getting into really changing the situation. Most people have to decide to actively pursue that route or have to live their life in a way that allows them to be open to change and suggestions.

Examples from my own life of this in action.

A client who chooses to feed her dog a diet of chex mix, lunch meat, and banana. Oh how I waste my time trying to help this woman get her dog on a decent diet.

A friend who is planning to breed a bag of nerves mental bitch because she has a nice pedigree. I have offered my thoughts on the matter but alas, my breath for now is wasted.

So I guess my advice to you is to step in when appropriate, at an appropriate level to protect minors, and yourself. For instance in the situation you outlined I would have asked to put the dog outside because she was making you feel uncomfortable. Most hosts will comply with that. If the dog actively attacked me the situation escalates as appropriate.

Thanks Melissa. I have definitely kept my mouth shut about diets and breeding and things like that for the most part. But this was a potentially dangerous situation. Nothing happened, thank God, and they left shortly after I posted. I just hope nothing happens in the future.

I mean, I know I don't know much, but this dog was showing clear signs of aggression.

I would say that you should step in under the circumstances described when you or another person (especially a child) is in immediate danger of being bitten at what ever level is appropriate for the situation. But you have to be aware of the possibility of losing a friend if you do step in and correct their dog in some way.

I'm confused,
Are the dog owners (trying to) direct the dog or their son? And who is the instigator?

As for stepping in. Dicey that kind of business.
I'd probably plant a seed like, 'someone is going to get hurt one day'. Then let it go if they didn't pick it up for conversation.
The next time I witnessed an event, I'd ask before any corrections(?) were given if they'd like help to make it stop and keep it from happening any more.
Let it go after and wash my hands of the matter from then on.

In this situation, I likely would've said something about the potentially dangerous situation and certainly about them reinforcing the behavior instead of calming the dog down. I could step in but, what would the dog's motivation be to follow my correction? Would I be putting myself into harm's way and escalating this situation? If I tried to grab the dog's collar to lead it outside, would it try to defend itself (ie: bite me)? Further, I'd have to ask myself why the dog was being aggressive. Was there something going on behind the scenes with how the boy was treating the dog? How is the boy's body language with the dog? In other words, I'd be doing a lot of observing while asking myself questions.

That said, I'd step in if I saw what looked like an eminent bite about the happen. The trick is doing that tactfully.

For me, standing by and letting a dog bite a kid just because I don't want to offend someone is not something I will do. But then, I give riding lessons so I have lots of practice being the authority figure and telling people how to do things.

If the dog will listen to you, I would correct the dog when he shows aggression to the boy, I would also warn the boy that the dog is likely to bite him and give him advice pertinent to the situation.

Then, if you are very bold, you could ask the dog owners: "So when your dog finally bites this boy do you think his parents are likely to sue you?"

And then wonder aloud to yourself: "Hmmm, I wonder what kinds of fines and court cost there are in dog bite cases?"

And then you turn to the dog owners and ask them "Are you thinking about just getting a cat after this dog is gone?"

This is called peer pressure.

We need more of it in the world.

Thanks to all of you.

I was doing a lot of what Scott said - observing. The dog didn't seem to be aggressive to anyone else pushing him away from the boy or telling him to "be nice" but I admit I wasn't sure what he'd do if I had tried to take him outside.

The instant the boy walked into the house the dog ran straight towards him, growling, and sort of leaped and nipped. This had me floored, but he just got the usual treatment. Next time I'll do what you said Debbie, peer pressure. They needed it. This dog is known to not like children, but everyone at the house thought it was odd because THEY knew this kid. Hello!? The dog doesn't care who this kid is! He's never bitten before, but he has acted this way.

Unfortunately I'm very afraid this dog will eventually bite someone.

Randy, the dog definitely seems to be the instigator. The kid just walked in the house, and even was just sitting in a chair while we were playing the game and the dog ran up to him with the same actions. I'm not sure the owners were trying to direct anything. They honestly didn't seem to think it was a big deal, just "weird."

Bah!!

So these people, man child and dog don't live together? For some reason I couldn't read between all the lines.
The sentence that includes "This dog is known to not like children" rather changes the complexion of things considerably in my book.

I guess I'm sorry I said anything at all.
Good luck.

Never be sorry you said anything, Randy! You give some of my favorite advice!

I probably just wasn't clear enough. My friend was having a get-together at his house. He has the dog. Our OTHER friend came and brought his nephew, the child the dog was being aggressive towards.

Does that make sense? It's hard when there were so many people there. And yet I was the only one who seemed to care!