We experienced a quite horrid incident yesterday, in Skegness on a day-trip, and it left us with quite a bitter taste in our mouths.
Whilst standing on a wide walkway, with Coco the dog sat next to me on her double lead, connected to her harness, a small child came straight up to her, put one hand under her snout and one hand at the side and started staring into her eyes. Even though Coco did not react, I pulled her lead backwards, put my hand between her and the child, and said to the child quite firmly: “No! You don’t go straight up to a dog and put your hands in its face, you could get bitten”. At this point, the “mother” came scuttling backwards, having walked on long before, having no idea where her child was or what it was doing, took the child away and started mouthing about us needing to keep control of our dog!