my 7 yo, a dog and a buttinski neighbor

My 7 yo was outside last evening playing with 2 other children in the cul-de-sac when a lady walking a dog passed.  My 7 yo approached the lady and asked permission to pet the animal, which was granted, but while petting it\'s shoulder the animal\'s head swung around hitting my girl in the eye.  She has a small scratch and a bruise under the eye.

Everyone around made a huge fuss about it.  A neighbor called our apt security rep who came and talked to us.  A buttinski neighbor called animal control and pushed his phone into my face to talk to them.  Animal control called the sherriff\'s dept who sent out an officer. 

The lady did nothing wrong.  I don\'t feel my child or the dog did anything wrong. It was just a something that happened, part of life, growing up, whatever. And in fact, several responders praised my child for asking permission to pet rather than just rushing the animal and scaring it.

This buttinski neighbor caught me on my way from my car to the front door after picking up my child from school.  He went on and on about this issue and some other dog-related problems in the neighborhood.  He finally got around to what he wanted to say to me, which was that my child was wrong to try to touch anyone else\'s dog.  It wasn\'t just that this was his opinion.  I can handle having disagreeing opinions with people.  It was how he went about it, rather like saying a rape victim shouldn\'t wear clothing revealing cleavage if she didn\'t want to be raped.  I had to turn around and walk away.

Now that I have this typed out, I guess I don\'t have a point.  I just wanted to vent.  She and I had a talk last night about it being a good idea to stop asking to pet unknown dogs.  But the way this man came across made me want to slap same sanity into him.