How do you approach situations in public involving service animals? If you ask one woman, her solution is to put your child on a leash. Lynne Schmidt, who goes by the username AbortionChat on X (formerly Twitter) detailed an interaction she had with her service dog Zoe and a small child recently, and it revived a long debate about children and dogs in public, but also how adults treat young children in public spaces.
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Her tweet went viral almost immediately
"Small child runs up to Zoë," she wrote, including a shot of her holding the pup's leash. "I body-block and say, ‘Maybe we don’t run up to dogs we don’t know.’ The parent: She’s three. Me: If she isn’t on voice recall, maybe she should be leashed?"
Within hours, the tweet went viral with a lot of people taking sides in the debate.
Many thought that Schmidt's response was unnecessarily harsh
A lot of people came to the defense of the mother and child, calling out the way Schmidt chose to engage in the conversation.
"this was very rude of you," one person replied.
"I'm not sure where this idea that children have no right to exist in public spaces came from, but I think it's probably the same sentiment that's behind the rise of therapy-speak: this idea that the comfort and well-being of an individual supersedes that of the collective," another person wrote.
"Should the parents have done more, YES, and you protected your dog as you should, ABSOLUTELY, but that last line, watch your mouth when talking about toddlers, though. Like you're a grown a– adult act it…….," another said.
"we shouldn’t run up to dogs we don’t know yes! but like… she’s 3. i don’t know how you have this much disdain for a 3 year old. ur beefing with a 3 year old," another response read.
She defends her stance but backtracked a bit on her words
"Here’s the thing," Schmidt said in an interview with NBC News. "All I know is that she clearly was not taught how to approach a dog, and that is enough for me to assume that though she was 3 years old, she was a threat to my dog. … I have said multiple times since the tweet that my dog was not the threat — the child was, which is why I blocked them from having access."
Later on in the interview, Schmidt revealed that she didn't actually tell the mom to leash her child, and that it was a retort she thought of after the fact, which almost makes it worse.
Many people came to her defense
While a lot of people took offense to Schmidt's words, many people shared their support.
"How about 'thank you for protecting my child and doing my job for me'? Jeez," one person said.
"I don’t think you did anything wrong. I have two very unruly boys and I often worry about them running up to a dog that is understandably going to get scared and bite them. It’s important to teach these things early on. Animals are unpredictable," another person shared.
"You 100% did the right thing and taught the parent a valuable lesson," another said.
Schmidt still sees children as a threat
"I enjoy hanging out with kids and teaching them when appropriate," she said in the interview. "But if a child is way out of line and puts any of my animals at risk, my priority is to my animals’ safety first and foremost."
Many people who work with dogs agree that children need to approach strange dogs with caution. But as anyone who spends time with toddlers knows, sometimes children forget the lessons they're taught or simply ignore them. There are many unknowns in Schmidt's story to make assumptions about the child, who she called "problematic" in another tweet, or the parent.
