So, let me paint a picture for you:
This morning (like every morning for the past five or six months) I got my son ready for daycare, got the dog ready, and we walked to his daycare. Like every morning I tie my dog up well out of the way of any other parents dropping kids off outside of the daycare, go in for two seconds to drop off my son, and then start to walk my beagle home. The sun is shining, it's warm, and I'm pretty cheerful.
I see a woman walking two kids (the kids are maybe around six years old?) so I rein the dog in so that she's well off to the side of the sidewalk so that they can get by easily. We're about ten feet away from each other when the woman starts talking to me, and this is pretty close to the conversation we had:
Her - "There's fucking shit all over the fucking sidewalk from your fucking dog, go pick it up you asshole!"
Me - "What?"
Her - "Your fucking dog shit all over the fucking sidewalk. Fucking disgusting go fucking pick it up."
Me - "Look, I pick up after my dog . . ." *Reach into my pocket and hold up a handful of poop baggies*
Her - "You're fucking disgusting, I bet there's shit all over your fucking house you fucking let your fucking dog shit everywhere . . . etc."
Me - "Look lady, I don't really know what your problem is. I pick up after my dog."
So, then I walked home . . . feeling pretty angry to be honest. (I did see some dog poop in the middle of the sidewalk a bit further up.) The thing is, my dog poops on the same grassy area every morning, and I pick it up and put it in the same garbage can next to the road as I'm walking my son to school. My son actually says "The doggie is pooping daddy, you have to pick it up" every time. It happened this morning, just like it happens every other morning. She absolutely didn't poop again, and she would never poop or pee on concrete.
My concern is that I have this routine, and it's great for everybody. The dog gets some exercise, my son gets some exercise before school starts, and it works really well for my schedule. There's really only one route that I can take to walk my son to school. I have a few concerns:
1. I'm likely going to run into this idiot again, maybe with my son and she might start swearing/making a scene and scaring him. He is kinda sensitive and has never been around someone acting like that. (She clearly thinks that's perfectly OK behaviour around young children, and she must be taking her children to the same daycare/school that my son goes to.)
2. I'm concerned that she might try to do something to my dog while she's tied up for the minute or two that I'm dropping off my son. My dog is a 22 lb beagle, and was a rescue dog. She was very timid with people and it took a while before she was comfy around and friendly with strangers. Moreover, if someone intentionally hurt my dog I'm not sure how I'd handle it, but that's probably on a verge of losing control anger level situation.
What do you think I should do? Am I being crazy?