A girl (20sF) in my (22F) friend group slaps other people's dogs on the snout when the dogs "act up". None of my friends have ever noticed and I seem to be the only one who's seen this. What should I do if anything at all?

Disclaimer: Although I love dogs, I will admit I am very ignorant about them as I have never had one in my life which is leading to some confusion on my part.

As the title says, this centers around a girl in my friend group who I will call E.

So part of E's personality is that she is obsessed with dogs, in fact, she posts upwards of 30 memes a day on social media about dogs. She has a dog and litters her sc with videos of her dog simply existing every day, I've had to unfollow her on everything at this point because it saturated my social media feeds. I remember when she got said dog (a rescue with erratic behavior problems) and being shocked the first time I saw her slap her and scream at her for trying to jump up (when I say scream, I mean like demonic screaming seemingly out of nowhere). I decided to ignore it because I don't own a dog, never have, and assumed she was the expert on training and that it must have been a necessary action on her part as her dog does have major behavioral issues. Again, I don't know anything about training a dog so idk if this is cool or not. I'm sorry if it's not ok.

Last night we were all at my friend's place to celebrate finals being over, (I will call my friend C) as we were all getting ready to leave, C's family dog came up to sniff our shoes. As E was about to put her shoes on, C's dog went to sniff E's shoe and immediately E slapped C's dog and said "No! Those are mine!". I've noticed E do this to my friend's dogs on a few more occasions and I feel as if I am the only person who ever notices, in this case, everyone was looking the other way and chatting so I think I was the only one who saw. It's always so quick and out of the blue that I'm sort of left in a state of shock. Usually, she gives them a really abrupt slap on the face/snout and you can hear a dull thumping sound. It makes me feel queasy thinking about it. Another note; every time I've seen her do this, the dogs (again, not her dogs) weren't really misbehaving in any way. They may have just gotten curious about something or she has a piece of food in her hand and the dog will try to sniff at it (which isn't ideal behavior but certainly not warranting a slap in the face?)

Anyway, I haven't said anything to E about this because I don't really know where my place is in this scenario. Is she actually abusing these dogs? Again, this girl is obsessed with dogs and I've never even owned one before, so she definitely has more expertise than I do, this could be a standard training exercise for all I know. I actually googled whether or not hitting your dog is ok for training purposes and I got 50/50 opinions from various articles, so I seriously have no clue. Second, the dogs she's hitting aren't mine so is it inappropriate for me to even comment when I'm not involved? Third, am I wrong for having this queasy feeling that E is overstepping proper boundaries with other people's dogs? C's dog was just being curious in my opinion, he wasn't barking, jumping, or biting. He was simply sniffing and being quiet. Fourth, I think that up until now, I'm the only one who has noticed her do this because it usually happens in large group scenarios where my rowdy group of friends is distracted and E's actions seem to come out of nowhere and she's fairly silent/doesn't make a big scene (it's always very quick, like a split second she slaps the dog then acts as if nothing happened).

Going forward, what actions should I take if E decides to hit someone else's dog at a social gathering? If I'm wrong in feeling that her actions are inappropriate I'd like to know. Again, I don't necessarily believe she is greatly harming these dogs, but it strikes me as a bold move on E's part as these are not her animals. I feel as if I would not be happy if I owned a dog and I found out E was slapping it across the snout for any reason at all.

Thanks!

Tl;dr

Girl in friend group "E" is obsessed with dogs and disciplines her own dog by giving her abrupt slaps on the face. I've noticed E has taken these liberties with my friend's dogs on a few occasions and felt weird about it as I don't know if it's appropriate/I have always assumed E knows more about dogs than I do as I've never owned one before. Are E's actions wrong and if so what should I do if she decides to slap someone else's dog again? Or, am I wrong and should I just keep out of it?

Submitted April 26, 2019 at 08:05PM by peachblossomgirl http://bit.ly/2XUK4BH