There is another mom at DS's school and she brings her puppy. He's not even a year old, and he jumps and barks and A won't go near him. But we were sitting last week waiting for the kids to come out, and another of the moms was sitting with us and her other son was with her. He was running around playing, and he saw the woman scold the puppy because he kept straining at the leash and barking. She had pulled him in and told him to sit , etc. He went over behind her...I figured she couldn't see him, or didn't, but he started calling to the puppy, who had just been told to sit, and then when the dog tried to run to him, she swatted him lightly, and said no, and made him sit again. I thought it was rather unfair, because the kid was calling to him. Anyway, he kept this up, and his mom told him a couple of times to leave him alone, but he was enjoying the fact that the dog was on a very short leash and couldn't get to him. After about 10 minutes of him taunting the dog and the dog being held tightly on the leash, the dog's owner finally just let the dog off the leash. He goes running (he just wanted to play...he wasn't going to hurt him) at the kid and the kid looked so shocked. Then he ran and the dog is running after him, and the kid is laughing, and then he ducked into the soccer pen that has a gate that closes, so the dog couldn't get to him. I heard the dog owner say "Well, if he's going to keep taunting him, he needs to learn." She knew he wouldn't hurt the kid, but it sure shocked him. I personally wouldn't have let the dog go, but I would have asked the kid to stop, and I would have explained that it's cruel to do that to the dog. And as the mom of the kid, I would have had him sitting somewhere in a corner where he couldn't look at the dog to taunt him. But that's just me.