Lan_lan

Trick question, Lemmy is God

A few days ago I was walking my dog on a nearby walking trail, and I saw an older lady walking a dog as well, coming towards me. As we get closer, she pulls the dog off the trail and goes towards a couple trees. Our dogs are looking at each other and very obviously wanting to get close. Anyway, she starts yelling at her dog, and smacking it on the side. All it's doing is sitting there, looking at my dog. I'm still on the trail, and I've finally walked past her, and she starts hitting the dog in the head now. And not just taps, but it's uncomfortably hard from my perspective. Still, it's just sitting there staring at my dog. She has her lead wrapped around a tree. So I yell at the lady to stop hitting her dog and she replies with "it's not my dog"! Then I say "then stop hitting it!" and she says her dog will hurt my dog. I don't see what that has to do with her hitting it. Anyway we go back and forth a couple more times, I'm finally too far away to hear her.

But yeah, what's the right thing to do in this situation? Why would this lady be walking, and hitting, a dog that isn't hers? She had a harness and a long lead, so some money was obviously spent on the dog. Was she likely a trainer or dog walker?