We had our play group party today, at a play centre.

It was mid morning, until lunch time.

Some time shortly after we arrived, some people arrived with a dog. They tied the dog up outside, about 1.5 metres from the door, and left him there a with a mat and a toy. A couple people from our party commented on the dog being tied up right by the door (one of the other children at our party is scared of dogs, two have allergies, etc) and they'd arrived only a few minutes after us - but he certainly wasn't there when we arrived.

The path where the dog was is quite narrow, and the mat for the dog was about 2/3 of the width of the path, and there's bushes on the other side, you can't skirt around him. No one suggested that the dog was snapping or barking if you just walked past in the narrow gap.

You can go around the other way to go to the wider path, but because of how the car park is, if you had a pram you would have to back up several metres, and then go around about 30 cars to get there. Doable, but a nuisance - but what you'd have to do.

My DH went to check on the dog, saw that there wasn't any water there, but the dog appeared to be happy and cool (there was some shade, and the temperature was mid-late 20s) and his only concern was about the position of the dog, and the implications for prams and kids (or adults!) who are scared of even innocuous looking dogs.

It had only been maybe 5 minutes, and some of us were debating whether to say something to the manager (to handball the situation and let them decide what to do about it, if anything) when a woman went up and did just that.

Not sure what happened - the dog was still there an hour later (DS1 went to wave at him!) but he wasn't there when we left about 2 hours later.

I know plenty of people who take their dogs to the park, and just make sure they don't jump on other people, or bother them, etc.

And I know people walk their dogs to the shops and leave them outside while they pick up things - but I would be surprised if people left them there for an hour ... I guess because if you were doing enough shopping for it to take more than a few minutes, you probably wouldn't be wanting to carry it home, if nothing else!

But I don't think it would ever occur to me to take my dog for a walk somewhere we intended to be any real length of time, if they were going to be by themself, and where there would be lots of kids - and in fact somewhere specifically designed for kids ... but perhaps I know a disproportionate percentage of people who are frightened of dogs.

Is it normal for people to bring dogs to the play centre and leave them there?