Never ever ever touch another person's dog without asking first! My dog is a rescue who adores people but he's extremely protective of us, even if it's a kid approaching.

"Utterly mauled." A little on the exaggeration aide, huh?

I feel like you weren't actually utterly mauled, just scratched. And as like everybody else is saying you should ask before petting somebody else's dog, not all dogs are friendly, and I'm guessing you didn't ask or the owner would have told you then that the dog might scratch. So, YDI.

I agree with everyone about asking before you pet someone's dogs, however depending on where the op was this is the mans fault too. If it was in public, that's still his fault. If you have a dog that's known to bite or scratch people you need to have a better handle on it, or put a muzzle on it or something. They even make leashes now that have warnings on them so people know. What if some little kid had run up to the dog? Again, not saying it's okay to do that but if you know for a fact your dog is prone to hurting people you should be more responsible.

If you didn't ask then it's kind of YDI. You should always ask, no matter if it seems nice or not. On the other hand, i do hope you're okay and i hope that it didn't maul you as some people on here are making it out to be. When i was younger some guy who had a wolf as a pet let his "pet" loose, and it wound up getting lost. It made its way to my yard and bit me in the leg. So i know the pain of a dog biting and scratching you, so i do hope you're okay.

'utterly mauled'? if all it did was cause you to gasp then you were not mauled. God you sound like malfoy kicking off when he was a dick to buckbeak.

That's why you ask, you never know.

and that is why you never touch someone's pet with out asking first.

"It jumped up and utterly mauled my face.." You are why we can't have nice things and are a reason why good dogs have bad things happen to them because of exaggerations. YDI

Dogs are great