Why do people antagonize other people's dogs?! (rant)

I can not understand why peopel think it's cute to bark at a dog?
 
I get it often with Gizzy, like when I'm driving and the window is open suddenly I hear the person next to me barking at Giz, she just gives them the "your crazy" look.  Or I'll be walking her and someone will be driving by and rolls down the window just to bark at us.  I don't mind talking to people about my dog but I'de rather they not try to communicate with my dog.
 
One time for the fun of it I was feeling a bit tipsy myself on a walk and barked back at the guy barking at Giz.  Ha, that was sure a surprize to the guy.[]

OMG!  I have never heard of such a thing!  WHO barks at a dog????  People looking for trouble and you know what they say...  If you you're looking for trouble, you're going to find it.  idiots.

OMG, this happened to me just a few weeks ago!! [:@]

I couldn't believe it. Ogre , Axl, and I are all out for our evening walk, and we stop at a crosswalk to let some cars pass. A few people were also stopped along with us. All of a sudden this guy standing to my right starts BARKING at Ogre! Luckily I had a good handle on him...Ogre is extremely wary of all strangers. As long as they act what he considers "normal," he's fine...but any exaggerated or weird behavior, and he usually starts some kind of aggressive posturing and low growling.

Ogre fluffed up and stood stiff legged beside me staring at the guy....and I said "What the h*ll??? Would you please not BARK at my dog!?" and of course the guy says "Awww, don't worry about it, dogs love me!"

Um, obviously NOT, and if he knew the first thing about dog body language he'd see how p*ssed Ogre was!

The guy then TOWERS over Ogre and WHOMPS him on the head in the roughest attempt at petting I've ever seen. I jerked Ogre away as quickly as I could and said "Would you please NOT pet him? You've upset him, and he doesn't like strangers!"

They guy got all defensive then and said "Well if you have a dog that's that aggressive then you shouldn't have it out in public in the first place! Maybe you should spend some time training him and he wouldn't be that way!"

Um, hello....we were having a nice quiet walk, and my dogs were behaving VERY nicely. Ogre shows people the respect they show him. If they leave him alone, he leaves them alone. If they're polite, he's polite right back. I am NOT going to punish my dog because he doesn't like idiots yelling at him and clonking him on the head. [:@]

And like Miranadobe said...if he had bitten the guy, the headline would have read "Akita attacks law-abiding innocent victim" the next day. 

Ugh! My idiot neighbor kid does that - but he's a KID! What kind of ADULT would do something like that? What a moron!

I think it makes them feel good about themselves in some pathetic way.  Oh boy!  I got a reaction out of a dog!  Yippie. What maroons.

I've had arses do this to my Pomeranian, Baxter.  He's gotten better but when I first got him, he would bark up a storm, especially in the car, when people came near him.  There was actually a woman who (while I was sitting in the car with him!) decided it was cute to antagonize him by getting her face as close to the window as possible and making faces while barking.
 
I proceeded to let the window down when she turned around to tell her idiot friend to watch how funny it was and let Bax get close enough to the window to scare the poop out of her without being able to get close to her.
 
When she gave me a dirty look, I just said "Hey, he's a dog.  He has teeth.  I don't care if he's 10 pounds and cute, he can and will bite.  Wanna try again?"

Sounds like my dumb cousin at our family's cottage this summer.  First he kept pulling on Chase's tail while they were swimming together in the lake.  I called Chase in immediately and took him up the hill to play fetch.  About half an hour later my cousin comes up the hill and starts barking and growling at my dog.  Chase got very nervous, barked back and hid behind me.  Of course I brought the dog inside the cabin right away.  All the while my cousin is laughing and telling me that my dog "is a scaredy-cat".
 
What an idiot.  My dog's not aggressive, but had I not been there to protect him, I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd started snarling.  My cousin isn't exactly mean and didn't want to hurt the dog...he's just dumb and thinks he's funny.
 
The best part is that my cousin is 34 years old.  I keep reminding myself that I can't choose my extended family, but I CAN choose to keep my dog away from them!

LOL I had a high school kid bark at Maggie when we were there for a demo a few years ago. She just turned and gave him a look like "excuse me; and you think that's cool why?"; it was hilarious!

I want to teach Maggie to snarl on cue so if something like what you all describe happens I can cue it and give them a nice view of her pretty white teeth. [] As it is now, she's got a pretty reliable 'bark and lunge' on the cue of "steady". []

I want to teach Maggie to snarl on cue

do you know, my landlord brought her Golden Retriever to a puppy class YEARS ago and the trainer insisted that all the women train their dogs to bark on cue, so that if they ever felt threatened on the street, they could use their dogs!
Her dog had no interest in it, and frankly, neither did my landlord. 
 
I wish Gracie would "smile" on cue.  That would be handy...

The 'bark and lunge' behavior is for self protection should I ever want it - I taught it by using my neighbor's nasty little dog as bait (i.e. Maggie hated him and would offer the behavior when leashed and in visual range) whenever he'd get on our property along w/ some practice inside w/o the dog there on the barking part. The cue "steady" is so that no one really knows what she's capable of. [] I still need to work on fading the hand signal I use for steady so it's not so obvious.

Maggie also knows "whisper" lol and it almost sounds like a growl at times.

I think I may result to tape on her whiskers or peanut butter on her nose to get the snarl behavior.

Maggie also knows "whisper" lol and it almost sounds like a growl at times.

sigh... making me think of my first Doberman who would "whisper" on command, although it sounded like a hoarse bark.  I wish G would smile more at more predictable things so I could capture it (and exploit it.)  As it is, she's only smiled at one person (whom I despise and hope to never see again for what she did to my dog and others),  lus me and my dog trainer - once each.
 
TAPE on your dog's whiskers?!

I have a Chihuahua mix and when I lived in Alabama, I had neighbors who would do the same.

The boys in my neighborhood who did it got a kick out of feeling superior to a small animal, which is basically lame. lol

It can be hard to deter people from doing it though, most of them don't even think they're doing anything wrong since it's become a common practice. Which is sad by itself.  

I had a woman bark at Bevo a few months ago. (Usually it's only men who are stupid enough to bark at a Doberman)  I told her quickly "Don't do that" & she looked me straight in the face & barked again.  I couldn't help myself....I punched her square in the face & broke her nose.  I am usually a really calm person, but I couldn't control myself.  She called the police & pressed charges, but she eventually had to drop the charges because she had no witnesses.  I had 3 witnesses that claimed the she fell.  Through the entire situation, Bevo sat quietly looking at the woman like she was stupid.

I'd love to teach my dog to show her teeth as well. I've come across several people (kids, teens and adults) who bark at my dog. When she started whining, one of them started whining as well. It was so irritating and stupid, not to mention extremely juvenile. I don't even understand why they do it, it's so lame and weird.  
 
ETA:

ORIGINAL: BEVOLASVEGAS
I had a woman bark at Bevo a few months ago. (Usually it's only men who are stupid enough to bark at a Doberman)  I told her quickly "Don't do that" & she looked me straight in the face & barked again.  I couldn't help myself....I punched her square in the face & broke her nose.  I am usually a really calm person, but I couldn't control myself.  She called the police & pressed charges, but she eventually had to drop the charges because she had no witnesses.  I had 3 witnesses that claimed the she fell.  Through the entire situation, Bevo sat quietly looking at the woman like she was stupid.

 
[] I would probably have had the same reaction! Seriously, she got was what coming.

I punched her square in the face & broke her nose.

AMANDA!!  My jaw just dropped! 
 
And here I was, provoked by this thread, to come up w/a better answer to that punk...and I had this whole theory about warning said offenders that Dobes are trained for personal protection and would they like to test the theory, because I'd therefore be w/in my rights to protect myself (and my property)... but, jeez!  I am not as brave as my words, I guess.  Clearly, you are!   (secretly applauding your response...!!)