Just to add an extra point here, I have an autistic son, who is now 20, but like many autistic people is very scared of dogs.

We don't take James to Folk Festivals but I think our experiences may illustrate someting about dog owners. The biggest problem is meeting dogs on footpaths. James's fears are irrational and probably due to the unpredictability of dogs' behaviour.

We've found that dog owners fall into 3 groups. Group one, which I would say was probably about 90% read the situation when they see me holding onto James and will either put the dog on a lead ( James is OK with dogs on leads!) or hold it while we go past.

Group 2 will say something like "(S)he's very friendly, (s)he only wants to play" , but are fine when the situation is explained -there are probably about 8%.

It is group 3 (about 2%) that are the problem. On one occasion we ran across an Alsatian that appeared about 100 yards before its owners, causing James to mount a wall at the side of the footpath on the other side of which was a 20 foot drop. When the owners finally arrived I was holding on to my son tightly and it was about two or three minutes before they managed to get their beast on a lead.

The worst example was when a woman was "walking" her three large dogs off leads and they refused to leave James alone and surrounded him barking loudly. When I asked the woman if she would mind controlling her dogs, she replied that I SHOULD CONTROL MY SON!

She was one of those ignorant stuck up cows in Jodhphurs and although the only example of this sort of behaviour I have encountered, it did put us back to square one in our efforts to get James to not be scared of dogs.

I think these percentages probably translate quite well to those who have dogs at Folk Festivals - I think it would be a shame to make a blanket ban because of a few individuals.