Neighbours called the cops called after mum lets her daughter walk their dog alone

Neighbours called the police when they spotted an eight-year-old girl walking her dog alone.

 Dorothy Widen and her Maltese dog, Marshmallow, were walking around the block near their home and just minutes after she arrived home, cops turned up on the door step after an anonymous call.

 Her mum, Corey Widen, says since the incident feels like she was mum-shamed and accused her of being a terrible mother.

Police took no action against Corey, who lives near Chicago, but the state Department of Children and Family Services was notified and an investigation was opened to see if Widen was neglecting her children, she said.

The department found no wrongdoing and closed the case.

Corey, who is a single mother and has difficulty walking after a back injury, asked Dorothy to take Marshmallow around the block because she was trying to teach her daughter a little independence and responsibility.

 'For something like this to happen to me, there’s something really wrong,' said the 48-year-old who agreed to let her two kids get a puppy last year as long as they walked her.  

‘Every eight-year-old is different, every neighborhood is different, and every parent is different, so you can’t make an overall judgment like that,’ Corey explained on TV show Good Morning America.

 She then wrote on Facebook, ‘Children YOUNGER than my daughter walk alone, further, to school, or the park in this neighborhood. Because of all these things and the fact that children are now safer than ever before, my daughter will continue to walk her dog. The simple fact of the matter is my daughter is more than capable of walking her dog and it is legally at her parents discretion.

Officials said the call came in reporting that the child looked like she was under five, which was clearly not true. But Corey says that even though there was no case to answer the entire family has been stressed by the incident after child services officials talked to her doctor, other family members and Dorothy herself.

"It made me sad, a little bit scared," she admitted.

But mum Dorothy is refusing to stop her daughter from walking the dog alone,“Everyone needs to allow the parent to do what is best for their family,” she said. “No one will dictate my parenting choices.”

Would you let your eight-year-old walk the dog alone?