I am one of those people that can confront someone when it's clear they're being an asshole, but I have major problems with passive aggressive people.

For instance, there is a guy who lives near me who has a large dog he sometimes leaves out of the fence. One time the dog came after me menacingly. i'm not scared of dogs and know how to keep them at bay, so I stood my ground and kept it back until the owner came. He yelled at the dog to get back and then just said the dog never does that to anyone, I just shook my head and kept walking (it was during a run and couldn't think of how to really approach that encounter, so I just brushed it off).

It happened again today while I was exhausted and the same outcome happened, but as I walked away, I started to think what I'm going to say if it happens again.

Now, I don't want to see the dog harmed. The owner isn't ever an out and out asshole to me otherwise, he has waved and said hi before. And the dog has never actually bitten me.

But I feel like it's disrespectful to me as well as dangerous on every front. How do I approach this without coming off like an asshole tough guy? My first instinct is to just say "Yo, tie up your fucking dog already" but I doubt that will do anything except make the guy into an asshole.

So how would you personally handle situations like this? Where the disrespect is obvious but the one doing it is passive aggressive or not outwardly aggressive? I don't think I need to point out to him that what he is doing is careless and stupid.