Dog ownership

There has been another tragedy involving a dog killing a child.

While ANY dog can flip and attack ANY person (or other animal), it seems to me that whenever there is an incident that makes the news, it seems obvious that the owners/keepers lacked the most basic knowledge.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-24839612

I don't want to point fingers at such people. I don't think they are stupid or careless or anything like that, but they just lack understanding of the animal they choose to keep, and I personally think its time society did something about that.

In this latest incident, a powerful dog whose background was not known was brought into the home of the child victim. With a rescue dog, you can not know what sort of experiences it has had, how it will react to certain triggers, or even what those triggers might be. So while I say its commendable to re-home a dog that may not have had the best life so far (hence its in a rescue centre), it is not wise to do so if you have kids in the house who simply don't stand a chance of defending themselves, and don't themselves have the experience to know what to do if things go wrong.

I really wish, for the sake of both canine and human, that there was some form of mandatory assessment that you have to do before you're allowed to keep a dog. As lovely as they are when they're treat right and looked after properly, they are still a predatory animal at their core after all.

 

I agree. A rescue dog can act much differently in a shelter than in a home environment. Without knowing the background, you can't know how it'll react. I sincerely hope this doesn't have an adverse impact on rescue animal rehoming. But the shelter should have tailored the dog type to the family. I know Dogs Trust etc do home checks, lifestyle etc to get the best fit dog. I personally wouldn't have gone for that breed as a rescue dog, especially as it was a stray

 

I completely agree with both the above and would also like to add...IMHO NO dog be it rescued or otherwise should be trusted 100% .....

 

I would think it completely mental to take such a dog, having a young child or not, irrespective of its background
I have taken a rescue dog, it certainly was not cheap, and it was almost harder than adopting a child, though that was thirty years ago

Jack McH

 

Even if a dog isn't aggressive, they can still cause accidental harm, when they think they're playing for example.

 

I had a canine tooth go in one side of my finger and come out the other once. There was no malice whatsoever. We were playing sticks, and the young dog that did it was over excited. I grabbed the stick just as the dog closed in on it too. I was a fraction of a second earlier, so my hand was already there as the jaws clamped shut. It hurt like hell but I couldn't blame the dog. She didn't mean it, and from her reaction it was clear that she thought she was in trouble.

 

It's hard enough work with a puppy! We deliberately chose a puppy over a rescue dog, even though I'm all for rescue. We have friends with children, and we might have children of our own some day, and we also have a cat. I wouldn't want an unknown-tempered dog which could just flip at any time. Don't get me wrong, the reason for a dog being in a shelter is a biggie. It's owner may have passed away for example, and it may do nothing more than sleep most of the time. But a stray? Nope

 

Ouch!! I've had a lovely little top jaw pattern on my hand, when I let my hand get too close to tug-of-war toy. Even a puppy can break the skin and raise blood, and they're too young to know proper aggression. I always warn children who want to stroke him that he might try and chew them.

 

All the rescue centres I have experience of carry out home checks, dog assessments and human assessments.

At one well known rescue centre, a good proportion of animals listed are only recommended for households with children aged 14 and above.

 

Dogs are wild animals at the end of the day. I don't think it maters whether it's a rescue dog or not. When I lived at home we always had dogs, some from pups and some from rescue home and never had a problem. The steward of the social club I was a member of had an Alsatian that he had from a few weeks old, from a breeder. When the dog was about 5 years old he was in France and had to take the dog to the vets. As the vet didn't know the dog he asked him to muzzle her, when he tried to put the muzzle she attacked him. Luckily for him the vet was able to give the dog a lethal injection, but he was in a right mess and ended up having several hundred stitches and loosing the muscle his bicep muscle. This dog was always around the club going around getting fuss and scratching/crisps of members with no problems at all. I think any dog at any time can turn and I personally would not have one whilst my children are small.

Rusty

 

We got one dog from a rescue centre, they didn't do any checks what's so ever, we went the rescure centre to see the dog which was adverired, we took her for a walk/played with her etc, she was a nice dog, one thing we didn't pick up on was the dog was kelped away from other dogs. we sayed we take her handed over some money and home she came. she setled in well, then she showed signs that her didn't like people leaning over her and she would get nasty and didn't like other dogs. we rang a dog trust that's for that breed of dog and they tolled us the histroy of the dog but the rescue centre didn't tell us any thing about her histroy we know now. We know what make her tick and we work around it

 

I'm a home checker for these guys http://www.caessr.org.uk/
Spaniels are brilliant family dogs but they still won't place a dog with anyone with children under 5. They also don't allow applicants to just pick any dog they like, once the home assessment is done, the staff who know the dogs match the dog to a family.

I think as country we need to deal with the people who mess the rescue dogs up in the first place. I want to see far tougher action taken against anybody abusing animals. The vile woman in this case http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-24580312 only got a suspended sentence even though there was clear evidence the dogs were tortured.

 

Must be one I don't have any experience of Jiffy Thank goodness you were able to work around her issues

Agreed!

 

Did she definitely get the dog from a rescue as one report I read said she bought it from the 'free ads' for £50?

Before I moved over here I used to homecheck for several small rescues and assess dogs coming in to rescue from homes. I think some of the smaller rescues have stricter criteria and are more rigorous in their vetting and assessment than the larger ones. We rehomed a dog from NAWT and although we had an interview at the centre and met the dog a couple of times beforehand we were never homechecked, nor were there any follow up visits after the adoption. The rescues I volunteered for always visited the dog in it's new home once it had been there for a couple of months and were always on hand to help with any problems that might arise.

 

According to the Guardian,