dog attack

another terrible tragedy involving a dog attacking a kid...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ar-old-boy-mauled-death-American-bulldog.html

More should be said about reasons why these accident happens and what is the best thing to help in case we are confronted with this situation...

 

@miraflores, to me, they are not accidents, they are attacks with lethal weapons. Anyone who knows about dogs should know that any form of bull terrier is a potential killer. After all, they were bred for bull baiting. They are 2 stone of pure muscle, for goodness sake earlier in the week, one grabbed a grown man by the throat and killed him. What chance does a child have?

 

Had two border collies and neither liked small children, both would shy away, so was always wary with them with kids.
Given the choice they would bark and back off, but never knew how they would react if pushed, so never got them into that situation.

People should know their dogs, and no dog is safe with small kids.

Except when I was a kid and we had the best lab of all time.

 

ALL breeds of dog have the potential to kill.

A dog is basically one of nature's most successful predators.

Selective breeding can make large changes physically, but only tiny changes to a dog's psychological tendencies and instincts.

By far the biggest factor in whether or not a dog is dangerous is the way it is raised. Staffordshire Bull terriers for example can make excellent pets, really gentle and playful and good with children. On the other hand something reputedly docile like a labrador can be a nasty vicious beast. It is about 99% about how it is raised.

But one factor that is vital, and unfortunately is too often forgotten until it's too late, is that no matter how nice a dog usually is, it is still a predatory animal, and as such should never be left unsupervised where there are or might be vulnerable people like kids.

 

Totally agree with clueless. I myself chose to have a breed of dog which had a less than perfect reputation. Over 22 years I had 2 of these dogs (Kerry Blue Terriers) both were impeccably behaved, were adored by all the family, but at the same time were "the best burglar alarms you could have" ....description given to me by a police officer. In the wrong hands maybe they would have had the potential to be dangerous but then as clueless alluded to any dog can cause serious injury. Indeed my children were all well told when young that the dog was not a play thing for their amusement and was to be treated with kindness and consideration, result being neither of my dogs bit anybody. I have only been bitten by a dog once and that was some ....... little Chihuahua who's owner was a complete prat! If the dog had been a bigger breed I'd have been badly injured.
Apart from maybe a very few specially bred fighting dogs I believe that there is always a good reason why dogs attack. Either provoked into it or reacting to terrible treatment. I know of a case where a German Shepherd bit the young son (8 years old) of the dog's owner. The owner was heart broken over what happened and felt she had no option but to take the dog to the vets to be pts. The vet carried out a post mortem on the dog as what happened was so out of the dog's character. He discovered that the boy had shoved a pencil into the dog's ear and it penetrated the dog's brain.
I wish I had the answer to the problem but I don't. All I do know is that there are very very few bad dogs but 1000s of bad owners.

 

We resured a pointer from a dog resured centre and when we got the dog home it show some signs that it would bite, so we keeped a close eye on that, yes it did bite so we keeped it on a lead and made sure we didn't come near anyone, we later found out the the dog used to belong to a chap in a wheel chair and he couldn't look after it and when any one would lean over the dog it would bite them so now we new what the poblem was we worked on it, she was a lovely dog,
The problem was knowen about by the resure centre but didn't say anything to us about it

I have had dogs chase me before and showing there teeth the first thing i do if it goes for miss jiff and me is to give it a good kick in the teeth with steel toe cap boots, after being bitten by two dogs when delivering goods i don't mess about with them, still got the bite marks after 40 years ago

 

I still have the fang scars on either side of my arm from when I was bitten as a small girl by one of these ...




























...

 

We took on a rescue cat that was going to be PTS if we hadn't tried to give her a 2nd chance @"M" . The bloodshed that ensued, all ours, I may add was historic! However, after many months of patience and trust building the cat decided that we weren't the enemy and changed into a nearly! sweet wee soul. The vast amount of attacks by domestic animals is because they are scared. Both cats and dogs come into the category of having fight reactions rather than flight a la horses.
I'd always trust a dog not to attack before a cat to be honest.

 

Small children should also be taught *not* to approach dogs they do not know either!!

On Thursday I was at the vets with Ozzy (coincidently because *he* had been bitten by a dog!). At the reception signing paperwork/paying bill/weighing him (all 61.55kg of him)/strumming fingers on counter and basically hanging around far longer than I would have wanted, with an injured dog, a very beautiful little girl approached him with a bag of doggy biscuits in her hands.

Now, Ozzy is a docile, chilled out, friendly dog (but only because I haven't discovered his trigger ... yet!) who is particularly drawn to children and people with special needs and even seems to be ultra forgiving around them. So: 1 injured, in pain, very hot, dog + 1 small girl with dog treats in a bag in her hands + 0 accompanying adults?
Immediately I said to her that she shouldn't touch him because he was poorly and the Gran appeared a few metres away and called across "I can see that, but she won't hurt him"

 

In a true case of never believing what you read, this case is being reported here as having happened today...how can the mass media get something so wrong?

@silu thanks for your comments as regards Kerry Blues...I found them interesting to say the least.

 

Years ago, I was walking my dad's dogs. One of them at the time was barely more than a pup, yet to develop her adult power. She was also a mongrel of notoriously soft breeds.

We were playing throw and fetch the stick. The dog was very excited. I went to grab a stick off the floor. She went to grab the same stick. My hand got there literally a split second earlier. There's no way the dog had any malice or hostile intent, it was purely an accident. A big canine tooth went straight through my finger and came out the other side.

Quite apart from the circumstances leading up to the accident, further evidence that it was purely accidental came in the former of an instant change of mood in the dog. Apart from an initial involuntary brief ouch type yell, I was quite clear that I was not angry at said pooch, yet her reaction was shock, then doggy kisses, and the happy excited mood she was in had been replaced with clear sulking.

The point of this little anecdote, featuring a young and still relatively feeble, good natured dog and a grown man, is that even when there is no hostility whatsoever, a dog has the capability to even accidentally cause instant injury.

 

Unfortunately animals are seldom forgiven for making mistakes by us humans. My late Mother got kicked HARD and ON PURPOSE by her nephew's son who was about 9 at the time. Why? because he wanted and ice cream and got the wrong answer as far as he was concerned to his request. My mother had to go to hospital and had 35!!!!! stitches (internal and extenal)in her leg. Her leg took over 9 months to heal and was never really right again. I'd have quite liked to have the boy put down which is what would have happened if it had been a dog that had seriously and on purpose caused such a severe injury .

 

And being a 9 year old kid, if someone had immediately took remedial action to correct his attitude by introducing the back of their hand to his jaw, that person would be strung up for assault and child abuse. Yes as you say, if a dog does something like that, it is routine and normal to kill it.

 

can I also say that: when a dog shows excessive enthusiasm in approaching a child to the point of being scary to that child, the reaction of fear of the child will instantly irritate the dog.

That and some screams will make problems escalate quickly. This is what many dog owners fail to understand...They just keep on saying: my dog would never hurt a fly, he is a very friendly dog etc... but that is the opposite of what the child experiences in that moment.

 

This was a really terrible & very sad attack. I feel so very sorry for the family as well as the emergency services who had to deal with the incident.

BUT I'm really flipping cross with the news report...do we need to hear about the screams? About the mother covered in blood? About the toy covered in blood?? NO we don't, would the family really want that all over the newspapers? NO they don't. Sometimes I think the reporters get a bit too graphic, only my opinion of course.

Personally I'd never ever trust a dog with a child, I grew up with a collie & a Labrador, they were both well tempered dogs & never attacked anyone...but they are animals & in my opinion you should never allow a child to be left in a position that a dog could get to them unsupervised, I know many people would disagree this is just my personal opinion