Reply With QuoteI largely agree. I too was nipped on more than one occasion both by strays and the family Cairns. My Mum would say "Oh yeah, what were you doing to him then?"
There is a big difference between a warning nip and a sustained attack.
I would say no - as long as there is no reason to believe that the owners will not be able to be responsible in the future. If a dog has nipped it seems wiser to not be allowed around children again because children are startling!Originally Posted by chaggle
I accept there are risks but the reality is that we have domesticated dogs and they are around children daily, even children that don't have them in their house. My friend's little lad has no dogs and he reacts oddly around them, shouts 'no' at them, screams if they surprise him, cowers and then goes to play too boldly - I'm not sure he's any less at risk because of his lack of experience even though he has considerably less contact with dogs. Munchkin is already far calmer around strange dogs and quite assertive, but not with the same emotion. Kids come into contact with dogs, either they are taught how to be with them or they are at more risk, having a dog makes teaching easier.
Anyway, I grew up in the 70's on city streets, I loved the strays and got 'nipped' fairly frequently - there was never a hysterical response to it, mostly adults asked if I was ok and then asked what I did to bug the dog!
My little girl fell onto my terrier today - he nearly jumped out his skin, but jump was all he did!
I largely agree. I too was nipped on more than one occasion both by strays and the family Cairns. My Mum would say "Oh yeah, what were you doing to him then?"
There is a big difference between a warning nip and a sustained attack.
I wonder what the rules are though? If a kid gets nipped by a terrier on the street, is unhurt but screams blue murder and Mum goes hot foot to the nearest cop - what would happen? Are there degrees of dog attack like in human crime?
Jack Russell? Nice little dogs but can be a bit unpredictable. Was the dog put down after that incident?
I'm not going to try and guess the breed because I think it could be any. When I read your description it struck me that there's things in it which really stand out to me. You saying there had been previous attacks, eating chocolate and not watching the dog (watching TV). Breed aside I'd say the dog was just doing what dogs do and that the behaviour in the end was totally to be expected and probably not a death attack. I'm not disputing any of what actually happened, I trust your account completely, just some of the might have beens.I admit a bias as my childhood dog tore my sisters hand apart and I believe he would have killed her if she hadn't had lightning reflexes (put her hand up as he went for her) and if my mother hadn't been in the room with us (managed to get him off) He had attacked several times before and was very unpredictable - sister had done nothing we could tell to provoke him (we were watching TV eating chocolate) but he flew across the room to attack her.
You describe frequent attacks, you all knew there was an issue with the dog - how could you miss it? I'd bet that no-one was keen to turf him off his bed, or to take a toy/food from him, I'd lay money that as kids you were both wary. I bet your parents backed off too. I'm only saying that because what you describe is a dog enforcing dominance, you were eating, lower pack members eat second not first, you weren't watching the dog and I'll bet his body language was loud and clear the behaviour from the subordinates was unacceptable. Dogs beg when people eat, even from a distance but begging is when the dogs motion is backwards, you could imagine pushing them back with a little finger - you COULD push them backwards with a little finger, their language in their body is one of submission, retreat if asked, cocked ears head back (looks like up) even to come right off the front paws (classic beg pose). A dominant dog does nothing like this the position is to go forward, ears are down, head lower - touching would not be wise but you couldn't push them back with a finger. that stare is not begging it's an order and will be enforced. Dominant dogs give cheeky upstarts a 'scragging' (not a nip), a scragging leaves marks, even deep gashes in thin tissue like an ear or child's hand/face, a scragging has voice, growls, and body weight behind it. If the dog/child scragged fights back it will be a fight, go quiet, no growling, puncture wounds, tears, holds, but with dogs that hardly ever happens, competitions not pre-decided are rare, they weigh each other up well and unless almost perfectly matched won't fight full on, even if they think they are matched as soon as difference is apparent lower dog will allow the scragging.
Watching one dog scrag another looks awful, growls, bites, tears, persistence but one way and at the end both are still very much alive - it's not a true fight, true fights are deadly quiet and marked by things like head shaking, the part where a dog shakes it's head to rip the flesh off the opponent - maybe that was the case, maybe the dog saw the lightning reactions as aggression, but if it was whole chunks of flesh, fingers, whole parts of the hand (a child's hand) would quickly come away - not the same as a tear deep enough to require tendon surgery, that's easy on a child's small hand, I mean removal of whole parts.
In almost two decades of seeing groups of dogs I have only ever seen one true fight and christ it put the rest in perspective! One dog lost a leg. I'd heard of them, people had told me to not bother running unless it goes quiet - all the rest dogs (not dogs versus children) will sort for themselves but when it goes quiet it is radically different.
People don't know about dogs, something happened and as a culture we got amnesia and forgot, maybe when we stopped working with them and left them at home to go to work alone, maybe when we stopped hunting with them, stopped seeing them or perhaps it was when we wanted them to be children rather than just friends with children knowing that friends fall out. When they banned hunting with dogs (not hunting - you can still kill a fox with a shovel) it seemed a craziness to me, I wanted to see fox hunting banned on the one hand but on the other we had finally legislated that a dog must not be a dog, it must now, by law, be a pet. I think people really believe it's possible to legislate such a thing.
Dogs will be dogs!
Yes you can train them etc., but the potential to kill or maim lies within the dog. All an owner can do is try to train the dog but you can never remove the potential for a dog to attack. It's a part of the fundamental nature of dogs.
That's why I'd be in favour of a much wider ban on dogs that can kill.
This story caught my eye today: Pet tiger mauls man to death
I think this man displayed the same level of self-delusion that a lot of owners of potentially lethal dogs do - that their pet is not a threat because it is well trained/fed/natured/etc.
The example of a pet tiger may seem a more extreme one, but the principle is the same for my argument: if you own a pet that has the potential to kill, you are at risk. You cannot remove the inherent danger in such animals.
The absolute risk from tigers may be higher, but I think the analogy of owning a tiger and a dog that's capable of ripping your face off holds up.
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Well he definitely succeeded in feeding the tiger.Norman Buwalda, 66, went into the tiger's cage on his property in Southwald in Ontario to feed the animal when he was attacked.
Well he definitely succeeded in feeding the tiger.
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I'd like to see some evidence that it is in the nature of dogs as a species to attack humans. The relatively low number of attacks compared to the huge number of dogs owned would suggest that it isn't in their nature. Even ferals in Spain and Greece would seem to not attack humans but hang around them to scavenge. The theory of their domestication would suggest that wolves which didn't have it in their nature to attack humans were the foundation stock of all dogs we have now.
Tigers on the other hand are not domesticated. Even if captive bred, their foundation stock are wild caught tigers selected because 'they were there', not because of any suitable temperament characteristics. So I do think your analogy is somewhat flawed.
Breed specific legislation has not worked. There has not been a reduction in fatal dog attacks since the legislation was brought in. It is difficult to ascertain whether non-fatal dog attacks have increased or decreased as the figures, where they exist, are flawed because dog injury and attack are lumped together. And the Pitt Bull Type has flourished - but without any semblance of responsible breeding leaving it a different dog to the original American Pitbull Terrier.
I can't see how expanding the list to include more breeds or types would help.
A Pomeranian has killed a baby, a Dachshund ate a baby's testicles. So all dogs in the wrong circumstances can kill, thus the only way to be safe would be to ban all dogs. That's all guide dogs, sniffer dogs, police dogs, search and rescue dogs, assistance dogs, hearing dogs, sheep dogs, ratters, gun dogs as well as pets. PETA would be pleased!!
Given that there are over 7 million dogs in the UK and only 2 or 3 fatalities per annum (about equal to the number of people killed by cows), is that a proportionate response to a very tiny risk?
I think the evidence is there that it occurs. i.e. plenty of maimed and killed children!
That's not what I'm saying. It's the powerfully-jawed dogs that do the killing. I've read that there's only a small number of breeds that do the most damage.
Let's target those and ban them - and enforce the ban.
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It may be in the nature of some individual dogs - whether through nature or environment - to attack humans. But that doesn't mean it the nature of all dogs as a species to attack humans. It is in the nature of some humans to kill, but not the nature of all humans.
That dog attacks occurs so infrequently it would seem to be an aberration rather than the nature of the species. I would dispute that 'plenty' of children are killed or maimed by dogs, but perhaps that is word semantics. Certainly very few children are killed (less than 2 a year in the UK) or maimed by dogs but any number is 'plenty'
But I've just shown that the Toy breeds also do the killing.That's not what I'm saying. It's the powerfully-jawed dogs that do the killing. I've read that there's only a small number of breeds that do the most damage.
Let's target those and ban them - and enforce the ban.
And look at your small number of breeds - are there numerically high numbers of those breeds in the UK? As a proportion of the breed, how many attack? Are there other factors involved in the attacks? Did what you read differentiate between sustained attacks and snaps? Did it provide a reference to the raw stats for their claims?
How would you define these powerfully jawed dogs? By breed? What about equally powerful cross breeds? By 'type'? 'Innocent' dogs have been kept in kennels for months only to be released when a judge decides they aren't a Pit Bull Type and the police aren't especially good at telling Staff crosses from Pit Bull Types. By size? Staffies are smaller than Labs (assuming you'd get rid of the Staff and keept the Lab) and what if the little mongrel you buy/adopt grows too big? Friendly family pet that has done no wrong gets PTS?
And say you do succesfully add certain breeds to the list, what is to stop the idiot owners ruining another breed? The Shar Pei might escape your list, but they and their crosses are becoming a problem as idiots want the new 'hard' dog. And idiots out for a quick profit are breeding some very poor examples.
Not easy is it?
(As a bit of a pedantic point, the DDA doesn't actually ban the ownership of any breed or type but bans the breeding, sale and importation of four breeds/types and places very strict rules on their ownership. One of those rules is a muzzle in public at all times which is potentially in conflict with the animal welfare act as a dog could choke if it vomits with one on.)
For love nor money I cannot understand comparing a pit bull with a toy dog. I'm sure there may have been many deaths from toy dogs - I should think most as the result of tripping their owners up, but they are not the same as a breed selectively bred purely to fight, and then to compound the problem illegally bought for their aggression.
There was an Horizon programme on dogs, their domestication and some of their unique abilities to live well with people. It included a segment on a breeding programme to domesticate foxes. Easily done as it turns out by selectively breeding those who show trust and reliability but they also bred for aggression and that had the result one would expect - very aggressive foxes! This split took only 50 years, the pit bull has been around for twice that.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...fe_of_the_Dog/
Of course shep the collie or little pea the yorkie could have a brain bleed and flip out, but there's something an average adult around could do about it. I've worked Irish Draught stallions, not even nice tempered ones but I wouldn't want to take on a Rotti or pit bull that had flipped out. Even if such behaviour was as rare as it is in yorkies or sausage dogs, which it is not, but even if it were, at least with the latter you physically have a better chance of forcing the dog away from the attack.
The current dangerous dogs law in the UK is hardly enforced, it does need a revamp but in the interim to work to stop illegal breeding and importing of fighting dogs I'm certain would also save lives and limbs.
On a counter pedantic note.
By owning one the these dogs you have knowingly aided someone in selling one of these dog (by buying it!) and/or the breeding/importation of them (the law has been around so long enough that it is obvious that one of these has been breached, unless the dog is very old.)
BTW: I'm dog lover, but we should however have a "Dangerous Cats Act" (not breed specific, get rid of all of them)
P.S.
I await the flack form the cat lovers.
Last edited by polomint38; 13th January 2010 at 09:10 PM. Reason: None of your business really
My terrier belongs to a secret cat eradication society. I've spoken to him about it on several occasions but I think he's still an active terrorist!
Polo, not necessarily.
It is the Pit Bull type that comes under the DDA not the American Pitbull Terrier itself (it is obviously included as a Pitbull Type). You could buy/adopt a Staff Cross puppy and it could grow up to meet enough of the criteria for being a Pit Bull Type. You don't realise and fail to register, neuter, insure, microchip and tattoo your pup (not illegal for anything not covered in the DDA) and as you've brought it up well you often let it go off lead in public and don't even own a muzzle. You have now broken the law and your lovely family dog who has never caused fear to anyone is PTS.
Banning breeds or types does not work.
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Floppit, I'm just saying that in the wrong circumstance any dog can kill, Toy or Pit. Not comparing the actual attacks nor the dogs. Just that Toys have killed.
Yes, it is easier for an adult to deal with a Yorkie than a Rott. But then you are in the territory of size. Do we set a weight limit? Do we keep the 25kg APT but get rid of the 30kg Lab? What if a puppy grows to exceed the weight limit? How do we decide what to ban and how do we draft that legislation?
As for 'flipping out' being less common in Yorkies than Rotts, any stats to back up that claim? My impression is the total opposite. Struggling to find good stats, but a study in the USA (University of Pensilvania) showed Dachshunds as the most agressive!!
Fighting dogs are bred to be aggressive to other dogs, not humans. Most Terrier breeds are bred to be very aggressive to rats but there isn't the automatic assumption that they will therefore be aggressive to humans.
Fighting APTs and Staffs are bred to be a 'game' dog in that they won't back down from a fight. So may have to be physically pulled out of a fight by their handler. Any fighting dog that bites it's handler is going to be dispatched pretty quickly so it in their interests to breed a dog that is non-aggressive to humans. In the Staff that may have helped produced a dog that would end up being one of very few specifically recommended as suitable with children.
But that is fighting dogs. The 'family' Pit from a responsible breeder will have been bred for temperament - as the Horizon program you mentioned showed, it is very few generations (8 IIRC) of selective breeding that can turn a wild fox into a domesticated creature. I don't think it is a leap to extrapolate that to already domesticated breeds. Look at Cocker Spaniels - they used to have quite a reputation 'rage syndrome' but responsible breeders eradicated it from their lines. It still occurs because of the irresponsible breeders but seems less common. (Yes - it was the cute Cocker Spaniel that was my childhood pet.)
I would say it is the irresponsible breeding and ownership of all dogs that needs to be controlled, not what dogs look like.
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