Lamplighter, I cut myself off before I went off on a multi-page thesis on dog behavior.

Dogs do not just "go wild". Something in their environment triggers a behavior. Ali almost hit it. A child that doesn't know how to interact with a dog (adult too, for that matter) can trigger a bite. It doesn't take much at all. You, as a human, need to be able to "speak dog" and read their language.

Yes, a dog can communicate. They mostly use body language. Sudden "unprovoked" attacks usually are provoked, just not in the commonly accepted way. Simply leaning over a dog and looking it in the eye is enough. Turning your back on it and walking (or running) is more than enough. Especially if you are holding their toy.

A dog will nearly always try to warn you off but they do it using the only language they know. They don't speak English or any other spoken language. Most people know not to try to touch a dog that is baring teeth and growling. But what about a dog that is looking at you out of the corner of their eye with their ears laid back? What about the tail? Is the body tense or relaxed? Each of those things means something in dog talk.

Many dogs have their own way of talking. Take my boxer for instance. He's tense whenever he is not sleeping. It's his way. When he wants to play, he looks directly at me and growls. He's not challenging me, he's asking me to play. If he's hungry, he demands to be let out (by jumping up and down on my lap) but doesn't have to go. I can tell this by asking him if he wants to go out. If he whimpers and jumps at the back door, he has to go. If he just looks anxious, he's hungry.

It's much like a mother and a baby. Babies can't talk, yet the mother always seems to know the "hungry" cry from the "hold me" cry from the "I have gas" cry. To me, they all sound alike but to a mother, each has subtle differences. Babies also use some body language. Ask any mother.

Unlike dogs, babies learn to talk and tell you what they want. Dogs can learn to tell you their needs too and to some extent, you can tell them how. Many dogs have been taught to bring their owners a leash when they want a walk, bring a toy when they want to play, bring a food dish when hungry etc. But most dogs just figure out what works as they go. They repeat behaviors that get them what they want/need. If that fails, they can default to instinct, much like a child will revert to crying or tantrums if speech doesn't gratify them.

If a dog wants to be left alone, he does what usually results in that. If an owner always ignores his dog when he lays on his dog bed, then when a visitor is annoying a dog and he wants to be left alone, he will go to his bed. If the visitor then pursues the dog, he will feel trapped and have no other way to tell the person to leave him alone so the dog reverts to instinct.

Most "attacks" are the result of the victim doing something to make themselves prey in the eyes of the dog(s). Usually, running away or yelling and waving hands will do it.

I stand by my assertions.

No. I think they think they know something.:p:

Bingo.


Also, the line between a dog who bites and a dog who doesn't isn't always sharp. I know when i was younger it was common wisdom that if a dog bit once and got a 'taste of blood' then that was that he'd be a vicious dog. But it's not necessarily the case. Even a 'vicious' dog can usually be calmed and trained by someone who knows what they're doing.

My dog is both the most beautifully tempered dog I've ever had, and also has bitten. At some point during his early years he got the impression that the outdoors was a dangerous place and anybody out there a potential threat. But only when I am there. He is way over protective of me when we're outdoors.

Indoors he is beautifully tempered. And the same person who'd be at risk of a bite if they tried to stroke him outdoors, would be at no risk at all if they were in my house.

I know my dog. I know where the flashpoints are. I carry a muzzle when we are out, so that if I were to suddenly come up on a crowd of youngsters (at school chucking out time for instance) I can just slip his muzzle on to be sure.

There's been a change in attitude over the last couple of decades. Ali mentioned how everybody used to have a dog and/or a couple of cats and children were schooled by those pets on how to interact safely with animals. I am constantly suprised at just how lacking in basic pet savvy a lot of youngsters seem to be now. And I live in a fucking rural village, surrounded by farms and stables and sheepdogs. These kids should bloody well know you don't run up to a strange dog and shove your fingers in its face. Yet the parents often seem blithely unaware of the potential danger to their kiddywinks when they do.

Sometimes it's just an unknown as to why a dog snaps. We have no idea really what goes on in their furry little heads. They are animals. From time to time an attack seems genuinely unprovoked by anything anybody has done, and is the result of some unseen cause. Like the kid recently who was attacked by his neighbour's Rhodesian Ridgeback. The dog vaulted the fence into the garden and went straight for the kid who was sitting in his own garden playing by himself with his mum nearby.

In that instance it's hard to tell what else could have been done to prevent such a thing. But 9 times out of 10 there will be a cause.

What's sad is that our tolerances have reduced. When i was a kid, a nip on the finger from the family dog was how you learned not to drag him about like a ragdoll, or get in his face whilst he was eating. The dog got told off too of course, and anything more than a training nip would have been a big problem. But most everybody I knew as a kid at some point got a nip from a pet. Nowadays even such training nips are treated as 'bites' and there are countless dogs dumped every year because the toddler of the family has been snapped at by the family dig whilst doing something they shouldn't.

I've heard people rationalise this by saying that they would never have been able to trust the dog alone with the kid again. My question there is, why the fuck were you trusting them together alone in the first place?

I dunno. I think there's an argument to be had, for certain breeds having to be muzzled outdoors or kept leashed at all times in public. But dogs are animals. They're not little people, and they're not clothes horses. People need to teach their kids how to deal with them safely. A training nip from a dog is not desirable but nor does it mean the dog is a killer in the wings.

About a month ago there was an incident in Victoria.

A dog escaped from its yard, and got into the neighbours yard. It attacked the neighbour, and adult woman. She ran inside her house. The dog followed, barged in, attacked everyone in sight. It killed a three year old girl (who was the neice of one of my colleagues).

The dog was of mixed breed with various pit-bull type strains. Everywhere already requires that all dogs be registered, and some states have dangerous dog registration as well (you have to build a stronger fence and put up warning signs, and muzzle it if you take it out in public). Victoria is looking at strenghtening their breed specific legislation.

IMHO, it is a bit like cars. Very few people have been killed drag racing in a suzuki hatchback, and no-one has ever been mauled to death by a chihuahua. A small number die driving Lancers and Imprezas, and a few die from bulldogs etc. Monster trucks are banned from the roads, and keeping wolves is likewise illegal without a specific zoo permit.

So I don't have a problem* with legislating restrictions on a particular breed if it can be shown that that breed is more likely to be dangerous to humans - even though there will be individual dogs of that breed that are perfectly fine. The only issue is where to put the lines between "go for it", "with special conditions" and "not on your life", and how to deal with rulebreakers.

My way, though, would be to make the dog owner liable for the consequences of their dog's actions exactly as if they had done them. The owner of the dog I mentioned above would be charged with murder. So you can have any dog you like, but it is up to the human to take responsibility and make sure nothing bad happens.


* except the one about determining eactly what breed a dog is, and how you define each breed. I'm talking moral/ethical/legal problems, not practical. Hmph, practical. I'm a philosopher.

If this was an american cop show, I'm sure they'd find a way to charge the owner of said dog with murder.

Unfortunately life isn't really like that, but sometimes some of these ideas might be good in practice.

A lady in my town was mauled by two pit bulls...like a week and a half/two weeks ago.

I've seen this lady around town since I've lived there. She's mentally challenged, and rides her bike everywhere. I see her with her little bag of groceries, tooling along. She's a tiny thing. All reports are that she is the sweetest lady.

She was on the bike path, minding her own business. Right now she is still in the hospital. One dog shot by cops the other "might" have been shot by cops and "might" be dead.

The owners face charges but not the charges they would have faced if they had lived about a half mile further: they were out of the city limits.

You want a Pit Bull? Fine. Do you live way out in the country? Check. Are all your visitors adults who are aware of any potential danger? Check. Is it completely impossible for these dogs to leave your yard in case some little old lady happens to wander down the road? Check. Are you minimally intelligent? Great. You can have a Pit Bull.

Could my brother's Golden Retriever suddenlyl snap and eat my nieces. Sure, it's possible, but not bloody likely. Like, in Bizarro world.

I'm sure I'll be regaled with stories about how wonderful Bruno was and wouldn't hurt a living soul and loved the kids: I've heard all these stories before. I pray that your Bruno never gets a wild hair up his instinct and decide to maul whatever is nearby: you, your children, your grandchildren.

Dogs are bred for many purposes. Pit Bulls are notorious for having been bred for violence. IMO, animal lover as I am, there is no reason, no excuse...for 'having' to have one of these dogs.

Liability insurance? Great. Little consolation to the woman in the hospital with her face ripped off and her stomach bitten into.

Freedom fighters everywhere will rail against these comments. It's one's god-given right to own a loaded dog, just as it is also the right of anyone who just happened to get born to have guns.

Pit Bulls don't kill people, ignorant people with Pit Bulls kill people.

Animals, even your anthropomorphic Bruno who saved 15 people from a burning building, are animals. Read The Life of Pi, there are great lessons on this subject.

But if you own a vicious breed dog anywhere anywhere ANYWHERE around innocent people and kids, and don't take proper precautions, you are selfish, stupid, and in the case of tragedy, should very well be charged with murder, just as if you had shot someone. You want the right to own it? Great, you take full responsibility for everything. If I see you within 500 yard of my nieces I'll go to Walmart and buy a gun and shoot you myself. And I'm anti-gun. However, they say that if more people had guns then there wouldn't be so much gun violence. As I don't want the hassle of dragging a Pit Bull around with me if I decide to walk into town, I'll just have to be armed and ready.

As to the little lady, I'm sure she was throwing crap at the dogs and taunting them.

edit: she's out of the hospital, I just read...she was in critical condition for days. I hope she's getting good care at home. I bet she won't feel the freedom to just live her life as she did in the past, though. :(

I'm just glad that the ornery sod who lives with me isn't big enough to seriously damage someone.

Sez I, who have a scratch across my buttock (my fault, I was lifting him off my pillow in the middle of the night and he caught me). And a bite mark on my heel, which he's lucky didn't break his teeth given that it's the end of summer. I didn't even get to cuff him for that one, it was a bite n run at about 06.30 this morning.

I hope he doesn't have a taste for hard human skin. I don't have enough of it to go round.

Sorry, confused with Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breed-specific_legislation

My son, then 13, was bitten in the face and chest by a dog (think it was a Siberian Wolfhound, if I remember correctly) at a friend's house. It was totally my son's fault. He got too close to the dog, who had recently had puppies, and apparently she went into protective mode. She nearly bit his lip off and badly mauled his ribcage. He had to have plastic surgery to repair the lip. The friend's parents homeowners policy paid for everything.

I don't think there are dangerous breeds of dogs, rather, there are dangerous dogs who have been badly trained. And of course, like my son, people who make bad choices around animals.

Yes, there are.

Doesn't really matter why, or whose fault it is, in the end. When a kid is dead, they are dead. I prefer the scenario that involves no dangerous dogs, and then we don't have to worry about who trained them.

I just get a bit queasy when people blame children - or their parents - for dog awareness.
You can teach children about traffic. You can even blame a child - or their parents - when they get tossed over the bonnet of a car and end up in hospital. But surely it is at least partially the driver's responsibility not to speed, not to jump the lights, to take care in low visibilty?

And can you blame a child standing at a bus-stop, or on a pedestrian crossing?

Many children fatally injured by dogs are - for obvious reasons - too young to understand dog-signals. If you are a dog owner, OR A PARENT, do not assume your child is able to respond appropriately to something you can easily see as a threat.

I have no children, and won't.
But when Tennant and Tiger (and Tiger's younger sister) stopped off at my house I showed them Diz in my arms and let them stroke him. Then I shut him away. Tiger has two cats, but neither of them are Diz. Dani can affirm that he can be a bugger with twitchy fingers and tapping feet. He's a cat and I would never leave him alone with a five year old.

Baffled by people who leave dogs that have a potentially lethal bite (okay not all breeds) with children even younger.

The bottom line is I think responsibilty is shared.
I can't countenance peple who allow their dogs off a lead in a public place and then criticise walkers for not responding "correctly". I do not have to learn "dog" in order not to be attacked. We had a dog and I believe I know the signs, but if people do not respond appropriately, you need to be able to call your dog off. And that means being able to see them for a start.

Totally agree. What slightly aggravates me though is the way parents seem to abrogate their own responsibility to teach their children when not to approach a dog.

Here's a clue: if the owner has pinned the dog physically to the wall with their whole fucking body, pull you toddler away from the dog. Do not stand there with a blithe smile on your face whilst the small person ambles unwittingly towards the barely contained package of fur and teeth, little fingers waving invitingly in its face.

*takes a breath* ok. Slight exaggeration for comic effect. But not much of one. It's all part of this whole the-rest-of-the-world-does-not-exist-whilst-we're-doing-the-school-run attitude that takes over the village every day at 3.15pm. Really pisses me off. Just before they broke up for Summer, mum and I called to the newsagents on the way home from somewhere, we parked at the kerb a little way down from the papershop near to the school. There's parents and kids milling about. Mum started to open her cardoor bur had to stop because there were small children in the way. She was holding her door ajar trying to catch a moment to open it, but more kids and parents are streaming past. Not one of said parents guided their children to the inside of the pavement to allow room for mum to open her door.

No way would my mum have allowed that when I was a kid. Nor would she have been happy at me running helter skelter down the high street dodging in and out and getting under people's feet. Or worse, running close by someone with an unknown dog. They come right up behind you. Practically touching Pilau. They just assume they're safe.

Sorry....that ws a bit off topic.

I think pointing out that a kid might have inadvertently precipitated a dog attack isn't the same as blaming them for it. But it's definately an argument for not leaving dogs and children unattended.

Yeah, I'm not saying it's the fault of the child either. Only that kids these days seems to be less aware of how to deal with animals and I think that's a shame for many reasons, including for the fact that it can lead to dog bites.

I also think part of the problem is that a lot of young couples who choose not to have kids themselves, get themselves expensive, large dog breeds and then treat them like their own children. The dog gets the wrong idea about where it stands on the hierarchy and some poor innocent kid comes in and sits on its (the dogs') seat and away we go again.

There are lots of reasons for dog attacks. Not just dog breeding. People seem to be becoming very irresponsible about pet ownership, and in close knit living conditions, this is always going to be a bad thing.

I just met two cop dogs. I asked if the dogs were working and the officer said no, I could pet them.

One was a German Shepherd, the other a yellow lab. The lab is a drug dog (I thought about taking off running and screaming, for fun.)

They were so cute. And yes, well trained. The Shepherd seemed more interested in the brats and metts they were cooking for the event.

(Me, no brats or metts. German food: all pork-stuffed beef and beef-stuffed pork. However, I guess that's the German dog's 'home-cooking.')