Never leave dogs unsupervised with kids

[Chickndaddy]

This story is just sad anyway you look at it. Reminds me of one of my mom's students. He had been playing with a Great Dane. Don't remember the specifics. But he went to another boys house who had a lab. The Labrador took one look at the boy and latched onto his throat. Fortunately the dog was removed and the boy lived. I believe they determined the dog was threatened by the scent of the Great Dane. Very sad. Mom said his neck and throat was wrapped/ bandaged for the rest of the year.

Off topic: She also told me that one of the children in her class thought it would be funny to grab his throat one day. Now that child wouldn't have made it to the principle's office. I would have come absolutely unglued.

 

[jbowyer01]

We've dealt with good and bad dogs. Mine are supervised constantly when there are people around. It's not so much my dogs that I dont trust, its other people. Alot of parents will allow their children to just run up and try to pet and kiss our dogs. I always have to tell the children they have to ask and then I usally say no. Dogs can take anything as a threat, whether it be a smell or a quick movement. (I have 2 doxies not big dogs but can be quick to nip). Its a sad situation for all those involved.

 

[lemurchaser]

Quote:
Socially isolating a dog with aggressive tendancies, will only worsen the behavior. I would totally never trust the dog with strangers ever again (isolate him then), but at least let him socialize with the family. Social isolation is torture for dogs, chaining a dog also makes them more likely to bite. Just be aware that you are setting this dog up to really hurt someone.

Best of luck.

 

[lemurchaser]

I've taught dog training in the past, and one of the things I always tell people is that ANY and EVERY dog has a threshold at which they will bite. It might be such a high threshold, that you will never cross it during the dogs life time, or maybe not. You just have to realize that these are animals, and animals with serious weaponry, and while the vast majority are trustworthy, you have to take basic safety precautions.

I am always amazed at how dog-UNsafe the general public is. It is remarkable that more people do not get seriously hurt. I have had 3 children break away from their parents, approach my dogs and LICK them on the face (yes, the kids have licked the dogs), and I have pit bulls. Now of course my dogs are busy licking the kids from head to toe, but the kids parents didn't know that when the kids RAN up to my dogs and grabbed them. Although the look on my dogs face when someone licked them back, was priceless. "Uh...hmmm, that kid just licked me!"

 

[chickypoo]

love-my-wolves wrote:

I just had an incident yesterday with my dog. My kids had a bunch of friends over. My DS opened the bedroom door where the girls were all playing with my DDs, and my very large dog rushed in after hearing typical girl noises (yelling, squeeling, etc) and grabbed one of the neighbor girls arm!!!!! I went rushing in, and truly, the first thought that entered my mind, well, second after the welfare of the girl, was "dead dog". If she had been truly injured, I have no doubt that right now I would not have my dog. He would be put to sleep. After reviewing the incident, I truly feel that behind the door, the other girls were behaving roughly with my 2 DDs, as girls will do, and he was going to protect them. He did nothing more than grab the girls' arm. No marks, not even a red mark. Like he was warning her. She laughed it off (her words were "ew, he slobbered on me!"), but my dog now has a permanent home outside. I will not abide by an aggressive dog. Especially with kids. Period. What is scary is that any animal can perceive anything as a threat. Anything. I was there when the incident happened, and I never in my wildest dreams would have thought he would do that!!!! I always supervise the kids, mine and others, around both my dogs. The fact is, it took all of 5 seconds for him to move. To me, that was the end of his cushy inside home. He is now my full-time chicken protector, he is chained to their run. Maybe now the coons will stay away!

Socially isolating a dog with aggressive tendancies, will only worsen the behavior. I would totally never trust the dog with strangers ever again (isolate him then), but at least let him socialize with the family. Social isolation is torture for dogs, chaining a dog also makes them more likely to bite. Just be aware that you are setting this dog up to really hurt someone.​

I agree 100% I have done a lot of training/socializing work in our local shelter and usually the dogs that have been chained for prolonged periods of time are the ones with the biggest problems and the hardest to fix. Dogs are pack animals, highly social and in need of that contact. Please please please don't just force him to stay chained outside. I know he is your dog but from what you have said I don't feel like it is being fair to the animal. If he was protecting your DD then he has absolutely no concept of what he did being wrong. In a pack situation if a puppy is getting to rowdy the older dog will discipline them just like you describe, mouthing with no injuries. He was trying to control a situation, that he doesn't fully understand, to the best of his abilities. Maybe just put him outside when DD has friends over, to me it doesn't sound aggressive at all. You said it yourself, you feel like he was protecting her. But it was his fast movement that scared you. It is no accident that there were no injuries, he has control over his mouth. Speed means that he is trying to tell the "puppy" to cool it down, wolves don't lazily hand out discipline, an adult will move fast and deliberately but the intent is never to injure the pup.

Chaining dogs is not a solution, ever, you could every easily end up with a socially crippled dog that is very dangerous. Each biting case need to be treated differently. Chaining him may keep him away from your family but to chain an animal that has never been treated like will be shocked by it, that risks incalculable damage to an animal that needs to be socialized. If anything it makes him more prone to bite, frustration at not knowing why he is suddenly outside 24/7 can very easily turn to anger or fear and develop into a biter. Turn him over to a shelter for a new home, anything, but please don't chain him, no one is being helped here.​

 

[glowworm]

potterwatch, lemurchaser, jbowyer01, horsejody;

I totally understand what you mean. It's a different case than what happened in the article, but I HATE when toddlers and little kids run up to dogs. I feel like toddlers should be kept on leash or in a stroller for their safety when in public places. (not just because of dogs, but getting lost, getting hit in a parking lot by a car, getting abducted, etc) My dogs have to be kept on a leash by law when in public, but why don't these small children? If the leashed dog was to bite the child who was unrestrained that approached the dog w/o permission, its obvious the dog owner would be held in contempt.

It seems like in the past, more children asked permission to pet someone's dog. Are parents just not teaching this anymore?

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As for babies and dogs....Infants are PREY to dogs. They look like prey, smell like prey, and most of all sound like prey. Expectant parents w/ a dog at home should go through training as how to condition their dog to the presence of a baby. There is many things they can do, like playing tapes of babies crying, to help a dog get used to the sound. EVEN then, a baby should never be left alone with, or on the floor, with a dog who is not used to babies. After time, most smart dogs will understand that the baby is part of the family (pack) and no longer prey, but even then, time together should be supervised.

I work for a vet hospital, and it wasn't too long ago that someone called, and wanted to put down their 2 yr old golden retriever because it growled at the newborn baby that was brought home from hospital the day before. Multiple people got on the phone, and finally convinced the scared parents that if it wasn't an option to keep the dog, then to contact the SPCA to give the dog up for adoption.

-Many people don't understand that the way dogs react aggressively to a newborn baby is NATURAL. Even the sweetest breeds, like that golden retriever, can react negatively to that foreign animal that comes into THEIR house.

 

[brandywine]

This is a very sad occurrence.

It is true that huskies and other Nordic breeds are more likely than other dogs to mistake human infants for prey. It doesn't seem to be just that they have high prey drives (which they certainly do), but some of them just seem to be unable to recognize new infants as humans until the babe is a bit older. There is no viciousness to it at all.

(OTOH, the headline writer claiming that the dog "mistook the baby for a stuffed toy" is just dimwitted. More sensible to say that pet dogs mistake stuffed toys for real prey every day.)

However, it is important to remember that the #1 cause of unnatural death in young human infants is not marauding pet dogs, but their own parents.

Between 500-700 or so children under five murdered every year in the US, about 60% of those killed by one of their own natural parents.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/children.htm

Dog attack fatalities average around 17 per year, nationwide -- that's all people, adults, children, infants. Infants killed by dogs, including incidents that any reasonable person would classify as freak accidents, stay in the single digits nationwide every year. And frankly, some of those incidents point towards a parent or other adult human who "set up" the dog, or at the very least, was guilty of egregious child neglect.

Would I leave a new infant unattended with a dog? Of course not.

But keeping it in perspective, it's a lot more dangerous to leave one with his parent.

 

[chicken_boy_Kurt]

My dog has attacked my friends on occasion. He is only protecting me and my family but we tell him NO and take him away and if he doesn't do anything we praise him but we're goign to have to do something about it soon. That was a sad story and it is the person's fault not the animal's

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