I'm so sorry about your dog getting hurt and your nephew being scared to death!
I'm glad your dog is recovering well, too. I'm glad those people are moving away from your neighborhood, especially after what they were proposing your children do!
It's your decision and I respect that, but I'm sure hoping you'll call in the dog attack.
I really do worry that the same dog might attack another dog or a child or small adult and for reasons based on personal experience.
There was a guy who used to live close to me (in another town) who had a pit bull. He actually thought it was cool to let his dog intimidate other people's dogs. I was walking my (extremely friendly) boxer cross towards a bridge as he was coming in the other direction and he actually let out 6' of the chain the dog was on just for kicks!
I think he may have encouraged it to be aggressive; he certainly didn't stop him from it! I don't think he used it for fighting since it didn't have scars, but it was definitely aggressive towards my dog!
About a week later, I heard a child screaming at the top of it's lungs one day when I was outside, went to see what was wrong, and the dog had stalked her, trapped her on top of a car, and while I was running towards the child, the dog jumped on the car, chased her down the sidewalk and almost caught her. There was not a charge to intimidate, it was out for blood! The dog wasn't on the property of the owner, either!
There was no one else out there and it was just plain luck that I was. I'm
sure it would have mauled her severely, if not killed her. She and the dog were about the same size. It was coming after
me until I grabbed a metal pipe out of a dumpster and charged it, yelling and growling myself all the way! I'm just a shade under 6' and weighed a good 180 lbs then. (Back then, I used to throw 66# cases of meat 10 feet all the time at work.) I'd never before had a dog
not get intimidated if I charged it, but this one just slowed down!
I think my charging it confused it, but then it started coming
again faster and
kept stalking me and the child, although a little more slowly. I was yelling my head off for help and someone heard. They saw what was happening and, thank goodness!, called the police and tried to distract the dog.
I think the
only thing that stopped that dog was the officer putting two shots in the ground about 6" from that dog's nose. That got the owner out to retrieve his dog and I got out of there as fast as I could with the child. From what I understand, an officer ended up shooting the dog because it started to attack him.
Later I got attacked by a different dog that whose owners seemed very much like the ones you have. I'd started carrying a pipe when jogging after the pit bull event and because I jogged past some large dogs on chains that also acted aggressively. One broke loose and charged me. I had to hit that big Rottie as hard as I could 3 times before it quit attacking (knocked it out on the 3rd swing). I wished I'd called it in to the police then; a few months later it broke the bigger chain, attacked a child on the other side of the street, and almost killed her. It mauled her very, very badly! They shot that dog, too. I still feel guilty I didn't call it in. Their neighbors knew about the dogs, too, and they didn't call them in either.
I'm probably paranoid after those two experiences and I certainly still feel guilty as heck that I hadn't called it in when it came after me. The owner did swear to me she'd put it on a big chain and she did, but it broke the bigger chain to get to the child.
It may be the owners' fault in each instance, but to me, it's just too dangerous to leave a dog like that in the wrong hands. Too often some animal or person gets hurt and there's
no way to take it back.
I'm hoping you and others can learn from my mistake. Best wishes, whatever you decide to do.
