Unfortunately today (friday) I came across an incident that will affect me for a long time .An eight year old girl was playing outside her home with her friends when she was attacked by a large pitt bull terrier,I will not go into details of the injuries she suffered ,as they are too horiffic.All I need to say is that ,this was a lot more that a dog bite. What I need is an answer to how can we stop scum breeding dogs too fight ,as they become so unstable that they will attack anyone or anything at anytime with or without the control of the owner?.BTW I do own a dog (English Springer Spaniel)and at the moment I feel ashamed to be a dog owner after such a traurmatic day!

 

why would you feel ashamed. If a fello man rapes or murders someone you can't say i'm ashamed to be human. Only way stop scum is severe jail sentence.

 

It's the comments of no dog can be trusted ,they all have the potential to maime etc,and after todays trauma it's understandable ,as you are the owner.

 

Sorry to hear what happened.

I strongly believe most of how a dog turns out is down to its owner. I know that if me and my parents didn't put in the time and effort we did with our dog she would have turned out very destructive and uncontrollable. In fact we often wonder how her brothers and sisters turned out. A part also depends on the breed of the dog and I'm sure dogs are like humans and there are some out there which are just bad apples and no amount of a trying to bring them up correctly will change things.

Don't feel ashamed to be a dog owner though that is just silly

BTW this is my opinion and I'm entitled to it, so ner

 

That's bad news. But it is ALWAYS the owners. I live in Texas where pitbulls are very common, and 99% of them are fine, as they are trained, handled and controlled properly. I have two Rottweilers, which are rare in Texas, and people do shy away from them, which is a shame, as I have brought them up to be very sociable and friendly, but also very good guard dogs!

Sadly in this case, it is the dog that will suffer with the child, not the owner.......

 

Pit Bull? ... I thought these abominations were banned in the UK?

 

the "its always the owner" is missleading though. i have owned a variety of dogs and its pretty clear that some like a fight more than others. Thats not to say you cant train them not to but at the back of their mind some dogs have fighting and aggression breed into them the same as any animal can have traits particular to them.

what that means is that a dog of that type MUST be trained properly and thats just asking too much in this lazy day and age where people dont give a ****. Give all the council estate chavs a "calm" dog and they wont hurt anyone, give them pit bulls and the odd one will revert to type and fight something.

I have 2 lurchers and an EB Terrier.......the lurchers could not be trained to be aggressive (unless your a rabbit doing 30 mph) they simply do not have it in them to be aggressive.....my EBT was lovely and never went out of his way to hurt anyone - but on the odd occasion in a bit of "rough and tumble" he would forget he wasnt suppose to fight anymore and would happily take a chunk out of me. Also if he was poorly or in pain (stand on his tail) he would bite as a first reaction, the lurchers would wail as a first reaction. Doesnt make him a bad dog, just what was (many years ago) a fighting dog.

R

as an aside....EBT was put to spleep on Thurs night due to suffering a hear attack and ending up in a bad way - never seen it done before (let alone held the dog in my arms while they did it)....my god, what a grim bloody thing to do. Anyway, he is now in dog heaven and i can assure you....he would happily maul anyone there that wasnt in his class of "liked people" which was basically kids, me and people with food for him!

 

Of course the owners are RESPONSIBLE - clearly with this type of dog has more potentail to maim dur to the power of its jaws WHY WASNT IT WEARING A MUZZLE..!!

 

Pit Bulls are gorgeous dogs.

With a stable upbringing by people who are prepared to put in the time and not just treat them as a fashion accessory they are no more dangerous than any other breed.

Public opinion shifts between Pit Bull, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Rotweillers, etc as being "killer" dogs depending on what is in the newspapers at the time.

I own a Staffie and so many people will cross the road rather than walk past us. The ones that don't are the ones that find out he is the softest friendliest dog you could ever hope to meet. Another example of the media hype which you seem to have bought into!

 

My god, The Snug Rhino does have feelings After the nasty comments you put on a thread of mine a few months ago I didn't think you had. I won't stoop to your level by doing the same though, so I will just say sorry to hear about your dog

 

As far as I know this animal is banned ... seems the owner is to blame on this ocassion ... it is illegal to own one of these 'things' in the first place isn't it?

 

What a terrible thing to happen. I do hope the little girl recovers well. Killer dogs is the answer to your question. Of course some breeds have a greater propensity to aggression and it takes some serious training ability to control this which most people don't have. I am a dog lover and include myself. We have a couple of dogs now, Cavaliers, who had some training but they don't have a killer instinct in their genes. I would be terrified if someone gave me a cuddly Pit Bull pup to train.

I suppose one answer might be to restrict ownership/breeding to those with some sort of tested training ability but that would probably bring more problems such as which breeds to include. dl

 

If my dog (spaniel) ever attacked a child I would probably kill it with my bare hands on the spot. Absolutely no qualms about doing so either.
Dogs are dogs, children are children.

 

Yesterday whilst walking my 10 month old Boxer Ellie I was in the park with her when this old couple in their 70's came in with 5 staffordshire bull terriers and let them off, I got slightly nervous over this and put Ellie back on her lead and started to walk away when all of a sudden all hell let loose, I then saw the old guy tring to separate 3 of them, I just so glad I left when I did because if they had turned on Ellie their is no way I could have saved her, I was so angry I nearly phoned the local dog warden to warn them that a nasty incident could take place, I seriously hope the little girl is OK.
Cheers
Colin

 

Terrible news indeed. Let's hope the poor girl is OK. Unfortunately it's more bad press for good dog owners!!

The Pit Bull should have been muzzled. My understanding is that, by law, any dog that was originally bred for fighting has to be muzzled in public.

Tiggs, sorry to hear EBT has departed, my oldest GSD doesn't appear to be far behind and the grand age of 13+.

 

Pit bulls were banned from procreation under the dangerous dogs act a good number of years ago. It also law under the dangerous dogs act that such a breed be muzzled at all times when in public...
So the pit bull who attacked the girl was either an OAP pitpull or was illegally bread and illegally bought. And the owner allowed for it to be out without a muzzle.
Ipso Facto, owner is irresponsible, a criminal and should be beaten to within an inch of his miserable, tattooed chavved up life...

 

I agree that it is very irresponsible to allow such a dog to get in a position to do such a terrible thing.

Don't put blame on your springer. they are lovely dogs.

Les

 

say what you like...you think i'd give your opinion a second thought????

 

i love animals but i am sooooooooooo sick of see all these chavs with little fighting dogs everywhere at the mo. a bitbull is hundreds of years of breeding for one thing fighting! yes nice dogs but chavs are buying them cus of this!!!

i have owned dogs all my life its important to get a breed that meets your needs, ie active dog, dogs good with kids etc.

 

lol

 

So if you are a fighter?

 

Staff's etc are the fashion accessory for Chav's at the moment you see them all over the place in London frequently with the leather harnesses on, not sure what function the harness has?

It is very sad to read that a child has been attacked but there was obviously a trigger for the dog so maybe that should be found out before conclusions are reached.

All dogs have the ability to bite as all humans have the ability to hit some body or pick up a stick and hit some one. It is just some people/dogs are more likely to use violence as a first response.

Frequently the people/dogs have shown a sign that this is their first response but not much is done about it until it is too late.

I was at a dog show in a public park when a man let his small daughter approach a line of dogs doing stays waving a 1 metre stick up and down in the air despite being told to keep her away by the judge. She didn’t stop until she was just under a metre from the nearest dog, which was a large German shepherd. Now luckily for that child the dog didn’t defend itself from this attack by biting her if it had in my opinion it would have been her fathers fault as he stood there watching whilst she did this and when after this a lady went up and explained why this was a really stupid/dangerous thing to allow his child to do HE got rude aggressive threatening and offensive! Now if the child repeats this with another dog another day and gets bitten whose fault is that!

Off course if the dog had bitten the child the papers would have quoted another case of dangerous dog where in fact it was a case of some body doing some thing stupid near a dog.

Dogs are animals like us and when every you are around them you need to respect them same as you would a person, you hurt them they defend themselves, you steal from them they defend themselves same as we do if some body hurts us or steals from us.

 

you know what i meant! lol

 

A Westie had a go at my little lad, it nearly got disembowled with a steak knife.
Luckily it didnt hurt him, it just got his fleece (his jacket, he isnt a sheep), my protective paternal thing kicked in and it got launched out of the house by its collar for an unprovoked attack.

Some dogs, however nice the owners are can be aggressive ***** that need putting down to save anyone pain and suffering, sorry but if you are a dog thats how it is, people get put in Broadmoor or Strangeways, dogs get executed.

Pit Bulls, laverley dogs innit, what a load of ****e, its just a timebomb that might not go off, nobody has ever lost their face to a Chiwauwa, it is an irresponsible dog to get.

 

There are many dogs that are capable of inflicting serious harm Labradors, Springers, German Shepheards to name but a few yet people still have them as pets.

Done blame the breed, blame the owner!

 

You are right and it's a shame as that is the kind of owner that gives them a bad name.

 

I know someone with two of em who you might say is so called 'chav'

But they are some of the nicest dogs i've met.

 

The dog in question is illegal ... have you stopped to ask yourself why this might be?
Humanise the animal ... how quaint ... it is a wonder you are top of the food chain
You must be a dog owner ... basically, if your dog escapes that which is your responsibility, your custody, then you should be confident that the first thing it is not going to do is eat a child or another dog ... it happens
So, are you saying that should this child have it's face ripped off it is, perhaps, understandable?

Unlikely ... there would have been scoobynet cries of 'terrible owner, no such thing as a bad dog .. what a terrible owner'
It's a dog, cruelty toward the animal in any way is unacceptable ... but so is the animal feeling threatened and responding by scalping children!

 

All dogs are capable of causing some sort of damage they all have teeth i've had my labrador for years and she is the softest dog i've had. My brother has a mongrel and a staff the staff is fine around my niece and everyone else i guess its just down to the training they get. My best mate was attacked by a dog when we was in school it really mashed her face up theres only 2 slightly visable scars now but she comes near my labrador and loves her to bits. I really do hope that the little girl is ok, but not all dogs are biters

 

I'm not too sure why you are struggling to understand that. Different dogs act differently as do different people.