Husky mauls child

Any dog should be purchased under the following circumstances:

After basic research into the breed, it's traits and needs, the bloodlines it comes from and the purchaser should have confidence that they can cater for all this day in and day out for the next 15 years.

It should be raised in a situation where it is made familiar to the daily hustle and bustle of normal human life, and should remain there until it is old enough to have learned how domestic dogs interact with each other and with people. It should be well handled and bite resistance training starts with the dam and littermates, this is why taking a puppy home before it is 8 weeks old is one of the worst things you can do, especially if it is going to a home where there are no other dogs that they can learn this from.

The next faux pas is keeping the dog in conditions where this development is not continued. A pup needs to be exposed to every situation imaginable before it is 18 weeks old. Bite resistance needs to be firmly established by this time, that means the boundary of how much pressure is permitted to be applied by the dogs jaws is set.

Continued socialisation is not optional, neither is training, neither is understanding the nature and origins of your breed and ensuring appropriate activities are provided as an outlet to satisfy it's needs and instincts otherwise the dog will find it's own outlets for its frustrations.

As has been said multiple times, no dog should ever be left unsupervised with a child, but supervision alone is not enough, interaction between the dog and child needs to be strictly policed - and far too many people are completely blazee (sp?) about this aspect of owing a pet. The first two years of a dogs life in particular is bloody hard work and people should not enter into this if they don't intend to see it through completely.

Toddlers are a completely alien concept to a dog, babies they can relate to somewhat, older children they can relate to but pretty much all dogs have no understanding of this phase of human development. They can't interpret the clumsy movements, the getting up in their faces all the time and the rough handling. Most toddlers have little concept of empathy, consequence or self-restraint. It sounds like this dog did not have benefit of sharing the house with this child as a baby which may have helped to some extent. Basicly what I'm saying here is that the child should not have had close enough contact with this pup (if it was a pup) to allow this situation to arise in the first place as the child in particular is not at a stage where he is capable of understanding how to interact with an animal in a safe manner.

Now the above is the absolute minimum understanding required for someone bringing a young pup into a house but the vast majority base their decision purely on idiotic bright ideas like - all kids should have a pet growing up, Johnny down the road has one and his is the most amazing dog, I had a dog growing up so my kids should have one too . . . spur of the moment decision, buy the first one you see etc. etc.

Bit unreasonable to expect someone to be responsible for kids and dogs when they lack even basic self-control over their own impulses :rolleyes:

Please note this is somewhat of a general sweeping post as I don't want to get into speculation as the facts of this particular case are far from clear, but we have all seen the above puppy buying scenario unfold time and time again both on and off this forum.