Husky mauls child

TillyGirl wrote: »

This thread is just going round in circles. Ducks will never see it the way I do and I will never understand his (IMO narrowminded) view.

Discodog wrote: »

The reason that I used those ages is because a dog's intelligence & reasoning has been compared to a child of that age.

You are being heard even if you don't listen. Here is a little reading material.

John Bradshaw. In Defence of Dogs. Written by a professor who has studied dogs for over 20 years at the Bristol University Vet School.

Anne Rogers. A training & behavioural consultant & founding member if the APDT. Some of her comments are in the Irish Dogs link.

I am proposing nothing for the "breed" or any other breed. Dog attacks have nothing to do with breed. One American study by lawyers accuses Huskies of being dangerous. Another American "study" by Vets says that the Chihuahua is the dog most like likely to bite. If you do a search you will see that we have discussed the issue many times.

What I am proposing is that we grow up & follow the accepted example where an owner is responsible for the behaviour & actions of their animals. At least in Medieval times the dog might of been called to the Court to give evidence in it's defence. Now we just kill it.

Continuing to blame the dog just allows irresponsible ownership to continue & more children will end up hurt. If you accept that there are good dogs & bad dogs then you have to accept that there are good & bad children. They are both "made" by their upbringing. Someone has to take responsibility & be held to account - are you seriously suggesting that this should be the dog ?

Evac101 wrote: »

Submitted this in response to the Irishdogs.ie article, the main details I would have to credit to Skeptoid.com's analysis of dog bite incidents in the US and the subsequent threads there regarding how dog attacks are investigated in various states and what the legal reporting mechanisms are regarding those attacks:

"There are a number of distinct issues which need to be addressed in the article above:

1) As many others will agree the current facts on dog attacks in the US (as is the case in most countries) is that the majority of states only require reporting on incidents which require hospital treatment (in the states that have any such provision). There is no requirement to detail breed, training, socialisation, owner experience, exercising or other potentially pertinent details in these reports.

Given that the majority of large breeds are capable of inflicting injuries more likely to require hospital treatment this creates an artificial bias on the already flawed reporting which demonstrates a preponderance of large breeds appearing in the traditionally favoured 'top biter' lists. In the majority of US states there's no provision for the investigation into the background to even fatal dog attacks incident - any checks are ones ordered specifically by whatever judge is involved in the post mortem hearings, if in fact they request any checks.

All in all, incomplete data with an artificial bias towards large dogs shows that large dogs have a bias to appear in that data.

2) Given the recent popularity of northern breed dogs as 'flavour of the month' social accessories and the relative likelihood of someone who would be influenced by that trend also being a responsible owner who researched the needs of their choice prior to acquiring the animal and took care to address the animals social and physical needs on an ongoing basis (which I feel is unlikely), I'm a lot more comfortable making assumptions about the owners potential lack of appropriate care then the dog being an unpredictable risk frankly. Without adequate physical and mental stimulation any dog is capable of attacking a human, even without extenuating circumstances like inner ear infections, etc.


My point being that only people prepared to correctly care for a dog, of any breed, should own a dog - all breeds and mixes have individual requirements in terms mental and physical care which any prospective owner should
(a) be aware of
and
(b) be prepared to meet
Sorry for re-iterating the point twice in one sentence but it seems like no matter how many times it's said we see incident after incident where I suspect people have been told this but haven't actually listened.

3) The original research has been interpreted by lawyers who specialise in suing dog owners for injuries and then released as part of a press statement which is, obviously given I'm talking about people who sue for a living, in no way designed to advertise their services in a sensationalist way likely to catch the eye of editors looking to fill space on papers and are more concerned with eye catch tag lines rather then factual accuracy.

If an actual canine behavioural scientist managed to conduct a comprehensive, rigorously applied and overseen study on all dog bites, small and large, in a particular region over a course of 15-20 years (to prevent 'fotm trending' from artificially affecting the results) then that's a report I would love to see. The interpreted results of an incomplete study by a law firm I have less faith in."