85 year old woman mauled to death in her own garden

Mark1989 said:
No just certain breeds that has been decided there all bad.

I don't want to kill us off either for what it's worth just pointing out the flawed logic, as it seems apparent here and many times this topic comes up that people suggest some breeds are bad so get rid, could easily apply that to us and any other animal. It's not right.

As you said if people are bad we have prison, death penalty other means etc. Of course we can't put animals in jail, they could however been trained and training should be mandatory if any person wishes to own a dog of any breed in my view as should be that all dogs are on leads when outside of there homes regardless of how trained/good said dog is.

I highly doubt any dog is born and thinks "that human looks tasty I'll eat em"
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I highly doubt any human is born and thinks "Murder is fun I'll murder people". But some people murder and not all of them are warped by bad experiences in life.

Dogs act on instinct and dogs are predators. They've evolved to be symbiotic with humans, but they still have some predatory instincts and any dog can attack. Training is very important, but it's not the only factor.

I agree that training should be mandatory (to clarify - I think training should be mandatory for the dog and for the owner) and that all dogs should be on a lead when outside of their home. I don't like the lead thing - it's good for a dog to run free - but I do see the need. Maybe some designated dog parks, fenced areas where dogs can be let off the lead. Leads are restrictive. My family had a dog when I was a lad. A very small dog (cairn terrier) but he could still outrun me. We had access to private land and the owner's permission to run with our dog on it, but few people are that lucky.

chrcoluk said:
[..] The issue with this breed is not about likelihood of attacks, but rather how dangerous attacks are, they are very powerful muscular dogs, not to mention a habit of once attacking not letting the bite go until the prey is down. [..]
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That too. In this case, size definitely does matter. As does the original purpose of the breed - a dog breed created for fighting is going to be more dangerous if they attack because their physiology was deliberately shaped for it.
 
Angilion said:
I highly doubt any human is born and thinks "Murder is fun I'll murder people". But some people murder and not all of them are warped by bad experiences in life.

Dogs act on instinct and dogs are predators. They've evolved to be symbiotic with humans, but they still have some predatory instincts and any dog can attack. Training is very important, but it's not the only factor.

I agree that training should be mandatory (to clarify - I think training should be mandatory for the dog and for the owner) and that all dogs should be on a lead when outside of their home. I don't like the lead thing - it's good for a dog to run free - but I do see the need. Maybe some designated dog parks, fenced areas where dogs can be let off the lead. Leads are restrictive. My family had a dog when I was a lad. A very small dog (cairn terrier) but he could still outrun me. We had access to private land and the owner's permission to run with our dog on it, but few people are that lucky.
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Had an interesting experience with one of the farm dogs of one of my dad's friends as a kid (I'm not entirely comfortable with dogs especially as a kid) - absolutely huge German Shepherd crossed with something else - would follow me around like my shadow and played ball with it for hours in the fields on their farm and it was as good natured as anything around me - anyone else it would have quite happily taken apart - even the owner was a bit respectful of it. I don't think it would have taken well to a lead.

On the flip side for some reason some dogs seem to take an irrational hatred to me on sight especially the smaller ones :(
 
Rroff said:
Had an interesting experience with one of the farm dogs of one of my dad's friends as a kid (I'm not entirely comfortable with dogs especially as a kid) - absolutely huge German Shepherd crossed with something else - would follow me around like my shadow and played ball with it for hours in the fields on their farm and it was as good natured as anything around me - anyone else it would have quite happily taken apart - even the owner was a bit respectful of it. I don't think it would have taken well to a lead.

On the flip side for some reason some dogs seem to take an irrational hatred to me on sight especially the smaller ones :(
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I know it isn't really relevant but my Jack Russell Cross (who isn't small small, but he's not very big) has a dislike of men wearing certain clothing or carrying themselves in a certain way. He was mistreated as a young dog, quite badly, and all I can imagine is it was a man who had this posture and wore certain clothes who mistreated him. He hasn't forgotten, and will walk past people quite happily unless it's a man of a certain type. He doesn't lunge at them or anything but he certain goes on alert and will bark, his body language changes. It took him quite awhile to get used to the majority of men again, but he's never lost the grudge entirely.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it isn't necessarily as irrational as it might first seem. Not that I think you're a guy with a hoodie (or oddly, orange hi-viz) that walks like he's the hardest man in the universe. Maybe you are?!
 
The two most gentlest dogs I've witnessed are Ethel & Martha who were both Staffie's.
Two years ago I helped the Police to get records and clinical photography for a dog attack and this poor womans arm & face were ripped apart - that was a Labrador.

In 1981 I was the proudest Cocker Spaniel Dad and as far as I know we bought her up correctly.
By 1988 it was either be put down but my Dad had her because she was out of control (she had turned on our 1 year old).
The loves and cuddles were to die for but with other humans she was evil and no matter how much money we threw at training her nothing worked.
I always think of Cocker Spaniels as being dangerous because of my experience and we've avoided getting another dog since.
 
baldmonk said:
ive owned dogs all my life some left too early from huskies to poms and by far the most loyal dogs ive ever had were staffs they were brought up along with my kids no problem at all and are protective and loyal to the whole family there are way more dangerous breeds out there !! I've been going to cruft's for over 20 years and know most staffy owner/ Breeder and not one has had a temperament issue simple as that and if brought up correctly and trained properly and are given the right amount of exercise daily there is no issue.year on year the breed that bites the most ppl are labs but because they look soft and friendly nothing is mentioned.
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Its not about who bites the most but how dangerous the bites are.

How do you define loyalty?

I would rather be bit 10 times by a poodle vs once from a bull.
 
chrcoluk said:
Its not about who bites the most but how dangerous the bites are.
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^^^ this

People don't seem to grasp even the basics here re: risk.

It's not exactly a huge deal comparatively if some dog the size of a rat or some dog with a soft bite gets a bit nippy, it's not great and perhaps if a problem then that dog needs to be muzzled in public or eventually put down but the danger aspect is just massively bigger with bull terrier types and part of that was deliberately bred into them - they were designed for fighting - both fighting literal bulls and bears and fighting other dogs... they have a much more dangerous bite and a tendency to lock on - it's a huge difference in risk even if day to day they can be a calm friendly dog.

Lots of dog owners are hopelessly naive about this, don't seem to understand that any dog can be aggressive and for some dogs, when they're aggressive, that can be pretty dangerous.

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Many car owners were responsible a century ago, didn't stop all the safety measures being brought in to reduce the risk of death imposed on everyone by the irresponsible.
 
Graetzbridge said:
And many owners are very responsible.
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Well that isn't the problem here. It is both utterly delinquent owners and naive owners of dogs that can be disproportionately dangerous that is the issue here.

To use the analogy just posted above re: car owners.

People need to be licenced to drive a car on public roads, cars need to be roadworthy - some vehicles won't be allowed on roads because they're not safe, or not roadworthy etc..
 
Dunno if this is helpful or not. The link below is a list of fatal dog attacks in the US over 10 years- quite a lot. Looking at that list, you can see a few breeds (pit bulls, especially) are involved in the majority of those attacks, though smaller dogs do crop up. I don't know how dog ownership by breed stacks up in the US, but this list shows that certain breeds are far more likely to inflict fatal injuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States_(2010s)

What really surprised me is people killed by packs of stray dogs in the US, I assumed that would be vanishingly rare- apparently not.
 
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