Thank you, a sensible post at last. I'm genuinely sorry for your loss so hopefully my posts weren't considered insensitive.
I guess being brought up around dogs makes you look at them and live with them differently. My mother in law has 3 jack Russell dogs and I'm not keen on them myself, but I'm even less keen when my 2 year old son is around them. He likes to poke and prod and kiss the dogs, I always feel a bit uneasy that they could turn around and defend themselves and do my son harm.
I guess as the OP is open to discussion - curiosity and asking questions is great and I now understand your perhaps unfamiliarity with dogs but it did come across like you were pointing the finger. Sometimes dogs do cause injury be it either knocking down by accident or as we see and hear of on occasion, full blown attacks. Either way it's almost always never the dogs fault. Accidents are accidents, kids fall over and bump into things all the time, usually a dog is just another obstacle.
Dogs like all animals learn from experience. They also have basic logic, we have all seen animals playing an injury for food for example. Dogs only act on what they learn. They all have a canine nature granted, they have characteristics in their respected breeds but most tend to do as they're trained. Animals will do what they're capable of for food. Therefore, if you keep a dog warm, fed and comfortable it has no reason to attack anything. The same as keeping a snake for example.
In summary if a dog is kept well it will keep you well.
I'm sure you teach your son not to poke the dogs your mam has and you can't keep your eye on him all the time, I get that. Wouldn't you give me a slap if I kept poking you though? Your sons actions are what will get him bitten, not the dogs. It's not their fault they have a threshold for tolerating something like every other breathing thing. Don't fear the dogs and if you do, modify the environment to stop your fears happening. Whether that's training your son or keeping them separate altogether because the chances are if the dogs have been brought up well and are kept well, they'll have no reason to attack other than the end of the rope.
Jack Russells do have a low tolerance threshold though and do play with their mouths and commonly can be hard. I do understand your fears with them, but I have two and one is great with kids and the other I would keep my eye on, not for fear of biting but because she won't leave them alone and the kid usually gets fed up. If the kid hit my female she wouldn't be impressed. I'm not saying she would attack but I would be mindful of the fact shes pretty vindictive in her personality.
Familiarity is so important with a pet that there is no point in having one if you don't have the time, especially with a dog as they have personality. It's why we love our pets and are so defensive when it comes to them, because we know them so well. We know what situations to remove them from and how they live their lives. They become part of the family and we adapt to them, train them, help them and others around them to stop incidents. Dogs and kids can be fine as long as you know your dog and if it belongs to someone else trust that they know theirs.
Not sure what I would do if/when I lose our lurcher, she is a great member of our team!
