Dangerous dogs

[tkingdoll]

I was quite surprised to see this charge - although there's also a drugs charge so perhaps she was under the influence at the time of looking after the child, which makes a big difference.

I am glad that she is being made to face the consequences of her actions, but as it wasn't her dog, it's interesting to see that the police think they can make this charge stick. I wonder how much of it is as a warning/example/scapegoat for the growing trend in dangerous dog ownership?

I need more information about the specific circumstances but at the moment something doesn't quite fit. I suspect this is more about the grandmother's own condition at the time and therefore her ability to supervise/intervene than the dog, but I'm not a lawyer!

I'll await further info before commenting further.

[Admin]

I'll await further info before commenting further.

Probably very wise.

I just hate to see people (like the little girl who was killed here) suffer the consequences of stupidity and irrationality.

One can get a bit emotional you know! ???

[Jocky]

there's another quote in the same article about how a properly-trained pitbull is no more dangerous than a Jack Russell, which I also found to be stupid. It's highly unlikely a Jack Russell could tear your throat out, and it ain't too hard to throw one off if they try.

It's pretty hard to throw off even a small dog a Jack Russell if you're aged 5 However that is not to say that one should be banned from keeping Jack Russells in the same house as small children, of course. That would be a disproportionate response to a very small risk.

I don't know what proportion of people posting to the thread are parents, but if I had a dog in my house I couldn't avoid leaving it alone with my daughters

This is an inevitable dilemma of parenting, especially when you're on your own and there are other things which have to be done - you cannot be in two places at once.

Risk can never be entirely eliminated, of course - but our risk-averse litigious society, informed as it is by populist tabloids motivated solely by circulation figures, seems unwilling to accept this obvious fact. It is a matter of risk management, and of course parents have to do this all the time.

On one hand, the dog might turn on the kids - but on the other hand, if you don't leave the room to cook tea then the kids will not be properly fed, and they will not get a proper chance to build up a relationship with the dog. Also, if the dog did turn nasty you would hear it and be there in seconds, before a nasty incident had time to escalate into a tragedy.

The issue is not the breed of the dog - it is competent risk management on the part of the parent/guardian. The difficult task facing the Police with incidents like this is to establish whether it was simply a one-in-a-million piece of tragically bad luck, or whether they can prove that avoidable negligence contributed to increasing the risk to a significant degree.


On a different topic, I suspect that there is no hard and fast fact-based way of discriminating between breeds - whether a given animal is classifiable as, say, a "pit bull" or not is just a matter of a dog expert's opinion. I don't know enough about dogs to be certain - does anybody know if this is in fact the case?

[Mongrel]

On a different topic, I suspect that there is no hard and fast fact-based way of discriminating between breeds - whether a given animal is classifiable as, say, a "pit bull" or not is just a matter of a dog expert's opinion. I don't know enough about dogs to be certain - does anybody know if this is in fact the case?

Looks to be a bit iffy identity wise, no solid rules and conflicting standards(source) which does seem to be unusual.

Most dogs have very strict standards about what is or isn't a particular breed (an example) but of course cross breeds confuse the issue a lot.

[Araneus]

That's one of the major problems with such legislation, they are trying to impose a binary categorisation ("dangerous" versus "non-dangerous") on something which is fundamentally not binary.

[CatWoman]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...260173,00.html

Poor little girl Why people have to own these sorts of dogs is beyond me. Having a dog like that anywhere near a child is a time bomb waiting to go off.

I do hope people learn from this.

[Admin]

Sadly, I don't think anyone learns from it. You see, other owners' pit-bull terriers wouldn't harm a fly - just listen to how often that puerile argument gets trotted out.

Self-delusion and pig-ignorance will make sure to that this happens again.

On a related note: this story is another one where drugs and stupidity combined to end up in the needless death of a child.

I mean, giving a child methadone to keep it quiet.

You know, I've been a skeptic for quite a while now and even though I think I've seen human stupidity in all its glory, I still get amazed and flabbergasted by the beliefs and actions of some people. Unfortunately, the victims of stupidity are not necessarily the idiots themselves.

[CatWoman]

Well, I have a labrador and although they are supposed to be family friendly, I am not daft enough to think that she will never harm a fly. When she was ill, she was very touchy. Beware a female in a mood

These idiots get these dogs as status symbols. They have no intention of them being loving family pets, they are not bred as such. Do they care about the temperament of the dog's mother and father? Obviously not, unless it is the more aggressive the better. These dogs are incredibly loyal to their owners so although they may appear to be completely trustworthy, if their owner is not there, they will protect their own space to the death if necessary.

I heard about that Methadone case briefly on the radio this morning but I didn't have time to follow it up. That is so tragic - yet another completely innocent child's life wiped off the face of the earth through parents stupidity.