Boy Attacked By Bullmastiff.

[Keira&Phoenix]

I saw one bad comment re: bullmastiffs are aggressive, anyone who owns one is a bogan lalala and I honestly couldn't read anymore they made me so friggin angry, people with that mindset drive me insane, honestly I dare them to come and say it to my face.

Clearly I am a bogan because I own a bullmastiff x and an Amstaff x

Poor doggie. Silly owner and silly parents.

[Adza]

I love how people judge the person for the type of breed they own. I don't see any breed as being owned by bogans.

People like that will ruin breed reputation.

[ravenau1]

Just saw the owner talking on the news, he is absolutely devastated. It did look like a pure Bullmastif by the pics of the dog they were showing. Witnesses said that the dog had been tied up for 20-30mins and seemed very placid and a few people had patted it etc, the news guy mentioned that some security footage showed that the dog got "spooked" somehow by the kid. They also said that the owner will be prosecuted.

[Freshstart16]

Who names a city 'Cockburn'?

It's pronounced Cohburn Dru

Thank god for that!

The first time I ever saw the word cockburn in a street directory I said it just like that and my dad goes "no darling thats what your boyfriend gets"

The comments on this story on the actual news article make me so ashamed to live here with them, god some people have no idea, especially the bit about "oh these breeds and pitbulls should all be banned" no idiot its close minded ***ks like you who should be banned and obviously dont know the first thing about dogs or being a human

[Greytmate]

My God, some of those comments....

Give the poor dog a chance. Find out exactly what happened, temp test the dog, don't just PTS as the first reaction.

I have never heard of bullmastiffs as a breed being scary and dangerous...quite the opposite in fact.

This dog's temperament has been tested. It injured a child very severely. It might do it again.

Breed doesn't matter.

[korbin13]

Here is a bit more of the story for those who are interested. Considering the poor dog had been tied up for 20 to 30 minutes, it may have become stressed?

http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/owner-ch...0119-19wll.html

Poor boy (both human and dog)

Oh and apparently in WA we have cohroaches!!

Edited January 20, 2011 by korbin13

[ncarter]

I think the story is pretty slanted. The story i heard was that the boy ran up to the dog, giving it a fright and tried to pat it. Not an excuse for injuries that severe but its not surprising he got bitten really.

[ravensmyst00]

Looking at the photograph I would be very surprised if he was a purebred bullmastiff.

[Danielle]

It bit the kid and done damage, it needs to be pts. Feel sorry for the dog as the owner is really to blame, but u can't give dogs who bite someone in public a second chance. Different story if it were on it's own property tho.

Edited to add, I for one would never leave my ACD tied up at a shop as I know for sure she most definately bite anyone who tried to touch her. It's just common sense.

Edited January 20, 2011 by Danielle

[Greytmate]

I think the story is pretty slanted. The story i heard was that the boy ran up to the dog, giving it a fright and tried to pat it. Not an excuse for injuries that severe but its not surprising he got bitten really.

It is surprising to me. None of the dogs I ever had have ever reacted that way, and I would be surprised if they did.

[liamber]

THis whole situation is very sad and unfortunate for all involved. I do feel tho that once a dog has bitten once there is a very high possibility it will do it again ufortunately. We used to own a bullmastiff x and he was a lovely boy and we have two young children. Our next door neighbours who are no longer there thank god, owned bull arab pigging dogs and IMO didn't get out of the yard enuf to curb their hunger for pigging and not to mention that many big dogs in a suburban yard should not be allowed. They went away for their honeymoon and didn't tell us and one morning at about 1am I was awoken to aggressive barking and yelping. When I went outside they had ripped thru our 6 foot chainmesh fence to get to our dog and the 2 bigger dogs had him either side of his face both pulling on his ears as they would do a pig!!! It was a horrible experience, my husband wasn't at home he was on nightshift and my other neighbour across the road had to jump over the fence into my yard and try and pull them off of him. In turn he got bitten on the leg by one of the dogs. The smaller dog of the 3 went back thru the hole they had made but the other 2 wouldn't leave the yard and they were going around peeing on everything. In turn I had to call my husband to come home and the police to get them off my property. I had to put my injured dog inside. The police came and were fairly useless as they couldn't catch them at all. They even used their pepper sprays to try and subdue them but that didn't work. After a while they got tired so I walked up to them and put an choker chain on them. The neighbours mother had to be called because they were away, and she was none to happy to have to come out at 3am in the morning!!! She was just going to put the dogs back into the yard and I pretty much yelled at her (well it was 3am in the morning and my dog had just been ripped apart!!!) I told her those dogs were not going back to the yard until they have come home. The police took the dogs away. We fixed the fence as I know what our neighbours were like and knew they wouldn't fix the fence sufficiently enuf. I had to take the next day off work, take the dog to the vets, which in his report wrote that it was an extremely vicious attack, which had nearly severed one of his ears in half. He also had puncture wounds all over the front of his body. He had to have a drain in the side of his head also. He wasn't a happy dog at all. When the neighbours came home they did say they were sorry and would pay for his vet bill. That alone took them over 12 months to pay us back!!!! The council contacted me the day after the attack to make my statement. They asked me what I would like to happen. I said I would like to have to 2 bigger dogs destroyed as they are vicious and our 2 kids can't even play in our front yard without having the dogs next door attack the fence whenever they got close to it. In return they had their license to keep more than 2 dogs TEMPORARILY suspended until they did further investigations. They were made to remove 1 of the dogs, they removed the smaller one which wasn't aggressive!!! They relocated the smaller one to a friends property and a wild dog got into the property and killed it!!! That was very sad as he wasn't the problem at all!! Anyway the council granted their license back, and they purchased another dog to replace the one they lost!!! They even had the hyde to ask us to write to the council while the investigation was going on and ask for their license to be given back!!! I don't understand how stupid some people can be!!! Anyway after the attack our poor dog was never the same and one day our son who was a little too rough with him got a bit of a warning bite to his forehead from our dog and we didn't want to take the chance and keep him so we rehomed him to a lovely couple who lived on 5 acres with no children. Last I heard he was enjoying life. Our neighbours have sinced moved out YAY!!! and have moved rurally and now their poor new neighbours have the same problem as we did, not surprising. He bred from his dogs and kept some of them and now even his wife who is expecting their 2nd child any day is becoming increasing aware that the dogs they own are nasty. It can happen to any breed, not just big breeds. We have cavaliers and they even get a little snappy when they don't want to be disturbed. It is just that bigger breeds have bigger mouths!!! I just want to add that we are waiting for a new puppy from a litter expected in March and it is a BULLMASTIFF from a very lovely lady in Qld. We are sooo excited and can't wait!!!

Yes I think the owner of this dog in question was irresponsible in leaving him tied up out the front of a shopping centre, but some of the responsibility should also lie with the childs parents. They should be watching their child a little more closely and it is all about education, education, education!!!!!

[Keira&Phoenix]

This story just makes me said in general. Poor puppy dog and poor kiddie.

Sadly instead of learning from these stories the ignorant people out there just go oh what a horrible vicious dog it must have been instead of thinking that maybe they should educate themselves and their children in dog safety. It also doesn't help when the media rarely reports the true, correct version of events and instead vilifies the poor dogs who have general been purposely or accidentally provoked. Not to mention in this case left in a terrible situation by their owner.

Just yesterday I witnessed two women (ages approx between 30 and 50) walk up to a fence and stick their hands through to pat a dog that was at the fence, all I could think was how stupid could you be, that is that dogs property and you don't know what it would do. I stopped and watched just in case something happened I could vouch for the dog and what happened.

Gosh it makes me so angry.

Edited January 20, 2011 by Keira&Phoenix

[Kristov]

This is a sad situation for the child and the dog, but I don't know why the dog was PTS or why the owner has charges pending from what has been reported. There are no laws under the dog act or the Cockburn Council that prevents a dog being tethered in a public place, in fact it either has to be secured on leash by a person or tethered which it was, unless the leash was too long by legislation giving the dog extended range perhaps???. A dog has the right to defend it's self when provoked and entering a dog's personal space when tethered is exactly that. There is no need to approach a tethered dog or is there any threat that a tethered dog presents and the simple and sensible solution to avoid what happened is to leave the dog alone.

Dogs can be unpredictable and it's a no brainer that a tethered dog presents no threat, so why go near it, get bitten then make a song and dance about it when the situation is so easily avoided. It's a silly as watching a car pull up in the carpark and then going over and grabbing the exhaust pipe of the car and complaining that the car burned your hand, but people for some reason believe that seeing a dog gives them the god given rights to interfere or try and pat it..........I just don't get that mentality. I am totally shocked by the amount people who allow their kids to rush over to pat other people's dogs, it's happened to me many times walking my dogs, the kid see's the dog and starts running over to pat it and the parent lets in happen. My parents had a golden rule "never" to approach someone elses dog and "never" pat it unless you ask if it's ok and furthermore to that, my mother's favorite was we have our own dog to pat, leave other people's dogs alone???.

Edited January 22, 2011 by Kristov

[Rozzie]

There is no need to approach a tethered dog or is there any threat that a tethered dog presents and the simple and sensible solution to avoid what happened is to leave the dog alone.

The sensible solution would have been to leave the dog at home.

[geo]

It bit the kid and done damage, it needs to be pts. Feel sorry for the dog as the owner is really to blame, but u can't give dogs who bite someone in public a second chance. Different story if it were on it's own property tho.

Edited to add, I for one would never leave my ACD tied up at a shop as I know for sure she most definately bite anyone who tried to touch her. It's just common sense.

So the only difference between your dog and the bull mastiff is the fact that you're sensible enough to not tie your dog up? yet you state that it will bite.

So your dog is safer only because of you. I'm sure the owner thought his dog was safe as it hadn't done it before.

It goes without saying all dogs have the ability to do this and it is all down to the owner, so why not ban the owner from owning dogs? why PTS a dog who's only as likely to do this again as any other dog..

I'm sure this dog isn't likely do it again if it were owned by someone sensible enough.

But too late i guess. Stupid owner, and the parents of the child need to take some of the blame.

[Danielle]

It bit the kid and done damage, it needs to be pts. Feel sorry for the dog as the owner is really to blame, but u can't give dogs who bite someone in public a second chance. Different story if it were on it's own property tho.

Edited to add, I for one would never leave my ACD tied up at a shop as I know for sure she most definately bite anyone who tried to touch her. It's just common sense.

So the only difference between your dog and the bull mastiff is the fact that you're sensible enough to not tie your dog up? yet you state that it will bite.

So your dog is safer only because of you. I'm sure the owner thought his dog was safe as it hadn't done it before.

It goes without saying all dogs have the ability to do this and it is all down to the owner, so why not ban the owner from owning dogs? why PTS a dog who's only as likely to do this again as any other dog..

I'm sure this dog isn't likely do it again if it were owned by someone sensible enough.

But too late i guess. Stupid owner, and the parents of the child need to take some of the blame.

Yes, the only difference between my dog and this one is responsible ownership. Also my dog has never bitten anyone in public, if she did rip a childs face up I would put her down myself, no questions asked. This does not mean I love my dogs any less than anyone else on here, it just means that I accept the consequences for MY actions.

My ACD has bitten in the past but on our property, and only when someone has entered without us being there. I don't blame her not do I punish her for it, she is doing her job. But a dog tethered in public that rips a childs cheek apart is different, people are far more important than dogs Geo, no matter how much we love them, our kids come first.

I do understand that the dog cannot be blamed for this, as the footage showed the dog got spooked. But why spend already limited resources on rehabbing and rehoming a dog like this when there are so many unwanted dogs in the pound that are well adjusted and balanced animals? Sadly we don't have the funds or manpower to save them all so we have to make hard decisions sometimes.