Golden Retriever Attacks 4 People

[Golden Rules]

It will burn at the stake for the severity and number of the attacks.

You know this already do you? Or are you making assumptions?

The only reason they are the 'perfect family pet' is because of the publicity they receive.

Really??!! Now THAT is breed hysteria at it's finest

I agree if the dog is just PTS then nothing further is gained but we just don't happen to live in an ideal world.

If the owners no longer want the dog (going by someone else's post here) then I am not sure the offer of assessment will be taken up.

It's just sad for the dog as always (whatever breed!) .....

[halfthewords]

It will burn at the stake for the severity and number of the attacks.

You know this already do you? Or are you making assumptions?

The only reason they are the 'perfect family pet' is because of the publicity they receive.

Really??!! Now THAT is breed hysteria at it's finest

I agree if the dog is just PTS then nothing further is gained but we just don't happen to live in an ideal world.

If the owners no longer want the dog (going by someone else's post here) then I am not sure the offer of assessment will be taken up.

It's just sad for the dog as always (whatever breed!) .....

Breed hysteria portrays a breed in a NEGATIVE light. Where did I say GRs made BAD family pets? They do indeed make great family animals. My point is that there are plenty of other breeds with the same traits that don't get the publicity GRs and Labs do.

And the dog bit 4 people. Even though it's a GR and people are looking for reasons to keep the dog alive, logic says it will be PTS regardless of what the owners say (and they may very well want it euthed).

[huski]

If the owners no longer want the dog (going by someone else's post here) then I am not sure the offer of assessment will be taken up.

If the council seized the dog, I'm not sure it's up to the owners?

ETA: I read your post wrong and I see what you are saying. Only time will tell I guess, I would be very disappointed in the council if the offer of assessment and rehabilitation was not taken up.

Edited March 25, 2011 by huski

[megan_]

If the owners no longer want the dog (going by someone else's post here) then I am not sure the offer of assessment will be taken up.

If the council seized the dog, I'm not sure it's up to the owners?

ETA: I read your post wrong and I see what you are saying. Only time will tell I guess, I would be very disappointed in the council if the offer of assessment and rehabilitation was not taken up.

And then what? Rehome a dog that attacked 4 adults? To who? If it attacked again the council and possibly the brlehaviourist would be legally liable. No reputable rescue would rehome an ha dog from the pound, why is this different?

Personally, I'd like the dog to see a vet and have an MRI before anything else. Either way though, unless the owner wants the dog back or the behaviourist wants to adopt the dog I don't see many options for it.

[mumtoshelley]

Thats really sad for the people and sad for the golden retriever too. But in a way there could be a medical reason behind why the dog did this, But also in saying that he could be still shook up from the knife attack. I know in humans can take months to years to get over a trauma such as being held at knife point or gun, So my question is couldn't a dog take a month to a year to get over this trauma aswell?

I bet if you were held at gun or knife point you would be completely scared yes humans and dogs do things differently when faced with fear. Normally dogs that are fearful snap/bite and attack, Where humans may shut down completely,some may fight back,some give them what they want.

And before jumping on the breed bias look firstly what the breed is breed for pitbulls are bred to fight,gsd are used as guard dogs,police work,rottweilers are also used as guard dogs. Where the golden is used as a hunting dog are are known for there soft jaws. Thats the problem tho theres so many bybs around breeding ill tempered dogs . I'm not against any breeds and reckon they all desearve a chance, But that isn't for us to decided now is it. If this golden is put down so be it, It's the way the council sees it.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

What if one of the house mates attacked another with a knife, and the dog got excited, barked a lot and got blood from the stab wound on it.

The road worker guy said that he saw somebody with a cut on his hand - not a dog bite.

And I read somewhere that there was some more info on the 7pm report to the effect that there had recently been some non dog related violence at that house.

So we all could be completely wrong about the GR.

Having said that, I have met a few savage GRs. Scary big aggressive untrained monsters.

[huski]

And then what? Rehome a dog that attacked 4 adults? To who? If it attacked again the council and possibly the brlehaviourist would be legally liable. No reputable rescue would rehome an ha dog from the pound, why is this different?

Personally, I'd like the dog to see a vet and have an MRI before anything else. Either way though, unless the owner wants the dog back or the behaviourist wants to adopt the dog I don't see many options for it.

But the point is we won't know the answer to any of these questions until the dog is assessed and we know exactly how bad the behaviour is.

At the moment we only have the news articles to go off which IMO are never going to give you an accurate representation on what actually occurred.

[Flaves]

What annoyed me was on the radio this was reported with the preface 'this time it is not a rottweiler or gsd that has attacked it was a golden retreiver'

This is tragic.

Poor dog and poor people

Edited March 25, 2011 by Flaves

[fuzzy82]

Funny how they point out "It is considered very unusual for a dog to attack without provocation". They don't seem to point that out a lot when it's a husky or amstaff doing the attacking.

I read somewhere that pitbulls do better at temperament tests than GR's. And when my dog was attacked, it was a lab that did it.

Edited March 25, 2011 by fuzzy82

[sandgrubber]

Go ahead and flame me. But sometimes 'bias' has a rational cause.

Breed-ism is a lot like racism. I don't consider myself racist, but, as an older white woman, there are some predominantly minority districts of some US cities that I wouldn't go into after dark, especially when things have been stirred up. My town is ~50% Latino. In general, I think the US Latino community has higher moral standards than the white community . . . but where the turmult of factors has resulted in gangs being formed . . . some places are dangerous for people like me (probably dangerous for Latinas too, but they are much better at reading the signs than I am). The gang types prefer certain types of dogs.

I spent six years managing a kennel that liked to mix dogs, and have more experience with the DA than the HA dimension of breed-specific K9 behavior. By-in-large, with significant exceptions, we found gun dogs easy to mix with other dogs, and terriers, especially bull terriers and bull-terrier crosses (though some foxies or JRT's are nightmares), a source of concern . . . and tagged as 'don't mix'. Often, the owners were quick to say "Don't mix" or "Mix with caution and avoid some sort of dog (often avoid males with males). Some terriers are sweet-as, and can mix freely. Some are friendly, but have body language that other dogs find provocative (eg, the friendly SBT body slam) and inadvertently cause fights, some have the sort of temper that causes damage when someone or something (often another bull terrier cross) presses the wrong button. Eg, the kennel had a several incidents of bull terrier types who are from the same family and sharing a run getting into spats that required veterinary attention. We also had one incident of two entire male Weimies doing damage to eachother . . . so it's not unique to the bull terriers . . . but they seem to be relatively more frequent in crossing the DA/HA line.

I know some goldies . . . some Labbies as well, have dangerous trigger settings. I had a goldie breeder next door . . . and her girls occasionally had fight-to-kill fights, generally resource guarding (strangely, the resource was sprayed water, which the mob loved . . . they got into vicious fights if the wrong dogs were out together when the sprinklers were turned on). But in my experience, these are a small minority associated with problem owners.

Smoke often goes with fire.

Through action such as informing people that bias does exist and getting people like yourself to admit it. First step. To recognise there is a problem. There is no denying that most people on here know there is a bias.

This is the point I am making. The dog should be put to sleep. Period. But there is talk of an investigation as to why it attacked which is fine and of course the family deserve that but shouldn't that be a WIDELY applied general rule to all dog attacks then? Why is it different for this dog? Because it is a gr? Or because of the circumstances?

Quick edit to add: Because neither justify the dogs reaction. Just because the owners and neighbours don't want the dog put down doesn't mean it shouldn't. Judging by the video footage it was fearful, anxious and unsure and had just attacked not one but four people. Dangerous combination.

Another edit to add: I'm not debating breeds I am debating why the dog isn't going to be put down? The news reporter said they are investigating to see if it should be put down. Why they would allow such a dog to not be pts immediately? Isn't that normal procedure for dog attacks especially that involve four people?

Edited March 25, 2011 by sandgrubber

[Crisovar]

I would like to remove the word attack for a moment and see if it alters the way people respond to what they think they know about this incident.

The dog may not have attacked anyone, what if there was in fact an altercation between 2 or more humans and the dog was simply in the mix?

The truth is none of us here actually have any idea what happened, nor do the press.

I strongly disagree with the emotive wording that gets used when reporting any incident relating to dogs.

Every time a child is bitten it is Savaged or Mauled. Dogs fighting is Attacking and Savaging.

Humans often stupidly put themselves in situations where they are going to be injured, and the animal cops the blame.

I know someone who was badly injured as a result of stupidly attempting to separate a dog fight that was triggered by resource guarding incident between 3 very excited large dogs, and it was water spray from a hose that was the resource. The press were right on to it wanting to report the savage dog attack that did in fact had not happened.

I don't understand the frenzy to label dogs as killers and savage beasts.

We certainly don't do it with horses and stupidity and ignorance certainly can result in death and injury to humans there. I've done it myself, slipped up with a horse and come off second best, no one wanted to run to the papers, but you can be sure if I was injured by one of my dogs it would be different.

4 people injured in an incident that involved a dog. I'd like to know what really happened before we all run around sprouting that a dog without warning savagely attacked 4 people.

Unfortunately we probably will never know, the dog will be destroyed and nothing will be gained.

[minxy]

I'm actually quite sick of every dog attack thread being taken over by the pitbull media-bias complaint.

I used to have some sympathy for it, but I'm just sick of hearing about it now.

There is no reason pitbulls had to be mentioned in this thread at all.

No wonder people think of them everytime an attack is mentioned, when even their supporters can't let the story be about anythng else.

Flame away, I won't respond, because if that is all the thread is going to be about I'll go read something else.

Thank god you said exactly what I was thinking, but too lazy to type

Every single dog attack thread gets ambushed with BSL crap. Why can't we just discuss the actual incident?

[raz]

I'm actually quite sick of every dog attack thread being taken over by the pitbull media-bias complaint.

I used to have some sympathy for it, but I'm just sick of hearing about it now.

There is no reason pitbulls had to be mentioned in this thread at all.

No wonder people think of them everytime an attack is mentioned, when even their supporters can't let the story be about anythng else.

Flame away, I won't respond, because if that is all the thread is going to be about I'll go read something else.

Thank god you said exactly what I was thinking, but too lazy to type

Every single dog attack thread gets ambushed with BSL crap. Why can't we just discuss the actual incident?

Because that would be too sensible, minxy.

Good on you Steve. Hopefully they take up your offer

[Trisven13]

But I highly doubt that the reason the G.R snapped will be a highly valued revelation to the dog world that will explain dog attacks as a whole.

Firstly you don't know the reason the dog snapped and secondly even if you did, it could never explain the myriad of reasons there are other dog attacks

That's not what I'm saying. It's the bigger picture. If we have every dog involved in an attack like this PTS without a behaviourial assessment, what will we learn? How can we prevent other dogs attacks without examining why the dog behaved in that way in the first place?

I agree with you Huski but I can't help but be frustrated that this dog is likely to get a second chance because of its breed and that same behavioural assessment is not considered as necessary by media etc when it is a breed considered by the general public as more likely to bite.

In my years in rescue I've seen many breeds of dogs who were potentially dangerous - there are a number who have really stuck out over the years and they were a true variety of breeds - a rottweiler, a boxer, a beagle, a chihuahua mix, a labrador and a cocker spaniel - only one of those is a breed the general public would automatically condemn as dangerous and admittedly it was the worst one but it was closely followed by the beagle. I just wish that the kindly words I saw spoken about this dog and the desire for understanding of its behaviour happened with EVERY report of a dog bite.

And no I don't own a Golden Retriever - to be honest I'm not really a gundog person, particularly Goldies and Labs Too many of them down this way and not many nice ones.

[aussielover]

Through action such as informing people that bias does exist and getting people like yourself to admit it. First step. To recognise there is a problem. There is no denying that most people on here know there is a bias.

This is the point I am making. The dog should be put to sleep. Period. But there is talk of an investigation as to why it attacked which is fine and of course the family deserve that but shouldn't that be a WIDELY applied general rule to all dog attacks then? Why is it different for this dog? Because it is a gr? Or because of the circumstances?

Quick edit to add: Because neither justify the dogs reaction. Just because the owners and neighbours don't want the dog put down doesn't mean it shouldn't. Judging by the video footage it was fearful, anxious and unsure and had just attacked not one but four people. Dangerous combination.

Another edit to add: I'm not debating breeds I am debating why the dog isn't going to be put down? The news reporter said they are investigating to see if it should be put down. Why they would allow such a dog to not be pts immediately? Isn't that normal procedure for dog attacks especially that involve four people?

Not necessarily, especially when the dog attacks family members and the other people involved don't want the dog to be put down.

Perhaps the dog has a neurological condition? it did look to be an older dog, with no previous history of attacking.

[GoldD]

A very unfortunate incident, as all dog v's human incidents are.

I hope the humans recover from their wounds and I hope that whatever is professionally found to be best for the dog is done.

[huski]

I agree with you Huski but I can't help but be frustrated that this dog is likely to get a second chance because of its breed and that same behavioural assessment is not considered as necessary by media etc when it is a breed considered by the general public as more likely to bite.

In my years in rescue I've seen many breeds of dogs who were potentially dangerous - there are a number who have really stuck out over the years and they were a true variety of breeds - a rottweiler, a boxer, a beagle, a chihuahua mix, a labrador and a cocker spaniel - only one of those is a breed the general public would automatically condemn as dangerous and admittedly it was the worst one but it was closely followed by the beagle. I just wish that the kindly words I saw spoken about this dog and the desire for understanding of its behaviour happened with EVERY report of a dog bite.

And no I don't own a Golden Retriever - to be honest I'm not really a gundog person, particularly Goldies and Labs Too many of them down this way and not many nice ones.

Hey, I agree with you, I do think that if this had been another breed more of the general public would be calling for it to be PTS, but my opinion is in no way shaped by the dog's breed, I would be calling for a behaviourial assessment no matter what kind of dog it was.

[poodlefan]

But because it's a golden retriever it gets the opportunity. Unfair. Biased and ridiculous.

Of course it would be far more fair if EVERY dog that bit someone just got an automatic PTS.

Get real. Dog welfare will not be advanced by insisting that every breed should be treated as poorly as the Restricted Breeds.

The issue is getting restricted breeds a fair go, not lowering the bar for the rest.

The whole point of opposing BSL is NOT to make breed matter. Of course for most APBT supporters, with every attack reported, its the first thing they latch on to. Ironic. ;)

Edited March 26, 2011 by poodlefan

[Mum to Emma]

The dog looks more like a Maremma to me. The coat is far too woolly for a GR. There was a Maremma that frequented an off-leash park near me that was notorioius for attacking other dogs. Of course, the owner couldn't care less and kept on bringing it back...

[huski]

The dog looks more like a Maremma to me. The coat is far too woolly for a GR. There was a Maremma that frequented an off-leash park near me that was notorioius for attacking other dogs. Of course, the owner couldn't care less and kept on bringing it back...

I used to live near a highly people aggressive GR, I think the family ended up having to have it PTS, it had to be locked away from the kids and anyone who would come into the house.

The dog looked to small to be a Maremma IMO.