Boy 9 Seriously Injured In Dog Attack

[Amax-1]

It is not defence because I own one. What a stupid assumption. It makes my blood boil when anyone assumes anything about a particular breed in regards to how vicious it can be.

To say that not all dogs will bite despite being mismanaged or not is extremely ignorant. The dogs who have attacked/bitten me and people I know are all breeds that 'don't usually do that'.

And yet, many don't. It's undeniable. They will show all kinds of avoidance behaviours and warning behaviours including "air bites".

Furthermore, how easily a dog can be triggered to bite, how hard it will bite and the likelihood of a bite turning into a sustained attack will have a genetic component.

Correct. Regardless of training and environment, if an individual dog lacks the genetic component to fight, the dog will not attack and bite people by default and will generally flee as it's first option. Even cornered many dogs will freeze and shutdown under intense fear and still won't attack and bite for their own survival.

[Salukifan]

It is not defence because I own one. What a stupid assumption. It makes my blood boil when anyone assumes anything about a particular breed in regards to how vicious it can be.

To say that not all dogs will bite despite being mismanaged or not is extremely ignorant. The dogs who have attacked/bitten me and people I know are all breeds that 'don't usually do that'.

And yet, many don't. It's undeniable. They will show all kinds of avoidance behaviours and warning behaviours including "air bites".

Furthermore, how easily a dog can be triggered to bite, how hard it will bite and the likelihood of a bite turning into a sustained attack will have a genetic component.

Correct. Regardless of training and environment, if an individual dog lacks the genetic component to fight, the dog will not attack and bite people by default and will generally flee as it's first option. Even cornered many dogs will freeze and shutdown under intense fear and still won't attack and bite for their own survival.

I have one of those. In any overwhelming situation, she will retreat to a place of safey and/or shut down. Made agility training a very lengthy process and taught me a LOT about patience and remaining neutral if things didn't go according to plan.

[Amax-1]

It is not defence because I own one. What a stupid assumption. It makes my blood boil when anyone assumes anything about a particular breed in regards to how vicious it can be.

To say that not all dogs will bite despite being mismanaged or not is extremely ignorant. The dogs who have attacked/bitten me and people I know are all breeds that 'don't usually do that'.

And yet, many don't. It's undeniable. They will show all kinds of avoidance behaviours and warning behaviours including "air bites".

Furthermore, how easily a dog can be triggered to bite, how hard it will bite and the likelihood of a bite turning into a sustained attack will have a genetic component.

Correct. Regardless of training and environment, if an individual dog lacks the genetic component to fight, the dog will not attack and bite people by default and will generally flee as it's first option. Even cornered many dogs will freeze and shutdown under intense fear and still won't attack and bite for their own survival.

I have one of those. In any overwhelming situation, she will retreat to a place of safey and/or shut down. Made agility training a very lengthy process and taught me a LOT about patience and remaining neutral if things didn't go according to plan.

I have found the not so perfect dogs are the greatest teachers and without the experience of working through issues our knowledge base would be far more limited if we experienced only the great dogs to work with. My first operational dog assigned was a 13 month old GSD from the pound caught in someone's yard eating their cat food, owners never found, a treasured experience never forgotten. This dog in retirement at 9 years old was used as a therapy dog in the local nursing home, albeit an attack trained dog, his obedience and compliance with command and love for pats and food treats enabled him to cross over into a passive public role. Had it not been for this dogs genetic environmental stability, this career change would not have been possible. :)

Edited January 29, 2014 by Amax-1

[Snoopy21]

How do you know it was due to the dog's genetics rather than the training? You have no idea whether the dog came from a responsible breeder or whether it was from a dodgy backyard type breeding for aggression. I find this very confusing - there seems to be a lot of contradiction here.

[Amax-1]

How do you know it was due to the dog's genetics rather than the training? You have no idea whether the dog came from a responsible breeder or whether it was from a dodgy backyard type breeding for aggression. I find this very confusing - there seems to be a lot of contradiction here.

I think it would be safe to assume that the dogs weren't trained to bite kids. My better GSD's trained to bite adults on handler attack won't bite kids, in fact they won't alert on kids at all, yet I have had several of not so stable character who will bite kids given the opportunity as different characters react to different stimuli in perceiving threat. We can't ignore the fact in this case that the dogs DID attack and injure a child which is beyond potential to attack and bite, they DID attack and injure a child, so putting it down to environment/training causing otherwise stable character dogs to attack as they did and disregarding genetics would be a naïve approach to lessen the likelihood of further attacks of this nature IMHO.

Regardless of the fines imposed or the level of onus placed upon dog owners in law, no dog owner is perfect or exempt from error or misjudgement even with the best of intentions of providing excellence in dog management, we have all dropped the ball with our dogs at some stage and when that happens with the ownership of a dog with genetic propensity to bite people, bites, attacks and mauling's will continue to happen and the worse thing is, there is a victim in there too who deserves a safe environment free of unprovoked injury from dogs that needs to be seriously taken into consideration.

In the early days of training dogs for protection before training techniques advanced to accommodate the use of prey driven dogs to protect with greater levels of control, we used defence driven dogs with low bite thresholds as they arrived genetically pre-trained to a point and were easy to polish them into fierce fighters, but they had massive control and liability issues with trust worthiness of zero as to who and when they would attack. They would most certainly do the job of apprehending offenders, countering handler attack and preventing entry into property, but in the pet market they were attacks and mauling's waiting to happen and from that experience dogs like that have no place in the pet community in my sincere opinion on the matter.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Amax-1

[Snoopy21]

I was talking about the GSD you mentioned in your last post that was found. You had no idea of the genetic background of that dog and yet you said it was rock solid in is genetic environmental stability. How do you know it wasn't bred for aggression by a dodgy backyard breeder? Surely there are some GSD breeders out there who are reckless with their choices....in fact I know one personally?

[Amax-1]

I was talking about the GSD you mentioned in your last post that was found. You had no idea of the genetic background of that dog and yet you said it was rock solid in is genetic environmental stability. How do you know it wasn't bred for aggression by a dodgy backyard breeder? Surely there are some GSD breeders out there who are reckless with their choices....in fact I know one personally?

Sorry, I though you were referring to the dogs involved in this attack. No idea what the breeding was on my old GSD, but if he was bred for aggression, it didn't turn out as planned as the dog over 12 years showed excellent environmental stability. There are many breeders of GSD's I have tested apart from their ears stick up, there is not much else reflective of the breed standards in temperament and character unfortunately, but there are plenty through mindful breeding who are producing consistently good dogs.

[BlackJaq]

Yep thats what im saying allow your dog to growl at children. Cmon wat kind of rediculous question is that. im simply pointing out there is such a thing as context in behaviour just like every bark or wag of a tail does not have the same meaning. My dog doesnt bark but he makes a number of different vocalisations this deep growl is just one of them . I am well aware of his growl when he means business the difference is obvious to me.

Just wanted to say that I am happy for my dog to growl at a child if this response is reasonable. It beats lunging for the child's throat as a first warning hands down.

If a child does not react to various signals given by the dog, warning it to back off then I think a dog is perfectly within its rights to growl at the child and it is the supervising adult's fault that it went that far in the first place. No dog should have to tolerate all the shit a child might decide to dish out, children can be not only ignorant and oblivious, but also plain out cruel and not all dogs are going to like children in their face, staring in their eyes while pulling their whiskers.