A very rare occasion where I think a dog needs to be put dow

[Gymrat]

This dog didn't simply bite a child he happened upon. This dog stalked that child and savagely attacked him like he was a piece of meat. Thank God for the family cat!

[SomeGuyBrewing]

From Huffington post:

Update: TMZ reports the dog is in the custody of animal control officers and, due to its continued aggressive nature, will likely be put to sleep.

Sadly very little will happen to the owner of the dog. Dog behavior starts with the way it is trained/treated. Often times in these dog attack stories the animal comes from a home were it is mistreated or neglected altogether. Owners need to be heavily fined and in many cases have criminal cases brought against them. More often then not the animal is simply taken away, put down, and maybe a small fine is issued.

That cat is awesome though!!

[Beer-lord]

Did you see the end of the video? That was a serious bite.

[BlackDuck]

Wow, just wow. Any idea what king of dog that was? And thank God for the cat, he was all over that dog.

[monsteroyd]

Breaks my heart to see that, and thank God for the cat, but a dog don't just do that, even a puppy like it was, without some serious guardian mis-judgement. The owner is always responsible. Unless tomorrow we see a video of the few moments before where the kid was beating on the dog on the other side of the car, which I doubt, the owner is at fault. Sigh.. I hate when dogs fail.

Monty

[BradyFumbled]

That cat is a bad ass.

As for the dog, I'm sick of owners that can't keep their aggressive dogs in their yard. Idiots. If you can't keep your dog locked up, get a freaking poodle or chihuahua!

[mashani]

That cat is a bad ass.

As for the dog, I'm sick of owners that can't keep their aggressive dogs in their yard. Idiots. If you can't keep your dog locked up, get a freaking poodle or chihuahua!

More people are bitten by Chihuahuas and toy dogs of all sorts then by big dogs. Just doesn't get as much attention and is often under reported because they don't do as much damage and/or the damage is kept "in the family".

[BradyFumbled]

That cat is a bad ass.

As for the dog, I'm sick of owners that can't keep their aggressive dogs in their yard. Idiots. If you can't keep your dog locked up, get a freaking poodle or chihuahua!

More people are bitten by Chihuahuas and toy dogs of all sorts then by big dogs. Just doesn't get as much attention and is often under reported because they don't do as much damage and/or the damage is kept "in the family".

Big difference between a "nip" from a 10 pound doggie with an attitude, and the life threatening damage an uncontrolled big dog can do.

A loose Pug or Chihuahua doesn't concern me. A loose Pit, I'm not going outside. People get sensative with the "breed bias" that goes along with dog attacks, but whatever, I'm going off personal experience and common sense.

[mashani]

Although I would much rather get bitten by a Chihuahua then a Pit, to be fair, a nip is what a herding dog of the heeling variety does to you if it's bored shitless, has no job, doesn't belong in your house in the first place for this very reason, and is trying to herd you or your kid as a side effect. As in it doesn't puncture your skin, it's just pressure, or if it is a puncture it's really something by accident and probably caused by you jerking, and not the dogs intention.

A Chihuahua bite can be still be quite damaging. Of course not as much as a Pit because they don't have the bite pressure. But still it can tear off mouth sized chunks of skin and it can be a pretty significant injury - so idiots who hold them up against their face and get a bite there can be pretty unhappy when all is said and done.

A well socialized pit is no more dangerous then any other kind of large dog especially large terrier and mastiff types of dogs, or wolf like breeds, all of which have strong bite pressure. If well socialized and trained to have bite inhibition from an early age, which is *necessary* then should not be any issues with them. In England their well socialized cousins were quite good at keeping the kids safe and did not randomly attack anything that moved - only were aggressive when *necessary* to keep their family safe. The exceptions, IE the ones used in pit fights, were turned into truly aggressive dogs by their owners, who seriously abused them.

The problem we have here these days is that folks get them as protection dogs or because it makes them feel "tough" or whatever other stupid reason it is they get them, and then under socialize them, if socialize them at all - dogs *must* be socialized with other dogs of as many sorts as is possible and as many people of as many sorts as possible when they are very young. There is a window of opportunity to do it right, and once it's passed, you can't easily fix it. I socialize every young dog I foster with kids, cops, fireman, mailman, rabbis, priests, people wearing every kind of hat or clothing, headscarves, black, white, yellow and brown people, punks, freaks, old, young, bikes, trains, planes, cars, trucks, the blimp if it's around, everything I can possibly find that is "different", so that the dog doesn't consider them out of the ordinary. If the dog thinks all people are awesome, then the dog will treat all people properly. If the dog is socialized with other dogs at an early age of many sorts, it will learn proper canine body language (calming signals / standoff signals) and will not get into fights with other dogs for no reason, because body language is *key* when it comes to dog to dog communication - and even human to dog communication it can be very useful.

And then these same people also use methods shown by "dog training they saw on TV", which tends to #*$& their dog up, because most people can't do that kind of dog training correctly. When using any sort of punishment based training if your timing is not *exact* quite often the dogs learns that whatever it was looking at or hearing when it got hurt is bad, not whatever it was you were trying to teach it. And this ends up making a *$&#d up dog that you then have to send to dog trainers like me - who are not anything at all like the dog trainer most folks watch on TV - to fix the issue.

Also medical issues are often in play. A simple thyroid disorder might turn a formerly nice dog into one that is fearful or aggressive out of nowhere. If your dog acts weird you need to take it to the vet. Folks who can't or won't take their dog to a vet should not have a dog.

So anyways, although I respect your caution - I don't blame it on the dog for the most part. It's the puppy mill and/or owner it came from that brought it on in most cases.

[Gymrat]

I am 100% convinced that a lot of a dog's behavior, including aggressiveness, is genetic. We had a Rat Terrier years ago. The ex and I got it when the girls were older. We had that dog for 2 years and it was always very friendly and socialable with everybody it met. Then one day I took it to an outdoor event, someone asked me if their child cold pet her, I said "sure" and as the child reached for her she became agressive and tried to bite him. We later observed she was like that anytime a small child was around. This was not because of anything we did to that dog. It was just a behavior born into her. We did some research and read about choosing puppies. It seems that even when the pup is only a few weeks old you can predict it's behavior. Some puppies may cower back when you approach them, others may growl, etc. And this behavior is programmed in and can never be reliably trained out of them. Sure you can get them to accept one small child for instance, but kennel that dog when the kid has his friends over. Also, the problem with pitbulls is, dog fighters breed them not only for their physical attributes, but for their behavioral characteristics as well. If you get a pitbull from a reputable breeder they can be excellent pets, but if you get one that has been bred for fighting it will have dog aggressiveness that will be a problem to struggle with for it's entire life. If you don't believe a dog can be born with certain behaviors do some research on the different breeds. Even on the AKA website. You will find with each breed certain behavioral characteristics are common. It is bred into them.

[RickBeer]

Toonces, is that you?

[BlackDuck]

This story was on one of the network morning shows today. The story didn't really focus on the dog, it focused more on the cat. It was very interesting. Turns out that the cat followed the family home from a park a few years back. The family decided to keep it even though the Mom is allergic to cats. The boy and the cat have been very close since. The cat would climb into the boys crib and sleep with him. The parents even mentioned they had to pick the cat up and take him out of the crib a few times because they were afraid he would smother the boy when he was just a baby.

It has been mentioned many times how pets choose the humans, not really that we choose them. To me this is just amazing. Just think if that cat never followed them home, or the family decided to not keep it because of the Mom's allergies. In this case, the cat definitely chose them. And a lot of people think that cats only care about themselves. Well, not this one.

[monsteroyd]

Well, the dog is history. I feel for the owners, but they share the blame for not managing and or traiing the dog, and in the end, the dog looses.

"Jeremy's mother, Erica Triantafilo, was in the yard when the attack happened. The video shows her rushing to check on the boy; in his YouTube post, Roger Triantafilo says she then ran to the neighbor's yard to be "sure the dog did not return for a second attempt."

He adds, "The owners were there also and she was bit by the dog as she tried to [pen] him in his yard. The owners did get control of the dog and secured him."

The dog had escaped his yard when the neighbors drove out of their driveway's gate, according to KERO, which says the dog's owners called 911.

As for the dog's fate, it seems that it'll be put down.

"Sgt. Joe Grubbs, Bakersfield Police spokesman, said the dog will be quarantined for 10 days then euthanized," KERO reports."

Monty

[mashani]

I am 100% convinced that a lot of a dog's behavior, including aggressiveness, is genetic.... [snip].... It is bred into them.

All dog behavior/temperament (and human behavior/temperament) has a basis in genetics sure... that's the point of all the different dog breeds to begin with.

And yes, you can identify a shy or easily scared dog vs. a confident dog at a very young age - when we get puppies to train as service dogs, we evaluate based on these very things.

Genetically defective dogs are/were weeded out by good breeders by euthanasia (only in worst case scenarios these days) or by fixing them and selling them as pets where they are not allowed to breed more dogs, or simply fixing them and keeping them themselves. And I would be in total agreement that truly aggressive dogs due to genetics should be removed from the world, or at the least fixed and removed from the breeding gene pool and only given to VERY RESPONSIBLE owners. No reputable dog breeder would argue with that either. Some dog rescue people would, but I am not one of them, even though I sometimes have 5+ dogs here at any given time. I am not a "save all pit bulls" / "all pitties are nice" / "save all dogs" / "all dogs are nice" kind of person. If a pit was demonstrated to come from fighting line stock, it must at the very least be fixed and then only turned over to a 100% responsible individual IMHO... if that is not possible then iut should be put down. It is rare, but there have been a few occasions where I've had to recommend people have dogs put down because they were just that messed up in the head, and the people were not responsible enough to manage it, and/or responsible enough to make sure the dog ended up with someone who could manage it (which in these cases would be very few individuals). I still do not blame "the dog" for this however. Nor the dogs owners in these cases. It's whoever brought the dog into the world and/or whoever had the dog first and did god knows what to it that reinforced the worst behaviors to the extreme who I would blame.

Puppy mills do not do this weeding out, nor do they give a shit about breeding for temperament. They breed for impulse purchases only. People who don't get their dogs fixed and let them run around the neighborhood pumping out puppies don't give a shit. The "dog rescue culture" that thinks all dogs must be saved don't give a shit. This brings it right back to people.

People who do not want a dog that has certain in-built characteristics should NOT get a dog with those characteristics. Terriers are farm/working dogs that were genetically made (by humans) to kill small animals that might eat the crops or infest an area. It's their JOB. It is what they are meant to do. If you do not want a dog that is bred to kill small animals, then you should not own a terrier if you want to be a 100% responsible human being that doesn't want their dog to ever attack a small animal. To a terrier or a large wolf like breed if it's small and squeaky or squeely or if it moves erratically like an injured animal - and the dog is not well socialized with it... IE a child... then this can become a significant issue. It's potentially even more of an issue with a larger dog because "small" is a relative term.

That said, socialized at a young enough age, and trained against the grain by making it more rewarding for the animal to not exhibit those unwanted behaviors - which is possible - and you CAN end up with a 100% pacifist terrier. I hang out with one quite often. But he is an exception, and only the way he is because he was trained against the grain by being rewarded hugely for NOT doing the things he was bred to do from young puppyhood by a full time trainer of dogs and spent supervised time with hundreds of neighborhood kids of all walks of life from 6 weeks of age on - and again supervised time so the kids never did anything to him that would make him think "kids might be bad". And other peoples dogs of all sorts. And reinforced repeatedly for not bothering any small furry animal of any sort. For all of it's young life this was done, over and over and over again. And it thinks everything that is alive is allowed to stay that way because of it.

But yes, it's a lot harder to train against the grain especially if you want the dog to be "bomb proof". It is a huge investment of time to train a truly "bomb proof" dog even for an appropriate breed. And even "bomb proof" dogs can get messed up if they are attacked or abused. I know because I have rehabilitated them.

The problem again goes back to people forgetting that dogs were bred to do jobs - and don't have appropriate work for the dog - and don't work with and socialize the dog properly at an early enough age to have it learn what to do and how to behave, and/or in their attempts to train the dog, end up reinforcing the behavior they do not want, or pushing the behavior onto other unintended things, instead of correcting it. They just go to the pound and get whatever dog they think looks cute (or tough or [insert stupid criteria here]), and then #*$& it up. That's the *totally wrong way* to pick a dog. And any dog that has to invent work for itself because it's not doing what it was meant to do and is under stimulated by it's owners can end up having significant behavioral issues. Applying TV dog trainer concepts to these issues #*$&ks up the dog even more. But this again goes back to people.

Basically I guess my point is that dogs exist because of people, so ultimately the responsibility for what kind of dog ends up out in the world and in their homes lies with people. And as much as I like dogs - I think a lot of people who own a dog should not because they are not responsible enough or don't have the time to invest to do it right, and/or watch too much dog training on TV.

[alb]

And yet, I'm incredibly sad that the dog will be put down. It has to happen, I understand that. I'm sorry for the little boy and I think the cat is a sure enough hero. But my heart still hurts for the dog, and I'm not sure I understand that about myself.