Pet dog mauls four in Sydney

Few more updates on the story through Local News on TV. Buster (how fitting lol) is 10 years old and has never attacked anybody and has a very placid family, apprently

reply to post by Magnivea

* The experts' professional opinions:
* "Pit bulls" are not inherently or genetically different than other breeds.
* The top 4 biters by breed are German Shepherds, Rottweillers, Cocker Spaniels, and Golden Retrievers.
* Bites by "pit bull" type dogs account for less than 5% of all serious bites in Canada.
* It is a myth that "pit bull" type dogs are unique in how they attack. Other breeds also have a bite and hold pattern.
* There is no qualitative difference between a serious attack by a "pit bull" and one by another breed of a comparable size.
* A bite and hold attack is not qualitatively more severe than a series of slashing bites typical for a breed like the German Shepherd.
* Dogs in attacks are regularly misidentified as "pit bulls". If "pit bull" attacks were qualitatively different then this confusion should not exist.

Thank you SO MUCH for this information! APPLAUSE!

I've had pit bulls before and have a new pup now. She's just delightful.

When raised right with love and attention and consistenc (main 'ingredient' for any animals training) PB's make absolutely wonderful family dogs.

Now, I never would allow ANY child alone with ANY dog, but that being said, I never felt a moments hesitation allowing my daughter to 'dress up' my pit bull and horse around with him. Sadly, he ate his plastic 'squeaky frog' and died.

On the other hand my brother has golden retriever and that dog is PSYCHO! If you go near it's toy it will attack, and that's anyone in the house - including the kids. During Christmas my brother leaned over in his chair to praise the dog, he didn't see her 'toy' under the chair and she growled and bit his face. In my opinion they need to have that animal destroyed and I honestly have no idea why my brother had not taken the situation in hand, but, that's for another thread based on men who marry 'pit bull' wives.

I'm so sorry about the incident in Australia with the Golden, but, a secret part of me is absolutely thrilled we can use this incident to get the TRUTH out there about goldens, and some of the negativity away from PBs!

peace

Another thread on attacks: End Times! When Animals Attack!

reply to post by BLKMJK

Originally posted by mishigas
This is Breaking Alternative News? ATS once had much stricter criteria for 'Breaking' category news stories. This seems to be a mere dogbite story; more suited for Local Boring News.

Now where is that LBN forum?



Lets change it up. "Dog possessed by Satan Mauls 30!"
How's that?

It would still be a neighborhood-interest dogbite story.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I'll get back to you with some of the studies I've read when I'm at home, only have a few hours left.

Personally, I'd own a Pit or Pit-like breed over any other. I currently have 3, one of which is a male around 90 pounds. He regularly takes abuse from a 7 year old female Lab who will attack anyone or anything (excluding myself and my parents) if not muzzled when on a walk. I rescued her from an owner who was going to use her as bait for fighting dog training at 7 weeks old. I raised her and showed her nothing but love.

The pits all live with me (the Lab lives with my parents) and never a single bite, nip or growl. The male is 3 years, the older female is 5 years and the youngest is a 6 month old puppy I recently got out of a hellish situation. NO. PROBLEMS. EVARR.

The last 2 dogs I had before these 3 were a Shepherd that I had put down because she was aggressive even after months of professional training, culminating with an attack on my 5 year old daughter (she was not hurt, I never let the dog out of my sight even when it seemed the training was maybe helping) and an AmStaff (oh noes, PITBULL to those who consider anything muscular and square headed a Pit) who was by far the sweetest, smartest dog I've ever had.

Just my experiences, though.

Originally posted by Magnivea
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

Lab who will attack anyone or anything (excluding myself and my parents) if not muzzled when on a walk

the dog should be put down immediately. what happens if it escapes your yard when school's out?

labs don't generally attack they nip
with the two men arguing I would say the dog was trying to maintain order in the pack
things got stupid because the peeps weren't competent to deal with the situation.
if a lab is trying to bite you
you grab his jaw at the base and squeeze his lips in over his teeth
end of dog human fight


stafordshires make OK pets
but they will eat the next dog in a heart beat for no reason

ultimately IMHO the dog is not to blame
though that is the easy way
the owner or ranking human is responsible..
though to punish the owner, murder the dog

reply to post by thestink


I suppose some kid will be eaten.

First, "muzzled" was a word I used in there. Second, not my dog, as mentioned. There's other things I could get into like the 8' fence with 3' of chicken wire buried underneath to keep animals out surrounding the house, but yea.

As for the Staffy comment, I have yet to meet one with bad temperament. They're like Boxers. Yeah, they'll scare the crap out of you if you let them. They just want to play.

Edit to add that if my say mattered, she would have been put down years ago.

Originally posted by Danbones



stafordshires make OK pets
but they will eat the next dog in a heart beat for no reason

BULLSHT!!!!!

deed not breed.(unless it's a pitty)
re my pic's. my staffy legged it and left the rotty and owner behind.
get on your high horse about defending blah blah blah.
it wouldn't even attack when it had a pitbull hanging off it's neck

8' fence with 3' of chicken wire buried underneath to keep animals out surrounding the house]

If your going to that effort to keep your animal in because it's dangerous, you shouldn't have it to start with.

8 foot electric fences are for zoo's, not homes

reply to post by thestink


Sorry to hear about your dog, sounds like too nasty pitbulls.....
Truly though they do make good pets it is all about how raise them, dogs need to be socialized at early ages and pitbulls in particular need firm training. I have met several of the most placid pitbulls that run around happily with little ankle biters...

OK, this is a pet peeve of mine. Why did a thread about a Golden Retriever turn into Pit Bull bashing?

My pitbull just died at 14 years of age, and it never bit a person in its entire life. It was a great family pet, great around the kids, even better around infants and babies. Pitbulls are tough and brave, which makes them perfect for kids. They don't get scared and nip, they don't get accidentally hurt and bite back. My poor dog just laid there while the kids opened his mouth, drove trucks across him, jumped off the bed and onto his sleeping back, hid things underneath of him, etc., etc. They are absolutely great dogs! Smart, tough, brave, and loyal, what else could you ask of a dog?

#1 Dog bite in the US is from Dalmations! Next is Chows!

Here, in the OP, we have a Golden Retriever injuring 4 grown persons? How is that even possible. If a 20 year old man can't control a dog, then it seems to be natural selection in play here. I guarantee there is not a dog alive that could bite me more than once or twice, and absolutely no way a dog could attack someone else in addition to me. I once had a woman'a German Shephard bust through a screen door and hit me from behind and take a nice big bite of my buttocks! I spun around in fear and pain, grabbed it by its throat and tail, spun it up in the air and launched it about 20 feet. When it hit the pavement, the air went out of it and it layed there twitching, while the woman screamed at me.

A grown man should be able to fend off a dog or two. Ptibulls, German Shephards, Rottweilers bite very hard, they are very confident, and they are often almost as large as a man. I am not saying they are not dangerous. They make good companions and protectors, because they are dangerous and capable. Still, a grown man can endure a couple of arm bites and still fend off a dog, and protect those around him. There is no excuse for a dog injuring 3 men and a woman. What a bunch of pansies!

reply to post by thestink


You're too paranoid to live. Really.

Anyone running around with this "fear it ban it" nonsense is a ridiculous lunatic.

No difference at all between your bigotry and the bigotry of Klansmen. A bigot is a bigot is a bigot regardless of the target.

reply to post by getreadyalready

My poor dog just laid there while the kids opened his mouth, drove trucks across him, jumped off the bed and onto his sleeping back, hid things underneath of him, etc., etc. They are absolutely great dogs! Smart, tough, brave, and loyal, what else could you ask of a dog?

This is an old picture but I remembered it when I read your post. Poor dog! LOL cute.

reply to post by CoherentlyConfused




Looks a lot like this one from my house! This was about 3 years ago. The part that got cut off is the living room table with fire trucks, and the trucks that are underneath the dog. I guess he was their garage and their mountain for that particular game of cars! Just noticed, it looks like he might also have been sharing a pacifier with the baby. That was pretty common, LOL!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/32de9b0bc904.jpg[/atsimg]

Originally posted by Magnivea
Just my experiences, though.

I don't doubt your anecdotes.

However the statistics are pretty clear. However if you have different statistics you wish to share I'd be glad to see what you've got (beyond a sample size of your psersonal experience).

Originally posted by Danbones
if a lab is trying to bite you
you grab his jaw at the base and squeeze his lips in over his teeth
end of dog human fight

I'm trying to visualize this technique but I'm having difficulty imagining exact hand placement for this technique, have you got a link to a diagram which clarifies this?

I watch the dog whisperer on TV and Cesar Milan often grabs an attacking dog on the back of the neck like it's mom would do.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
#1 Dog bite in the US is from Dalmations! Next is Chows!

Source?

Here, in the OP, we have a Golden Retriever injuring 4 grown persons? How is that even possible. If a 20 year old man can't control a dog, then it seems to be natural selection in play here.

I thought the same thing, I can understand one adult, but four? Something's wrong with this story.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


There are many ways. You can reach under the jaw and pinch the lower jaw hard pressing the lips against the teeth and controlling the bite. You can force your hand or fist deep into the dogs mouth causing him to gag and retreat, but he will keep coming back. You can grab the lower jaw and press your thumb or fingers down hard into the tongue and cause a lot of pain because there is no bone there, or you can even pinch from the tonge and the bottom of the jaw at the same time.

Personally, I don't like for the dog to keep attacking after temporary pain, so I would vote for a hard kick or strke to the throat or ribcage. Take away the dogs wind. The easiest way is to get the dog off of its feet and up in the air. Even if you are being bitten, grab a tail or a back leg, swing the dog around and up and let it crash down. You can also let it bite your arm, grab it from behind and force your arm deeper into its mouth in a makeshift sleeper hold. Now you are supplying the pressure not the dogs jaws, and the dog is now on the defensive.

The key is be dominant and more aggressive than the dog is. Cause pain, and make the dog want to quit.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


There are plenty of sources saying plenty of things. I did a college speech on the subject many years ago. In all cases where a pitbull or rottweiler was involved, the breed was in the headline. In more than half of those cases the breed later turned out to be mixed breeds. In most other cases the breed of the dog was never in the headline and sometimes not in the articles at all.

There is also the problem that most people don't report minor bites, so who is to say how many bites come from toy breeds. There is also the problem that some bites come from dogs doing what dogs are supposed to do. If someone enters your yard uninvited and then gets bit and reports that bite, is the dog reallly to blame?

Unfortunately, many of the bites that result in injuries do come from dogs with the strongest jaws. Pitbulls and Rottweilers do tend to cause the most serious injuires, but that does not make them a more dangerous breed. There are thousands and thousands of pitbulls and rottweilers that are loving and friendly and never harm a soul. A few dozen dramatized headlines per year shine a negative light on all the rest of the great dogs out there. And, as mentioned earlier, many of those headlines are not even accurate.

Balloons and Slippers are more dangerous than Dogs

Dogs can be dangerous. And they are more dangerous to children than to adults. But here's the reality. Dogs almost never kill people. A child is more likely to die choking on a marble or a balloon, and an adult is more likely to die in a bedroom slipper related accident. Your chances of being killed by a dog are roughly one in 18 million. You are five times more likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning.

The supposed epidemic numbers of dog bites splashed across the media are absurdly inflated by dubious research and by counting bites that don't actually hurt anyone. Even when dogs do injure people, the vast majority of injuries are at the Band-Aid level. Yet lawmakers, litigators, and insurers press for less dog ownership. This must stop. We must maintain perspective. Yes, dogs bite. But even party balloons and bedroom slippers are more dangerous.

CDC calls reports unreliable

From a story this week at CBSNews.com (the bolding is mine):

“A study performed by the American Veterinary Medical Association, the CDC, and the Humane Society of the United States, analyzed dog bite statistics from the last 20 years and found that the statistics don’t show that any breeds are inherently more dangerous than others. The study showed that the most popular large breed dogs at any one time were consistently on the list of breeds that bit fatally. There were a high number of fatal bites from Doberman pinschers in the 1970s, for example, because Dobermans were very popular at that time and there were more Dobermans around, and because Dobermans’ size makes their bites more dangerous. The number of fatal bites from pit bulls rose in the 1980s for the same reason, and the number of bites from Rottweilers in the 1990s. The study also noted that there are no reliable statistics for nonfatal dog bites, so there is no way to know how often smaller breeds are biting.”

Which breed of dog is most likely to bite?

reply to post by thestink


Do you read my posts? The fence is not for the dog. It is to keep wildlife out. Also, for the third time, THE DOG IS NOT MINE.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
CDC calls reports unreliable

The CDC report is right here:

www.cdc.gov...

I think we need to read what they are saying carefully, it's basically what I said at the end of my first post in this thread, about the need to "normalize" the data.

Conclusions—Although fatal attacks on humans appear to be a breed-specific problem (pit bull-type dogs and Rottweilers), other breeds may bite and cause fatalities at higher rates.

In other words, if pit bulls are 10% of the dogs and they account for 50% of the DBRF (Dog Bite Related Fatalities), that amounts to 5 times the average attack rate, but there may be another breed that's 0.3% of the dogs and accounts for 3% of the DBRF, so that's 10 times the average attack rate, so it would have an attack rate higher than the pit bulls.

What they are saying is there's no reliable measure of the total number of dogs owned by breed which can be used to "normalize" the statistics as in that hypothetical example I just gave.

So this leaves the question, if pit bulls account for a larger portion of the DBRF than their respective portion of the dog population, which the CDC speculatively answered:

the data indicate that Rottweilers and pit bull-type dogs accounted for 67% of human DBRF in the United States between 1997 and 1998. It is extremely unlikely that they accounted for anywhere near 60% of dogs in the United States during that same period and, thus, there appears to be a breed-specific problem with fatalities.

So is that speculation accurate or not? It's certainly consistent with my personal experience having traveled to and lived in many different parts of the country. So that's the reason it's unreliable, is because that assertion that they can't PROVE that Rottweilers and pit bull-type dogs accounted for less than 67% of the dogs in the United States during that same period. From my perspective, even if they can't prove it, I'd say it's probably true.

So what's the bottom line? They aren't saying pit bulls aren't potentially dangerous as a breed, they say in fact that it "appears to be a breed-specific problem with fatalities" referring to Rottweilers and pit bull-type dogs. The reason this says "appears to" and the data are "unreliable" is the fact that there is no reliable data on total dog ownership by dog breed.

But you have to believe that Rottweilers and pit bull-type dogs account for at least 67% of the dogs in the United States, and/or there's a lot of breed misidentification going on, to believe that Rottweilers and pit bull-type dogs are no more dangerous than any other breed. And I don't believe that and I agree with the CDC that "It is extremely unlikely that they accounted for anywhere near 60% of dogs in the United States during that same period" So you're citing the CDC as a source, do you agree with the CDC or not? I do.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I already agreed that large breed dogs, and dogs with enormous biting power like Pitbulls are going to account for more serious injuries. (I do know of a local case where a Pomeranian killed an infant in its crib.)

Still, the other links in my post show that on average 15 to 20 people per year are killed by dog attacks. If 67% of those are pitbull, rottweiler, and related breeds, that is what 3 to 5 deaths per "dangerous" breed per year? Out of those 3 to 5 deaths per breed, about half are misidentifications, or mixed breeds. So, that leaves what 1 to 3 deaths per year that are actually a result of a specific breed of dog? Many times those deaths are also related to criminal activity or abuse of said dog, so is that really a "breed" problem, or is that breed just exploited for its strength?

As my link said, contrast that fatality rate with the fatality rates of latex balloons, peanut allergies, in-home accidents, shark attacks, lightning strikes, etc. More kids are killed by mini-blinds than any specific breed of dog.

Yet, the irrational knee-jerk reaction has caused an All-American breed of terrific dogs to be outlawed in many localities. It has caused the undo death of thousands of stray dogs that had commited no heinous act, but were targeted just because of their breed!

Should we outlaw balloons? Swimming pools? Mini-blinds?

In a related analogy, how many murders are committed every year by any specific minority? If it is statistically significant, should we outlaw that minority? Are you aware of the distribution of races in prison? Should we make it illegal to walk the streets as a minority?

Are you a fan of racial profiling?

I'm not trying to be harsh here, but the statistics surrounding pitbulls are obviously skewed, over-dramatized, and used for shocking headlines, while the facts don't support their danger, and people are still outlawing and killing them rampantly. While, at the same time statistics support racial profiling, but it is politically incorrect. What gives? Are we supposed to trust the statistics or not? Are we supposed to protect the public or not? Why are we murdering dogs when they are way, way down the list of dangers to the public?

reply to post by getreadyalready


I apologise, I think I may have started it by using this article to draw attention to the fact that any breed can be dangerous, but I think my intentions were good

I don't really know enough about the data to dive back in at this point, but I am enjoying the discussion. The only thing I would add, regarding the data, is this: people who want to own a vicious, fighting dog will often choose a pit bull. They could easily choose any number of other breeds, but often they choose a pit bull. It's hard to believe this wouldn't affect the numbers in a way that's impossible to account for.

I really think there is a solid comparison between dog breeds and motor vehicles. It comes down to something big and powerful always being capable of causing us injury and even death. It doesn't matter if it's a grandmother in a tiny hatchback or a massive angry biker in a 18-wheeler. If they're going fast, both are equally as capable of ending someone's life in a heartbeat.