Childminder's dog has bitten DD

I dont think the dog necessarily needs to be PTS I accidentally trod on my dogs paw the other day when we were out walking and climbing over a fallen tree. I weigh just under 11 stone the dog weighs 8 kg he screamed I didn’t realise what I’d done and he snapped at my foot. He’s not dangerous just in pain. As soon as I got off his poor foot he was wagging his tail and jumping up for a cuddle. I’m obviously not going to have him PTS. I’m also hoping somewhere in his dog brain he knew I didn’t do it deliberately. 😀

Your poor daughter, she is only 3 years old so was not her fault at all....at that age my daughter was still pulling dogs tails and whiskers, despite being repeatedly taught not too and she was around old and young dogs from when she was born. Very distressing time from you and your family hope all works out ok.

She is 3 and regardless of the child's behaviour if a dog is nervous or just for security the dog should never have been in an area that your child is in! Children even at 5 struggle with understanding dogs and will still be loud and rough, it's the CM responsibilities to ensure the child is looked after corrctly and getting biten is not!

3 year olds are still randomly rough with babies or their peers or even adults (a friend of mine broke her nose when her 3 year old suddenly jumped and headbutted her) so in no way can they be trusted to "behave correctly" around a dog.
They can't even be trusted next to a road or not to swallow batteries, hence you have a plan in place to minimise any risk.

I sent my children to a childminder with dogs and cats they were only allowed to interact under supervision and the dog was put away the cats would mostly free flow but had lots of places to go to there were never any incidents

You need to report it to 111. My dog bite me 4 weeks ago and he guarded his things but I couldn't take the risk he would bite my children so I had to do the worst thing for their safety! I am still deverstated from it but if she is not taking percussion for children she is taking care off, you have a right and almost a responsibility to report that animal/owner. I not meaning to put it on you but I really do not believe she the first time the dog bite or at least almost attacked!

Dog bite statistics show that dog bites are incredibly common. Picking a child minder with a dog does come with a risk.

And quite frankly, it is. By three children should know how to behave around pets. Regardless of what happened and why, OP should accept that.

Oh, do stop with this nonsense and victim blaming @grapesstrawberriespleass and @LandSharksAnonymous and anyone elee who thinks that three year olds automatically know how to behave round dogs, especially if they live in a dog free household

A three year old doesn't have the same emotional maturity or mental capacity as an adult. A childminder has a duty of care to her charges, and it wasn't exercised in this case. It is entirely the childminder's fault for leaving the dog and child together unsupervised.

A 3 yr old should hopefully be up be up to date on their vaccinations so doesn’t need a tetanus “shot”.

The phrase is a way of sanitizing the death of an animal.

I feel really sorry that the dog might lose it's life because the childminder left her charge unsupervised.

Absolutely ridiculous comment 🙄

I own 5 dogs I have 3 grown up children now, my youngest is 15. They all went to childminders and they all grew up with dogs. But any childminder that had dogs kept them completely separate from the children they looked after. What happened your child is completely wrong, not the dogs fault but the owners fault...I know it's not easy to find a decent childminder but your child needs removed from that environment and your childminder needs reported to the relevant inspection authorities. And not sure if you know this your child needs a tetanus shot... although you probably already knew this so no offence ment.

I was bitten by a dog when I was a child but it was my fault. I got too close to his face and he felt threatened. We had retrievers and I would never let them alone with a child.

You have absolutely no idea what happened so stop making shit up.

Bottom line is a childminder should not allow their dog to be in contact with children they're minding. For the safety of both child and dog. Really poor judgement on the part of the childminder.
Whatever led to this happening doesn't really matter - it happened, a child was bitten on the face and it should be reported to the relevant authorities.

It's entirely likely that a 3-year-old antagonised the dog and directly caused what happened.

But small kids do things like that. That's why you were paying the childminder to watch her and keep her safe. The childminder didn't.

I wouldn't use her again, and I would report. There's no explanation for why she let your child get bitten that doesn't make her unattractive as childcare provider.

pts is a very common phrase meaning killed.
Not sure why using pts is annoying you.

Clearly something has gone wrong here.

The sad thing is that this could result in the dog losing it's life. The dog may well have been scared or hurt by the child. No one can say what actually happened because they were unsupervised. The fault here lies with the childminder for putting both the child and the dog in a potentially dangerous situation.

For everyone calling for the dog to be 'PTS' or 'put down' please stop sanitizing your language and say it for what it is, you want the dog to be killed.

Dogs don’t need to be kept well away from the children but interactions do need to be supervised. Risk assessments, not necessarily written, have to be in place and consideration must be given to where the dogs eats and sleeps. You also need to have strategies in place to ensure the dog is kept away from the children whilst the children are eating and other similar situations. Having a dog can be an incredible learning experience and many parents will actively look for childminders who own dogs.

It doesn't matter what action the minder took after the event. They clearly didn't take the right actions beforehand. It should never have happened and if I were the parent I would push for prosecution as the childminder neglected the child and allowed her / him to come to harm.

So today I had a plumber round. Before he even got out of the van I said I have dogs is that ok with you. If he’d said I’m not comfortable around dogs I would have shut them away. He said he was fine. My young dog is standoffish/wary of strangers. The young man read the dogs body language correctly and said “he’s a bit wary of strangers”. The dog kept his distance but was obviously alert to what was going on, when we started moving furniture around the dogs views was WTF is going on and started barking. I shut the dog away. I live in a big house and the dog can go anywhere but I couldn’t guarantee that this seemingly sensible dog savvy young man wouldn’t accidentally corner the dog whilst scrabbling about on the floor fixing my leak or even try and befriend the dog and make him uncomfortable causing him to growl or even snap. I dont want that situation to arise for either the sake of the plumber or my dog.
If he’d said I’m not comfortable with dogs I wouldn’t have got on the phone to the company that sent him out and blamed them for not training him how to behave around dogs.
What really worries me is the number of people on here who think a 3 yr old can be taught how to behave correctly around a dog at all times and that if they dont it’s the child fault for not doing as they were taught. This displays a worrying lack of understanding/knowledge about child development. I’m a HCP I worked in paeds A and E for 15 years and maybe this explains the worrying rise in dog bites that we were seeing especially in small children. All dog bites are reported to SS.
As dog owners we are responsible for our dogs actions, our dogs are relying on us to not put them in situations where they feel a need to bite/snap/growl or chase sheep/bite the postman etc. We cannot expect/assume other people of any age will behave correctly around our dogs. Therefore as dog owners we need to be vigilant at all times and do everything we can to ensure a situation like that described by the OP doesn’t arise.

Take her out the childminder and report it to your local council in Ofsted that’s highly dangerous behaviour. It would be classified as a near miss. She’s playing it down it could’ve been so much worse. She had to get rid of the dog or be shut down.

I have the loveliest, soppiest, most laid-back dog in the world. She's never shown a single sign of aggression. I would still never, ever leave her alone with a child, not even my own.

This is 100% the childminder's fault and at MINIMUM she needs to make sure her dog is never around a child again. Even the loveliest dogs can snap, especially as they start to get older and may be confused or in pain.

The phrase "he/she has never done that before" is the default knee jerk reaction from dog owners when their animal bites someone.
It is then followed by something which places the blame on the victim, EG you startled the dog, it's because you're wearing a hat, etc.

It would be nice to have a basic understanding of safety around animals but I don’t think the general public should have to be responsible for other people who want to own pets, especially ones that can bite. The pet owner should be responsible for ensuring their animal is safe for the public or keeping it away from situations where it might become distressed.

It seems very poor judgment to leave someone else’s child unsupervised around a dog. The child is lucky not to have lost an eye. If the childminder believed their dog was suitable to live alongside the young children she is paid to look after then it is the childminders responsibility to teach safety around her pet to the children and their parents.

Im sick of this argument that if you are walking down the street and someone’s untrained dog goes for you that you should have known how to approach it safely. Dog owners should take responsibility.

My daughter's childminder had two dogs but they were very old and placid. They were always closely supervised and you'd have really had to have to have taken it quite far to have got them even to get up off the comfy spot on the rug. I see posts on SM with children lying all over big, powerful dogs, or joking that they can pull their ears/tail without getting a reaction, or a parent walking in and finding them happily playing together having been left together unattended. The message is often an anti-BSB one and the dog is a pitbull or bully. So unfair to the child and dog.