Wwyd if a family members dog but your child on the face?

[inwood]

Just that really - dd is luckily ok now it we are very lucky it wasn't any worse.

We will not go there again while the dog is there.

I think this is a dangerous dog and they need to rehome. I don't think they agree or get the severity of the situation.

I never even mentioned PTS, al I asked was what would you do. My decision is that we never go anywhere near the dog again.

A dog that bites a 9 year old in the face breaking skin needs putting down...

So she was sitting down (presumably- unless it’s a very big dog) well away from the dog and it launched itself at her face?
It definitely needs to be PTS then. What does the owner say about it?

This happened in my family. It wasn't a 'dangerous' breed. Everybody got the arse when I requested that dogs be kept away from children and now I don't really see any of them any more. 🤷

My sister was bitten on the lip by my nans dog. She has a scar there now

She was cuddling the dog despite being told not too. However she was only 2 and my Nan wasn’t supervising properly

The dog was not put down

I currently own a dog who isn’t safe around children.

She has nipped my 2 year old niece. Not hard enough to break skin though.

I now make sure if they are around, that the dog is upstairs out of the way

In fact I do it if any children come round.

Because I love my dog and I don’t want to put her in the situation where she has to feel she needs to protect herself.

Because I care that children are safe in this home

Never leave a child alone with a dog. Even if it’s a nice well trained dog they can all snap, unprovoked. I wish people would realise this

Sorry I love dogs and have had them all my life ,but this is crazy as soon as a dog bites anyone to the extent that they draw blood they must be pts .
Yes it is sad but when they have done it once they will do it again it's just a matter of time.
Absolutely untrue. Does not mean they will do it again, rather sad that you wouldn't see why it had done it.
Provoked, mental or physical illness that can be treated

I had a dog who if left with a house guest I am 99% sure would have bitten them. Was the dog dangerous to guests? No, because I made sure that whenever we had guests dog was muzzled, on a lead which I held all the time while he was in the house and while we ate dinner was put in the garden.

Owners do need to take it seriously and take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Doesn’t mean pts.

The Face part isn’t any more relevant in terms of dog aggression than if it had been the hand or leg, it’s simply that children are most often bitten in the face because they’re smaller and so it’s in the line of fire.

I suspect for a 9 year old to get her face within biting range of a dog she was probably fairly close and making direct eye contact . If she has no serious injury then it was an inhibited bite and not a dog that wanted to cause injury.

@inwood

I’d strongly suggest checking out the doggone safe website for education and support
doggonesafe.com/Speak_Dog

I hope you DD is ok

I am generally of the view that genuinely aggressive dogs should be put to sleep, and the idea that some perpetuate on here that an aggressive dog should be rehabilitated and then rehomed annoys me.

However, it is also not true that any dog can attack unprovoked at any time. While unprovoked attacks do happen, and I myself was in fact attacked by a dog when I was three, the vast, vast majority of dog bites happen for a reason. Doesn’t always mean that someone is to blame but sometimes circumstances are.

E.g. a few years ago a baby was mauled to death by I think it was two Rottweilers when it was left in a room above a pub or similar and the dogs entered through a window from the roof and killed it. The baby certainly hadn’t provoked the dogs, however the dogs were there as guard dogs, and were therefore intended to be aggressive. In that instance the owners, and likely the parents were at fault, although I would still have had the dogs put to sleep.

But I’ve heard so many people say things like “oh our dogs are so wonderful, the kids pull their ears and sit on them and everything and they never bat an eyelid,” and then get upset when the dogs bite the kids. Any small child pulling a dog around needs to be told in no uncertain terms to pack it in. If the child is verbal, then there are no excuses.

In the OP’s dd’s Case it appears the dog snapped and caught her face. If the dog was genuinely aggression and overcome with the need to attack it would have done far more damage. This is why. Think it’s hard to believe that this was just a case of the DD minding her own business and the dog launching itself across the room and nipping her face.

In my case the owner of the dog said afterwards that he’d been given the dog because it had bitten a child. So it was known to b an aggressive dog.

Dogs do sometimes attack without provocation. It happened to my DD. We were visiting friends who owned a pekinese. Everyone was sitting having a drink, the dog was lying next to its owners, and my DD (9) got up and went to put her empty glass on the counter at the other end of the room. The dog zoomed across to her snarling and bit her on the back of her leg, and broke the skin. DD hadn’t been near the dog or even looked at it.

My grandma's dog attacked me when I was a child. I was sitting on the floor playing with another puppy and the dog must have been jealous because it just flew at me, otherwise unprovoked.

Dog had never bitten anyone before but I needed stitches and it narrowly missed my eye. Dog was PTS.

Yeah I was bitten by a neighbors dog as a child. It flew at me from across a field and bit me on the leg. It was a lovely Labrador, well trained, never shown any sign of aggression. I think people (especially dog owners) can be naive when it comes to dogs. We have thousands of dog attacks every year in the U.K. alone and they aren’t all from dangerous breeds....

I think the most telling part is that they don't understand the severity of the situation, if it had got too close to an eye or lip it could have done a lot more damage and the dog won't understand that difference so it's owners need to.

You're right to stay the hell away from them.

Tricky because you didn't witness what your daughter was doing in the lead up to being bitten.

Dog may be nervous around children and your daughter did not pick up on warning signals - in which case, poor dog if it ends up getting pts for this.

Not only did she not witness it, she appears not to have asked her dd about it.....

Not only did she not witness it, she appears not to have asked her dd about it.....

Ha just read the whole thread and I still don't know what actually happened 🤔

It's perfectly possible to train a dog as a puppy that it NEVER touches skin with teeth if the dog is trained properly from the start the dog will remove itself or make one hell of a noise before still NOT BITING.

If this were not true there would be no beaten dogs because they would all tear their owners face off at the first slap/kick, there are beaten dogs because dogs are capable of controlling what their damn teeth make contact with.

Before the smart arses chip in No beating a dog is not necessary to stop it being a danger. Responsible ownership is hard work and takes time spent training and not excusing nips or allowing 'games' that involve teeth (beyond picking up when fetching/finding).

It's mad how many 'dog lovers' choose to blame the victim for their own laziness and the denial that a dog none of us know anything about would attack without provocation is insane.

The dog that had a stroke and bit as a result is a bit scary to be honest.

No dog can ever be trained to never bite

They are not robots

They are animals and therefore can be unpredictable

Anything from illness to pain can change the way a dog can react

I was bitten in face, near eye, by a puppy when I was a child.
I still could never agree that was reason to put that specific animal down.
That Puppy who bit me was over-excited, not dangerous.

Can't tell what I'd do in OP's situation. Not enough detail. Is her DD actually upset by the event?

Puppies don’t bite through aggression though. They are generally very bitey and need to learn bite inhibition. So nobody would suggest putting a puppy down for biting.

The immediate reaction most people have when they hear that a dog has bitten a child (especially if that bite is to the face) is that it should be PTS , the thinking being that if a dog has turned on you once it can never be trusted.

I was bitten on the face by my uncle's dog when I was 9, broke the skin very slightly, but nothing that required stitches and no scarring, so perhaps the same degree of injury as OPs daughter. My cousin was only a toddler at the time, so without the backstory it would sound obvious that having him PTS was the only option, he clearly couldn't be trusted around children.

There was a reason behind the bite though, he was 'protecting' my cousin from me. She was running (toddling really) away from me, while I crawled after her, 'chasing' her. She was squealing and shouting no as I teased that I was going to catch her, and the next thing I know the dog has bitten my jaw/side of my face. I remember he actually held me there for a few seconds, not really biting down per say, but with his teeth still around my jaw keeping me still.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he thought he was protecting his family, I had unknowingly 'provoked' him, or at least provoked his protective instinct. The baby was squealing, I was chasing her, I'm sure to him it sounded like she was distressed. He was a big dog, if he really wanted to hurt me he could have done so very easily, I think he was trying to stop me more than trying to hurt me.

In the end the dog had to be rehomed (full history disclosed), because my uncle was 99% sure that he would never have hurt the baby, but that 1% of doubt kept him up at night. The whole family was heartbroken, but it was the only option for them.

Sometimes the situation just isn't black & white unfortunately. In the OPs case, she doesn't know what really happened in the room, so staying away from the dog seems like the only option.

Bear in mind if your DD was annoying the dog she’s not going to admit it, also how can you not know the difference between a nip and a bite?
Just because she’s been brought up with dogs isn’t a get out, your DD might assume every dog can be treated the way the dogs she knows can.
I would not have the dog pts, do not leave your DD unsupervised with an unknown dog. It’s very rare for dogs to attack unprovoked.

@GorkyMcPorky
There is no such thing as a dangerous breed, you’re more likely to be bitten by a Labrador or collie than any other breed, despite the misguided view of labradors as perfect family dogs.