DC was bitten by strange dog, owner has now contacted me

[Villanelle]

Yesterday my DC was bitten by a dog at the park. He was playing in the play area, went down the slide and then started running after his younger sibling, the dog came out of nowhere and started chasing him. It caught up to him and bit him on the leg and back. He was hurt (puncture wounds, bleeding and bruised) but not enough to need stitches, thankfully. It was terrifying though and could have been so much worse. It was a big dog, like a Weimaraner, and totally out of control in a children's play area, the children(!!) walking it had to drag it away.

We contacted the police but they're going to contact us again in a couple of days.
It was posted about on FB by someone who witnessed it. I didn't reply to it but somehow the owner of the dog has contacted me. They haven't apologised or anything, just given me their phone number and told me to phone them.

I want to shout at them for being so irresponsible, I'm so angry. I don't know if I should reply to them or just leave it up to the police/dog warden. I don't want to argue with them, of course, but I don't think they realise how awful the situation was?

How anyone could defend the owners of a dog which bit a child in a PLAY AREA is beyond shocking.

Honestly I'm usually the first to stick up for the dog being demonised by hysterical MNers but this dog is clearly known to the police, obviously has previous incidents of aggression and the owners aren't taking it seriously. It's completely out of control and dangerous. As a dog owner and dog lover I really can't see what options there are other than removing the dog and putting it down.

Its sad and the dog is a victim as much as the poor child but once they are at the stage of having bitten a child unprovoked (multiple times from the sounds of it!) there is nothing else you can do. It can't be rehomed, its beyond the help of a behaviourist as it could never be trusted again. If it were my dog, I'd be devastated but I'd do it, I wouldn't have a choice.

It being a child that was bitten makes it even less likely that any amount of training could make a difference. Dogs are intelligent, they understand the concept of childhood. You will notice that most dogs are vastly more tolerant of children than they would otherwise be. They play more gently with them, tolerate more manhandling and even, in the case of my dogs, refrain from pulling on the lead if a child is holding it. He'll yank my bloody arm off but hand it to a kid and he's suddenly a model citizen. They get that children are fragile and don't know better. If they're biting a child unprovoked, that is something that can't be trained out of them imho. They don't have the, well, I suppose empathy is the closest word.

The owners are the ones to blame for this and should be punished and heavily fined. or shot It certainly isn't the OPs fault and even if it were her decision, its just going to happen again as the owners are clearly feckless wastes of space.

I would just pass the phone number and a printout of the message that they sent you. Also did your child get given a tetanus jab? Sounds like he was lucky, too many stupid people have these massive breeds that they cannot control.

Glad I found this thread again, wondered how your little one was doing @Villanelle xx

I'd imagine they didn't apologise over message because that is an admittance of guilt and hey don't want their dog to be put down. I'd have called and they'd have probably apologised over the phone.

I'd rather they surrendered the dog to a rescue centre which could work with it.

So did anything happen in the end?