5 month old and 2 year old killed by family pet pitbulls

[eucalippy]

That the family had for over 8 years without a single prior violent incident. The attack went on for ten minutes leaving the baby boy and 2 year old girl dead and the mother with an "uncountable amount of stitches and injuries"

Stuff like this makes me so sad but scares me too, I've always been scared of big dogs, but it's something I try and keep at bay and not put on to my kids. My brother and his wife have 2 Rottweilers who I was petrified of at first but have learnt to be around, they are very calm but stuff like this makes me feel like I can never take the kids round there again because what if they just turn?

I know about the whole it's owners not breed spiel, but stuff like this brings that into question surely? You can never truly know what a dog might do can you?

Link if anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about. RIP to those beautiful kids.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/baby-sister-killed-pitbulls-memphis-b2197336.html?amp

All of you with dogs who say you won't leave your kid alone with them - is that not a massive hassle? I am not a dog person but it just seems like a huge palava to have two sets of things in your house who must be kept apart.

Personally dog ownership seems more trouble than it's worth unless you're blind or have a lot of sheep to herd.

I agree, dog owners absolutely should learn dog body language and teach their kids accordingly. All dog owners should learn signs of fear and stress. It's incredible how many don't, and think of their dogs as being like people. A dog has the needs, brain and emotions of a dog, not a person.
It's very sad to see people misread a dog's body language. Dogs have a very clear escalation of signs from slightly worried, all the way up to imminent attack. If you're blind to this you should not have a dog. Lying on their back with their legs up and the whites of their eyes showing does NOT mean "tickle my tummy", and pulling their lips back showing their teeth is not "smiling" ffs. Dogs tell you clearly when they want to be left alone.

Thanks for your brilliant post @Quveas. You have stated the real facts, and the important areas to consider, very clearly and succinctly.

From your post I get the feeling that like me, you find all the posts from ignorent people who have no real understanding about dogs, very frustrating and at times upsetting.
Of course I find it just as upsetting as any other sane person does, when you hear about the terrible death a few people, but particularly tiny children, suffer at the mouths of dogs. It makes me shudder and feel sick thinkng about what that person went through.

But I also feel extremely upset and sick when I hear far, far, far, more frequently about a (usually) small child, who has suffered terribly for hours/days/weeks/months or even years sometimes, at the hands of an adult who they should be able to trust, love and believe in, more than anyone else in their whole world. If a child somehow manages to escape that situation, I don't know how they would ever be able to trust and love another adult again, I can imagine that their mental health may suffer for the rest of their life, and make normal relationships almost, or actually impossible for them.

I had a bad scare once when I was a child, from a relative's dog, and although it is now more than 50 years later, I still feel some apprehension when I am around that particular breed. But I don't want the breed banned, I didn't even want that particular dog to be put to sleep - and thank goodness it wasn't - and even though I was never brave enough to come face to face with it again, I was very glad that my relatives kept him, and loved him until his time really had come.

@FictionalCharacter the problem is a lot of these breeds don’t give clear warning signals until it’s too late or if they do the signs are very very subtle compared with some breeds. Lots of the time before a bull thing goes to eat you they don’t growl or warn before hand at all (speaking from experience)

Its even harder to read the brachy ones, bulldogs and the like because deformities have taken away the natural communication ability. Then you have the cropped and docked ones, another communication signal gone in the pursuit of aesthetics.

You can see how easy it is for people to be bitten.

Mum remembers the first rash of child killings by Pit Bulls that led to the ban
A trainer on LBC radio said the only way to get one to release was to insert something into the dog’s anus.

(Stick, biro or heaven forfend a finger)
This allegedly causes the attacker to release.

There are videos about how to “choke the air” out of an attacking dog, but again it needs technique and strength and a ligature like a belt if the dog isn’t wearing collar.

But in the panic of an attack , how would one do this to het a dog off a child or pet?

Punishing those who are responsible, those who will train their dog, observe the rules, have insurance, use the vets etc is not the answer. Those who aren't responsible will never adhere to the rules - because they don't adhere to any of the rules on anything

The recent case in America—these weren’t abused dogs. They were much loved family pets. The father iirc did a lot of fundraising for animal rescue charities.

It’s not a matter of training, it’s absolutely the breed: pitbulls are bred to have high predatory drive and low bite inhibition. The modern breed is bred for the fighting ring and should never be in a family home.

Really they shouldn’t exist where dog fighting is banned.

That sounds horrific.
My own friend ( UK) had two children (baby and toddler) attacked by a Bull breed while crossing a road.
The dog came barrelling out of a park , no owner in sight, and leapt at the baby , overturning the pushchair, but baby was bitten, as was toddler. Ambulance was called

Owner appeared with a thick chain and beat the dog off
Police said the owner (18) had a ban for dog fighting.

Friend’s children and her were terrified of dogs, they are teens now, and to get them over a dog fear, friend obtained a very lovely small Sighthound cross that has helped the children immeasurably.
But on walks, friend always has a weather eye out for potential aggressive dogs.

@Wonderful33
Rarely you say? Are you a social worker then?
It's always the alleged social workers who insist it only happens in the most extreme of cases. That's a hell of alot of women who pose an imminent risk to their babies then, who are their social workers?
These were the figures as of 2018. I'm unable to see any upto date statistics but this is recent enough to show that it is something that has happened and is still happening.. alot.

Please do not talk rubbish. A single headline grabbed to prove a false point isn't a fact. There are an average of 1,872 children taken into care as newborns each year. Over the period in question there were over 6,579,000 children born. That means that this happens in approximately 0.0285% of newborns. That is, by any reasonable definition very rare. And unfortunately (a) there are women who pose an imminent threat to their babies, as the courts can testify to and (b) placing a child in care as a newborn does not necessarily mean that they are not working with the mother / parent(s) to return the child, or to place the child with other appropriate family members.

Suggesting that nobody should be allowed to have dogs because of what they might do is no different than suggesting that parents shouldn't be allowed children because of what they might do. An average of one child a week in killed in the UK, and those homicides are most often perpetrated by a parent or care-giver.

Suggesting that nobody should be allowed to have dogs because of what they might do is no different than suggesting that parents shouldn't be allowed children because of what they might do

No parent should have a pit bull or any other ‘working dog’ with high prey drive and low bite inhibition. We know which dogs are the most dangerous, a shame that rescues tend to be full of these types of dogs, probably for a reason

NO dog is predictable - they are animals.

@WiddlinDiddlin please can you link to the research by Jim Crosby indicating dog attacks are set up to hide child abuse? That sounds (morbidly) fascinating.

You'd have to email him or, go to one of his seminars I think, theres a LOT of photographic stuff thats... disturbing (the cases I am thinking of, under the dog bite marks there were human inflicted injuries, in one case the child was shown to have been dead hours before the dog tooth marks were inflicted, and the dog the parents claimed was seen biting the child... could not have inflicted the marks on the child as their teeth didn't match the pattern at all!)..

He has a now rather out of date blog jimcrosby.canineaggressionissueswithjimcrosby.com/ but it is worth seeking out what he is written and if you can see him via webinar or seminar he is a far far better speaker than his sporadic writing would suggest!

That simply is not true.

Many animals are incredibly predictable, if dogs were not so very very predictable we would not have a 40'000 year long history of living with/in close proximity to them.

We would not be able to train them to (variously), guide the blind, detect blood glucose levels, cancer, allergens etc, detect survivors in search and rescue scenarios ranging from mountainsides to collapsed buildings.

We would not be able to teach dogs to drive cars and fly planes (yep, both of those have been done, by people I know personally), we would not be able to teach them abstract concepts like top/middle/bottom or biggest, smallest.

We would not be able to modify their behaviour either to address behaviour problems (which is what I do all day long) or to alter natural behaviours to fit what we need (for example, altering the predatory sequence of eye - stalk - chase - grab bite - kill bite - dismember - consume into the 'eye - stalk - modified chase' that a border collie has, or the eye-KILL BITE that a patterdale terrier has, or the 'eye - stalk - freeze' that the setters and pointers have...)

Predictability is WHY dogs can live with humans and are trainable by humans.

It is human unpredictability and stupidity that is the issue.

Oh thanks. I've come across him before - I think perhaps via Victoria Stillwell - and found him very interesting.

Just when you think you've plumbed the depths of human depravity, there's people using dog bites to cover up child abuse ... Off down the rabbit hole I go! 😃

For @WiddlinDiddlin, sorry

t is human unpredictability and stupidity that is the issue.

well it is stupid to have pit bulls in a home with children. But they’ve also been known to maim and kill adults as well. If you live in a country that bans dogfighting then pit bulls shouldn’t exist there at all

When a person has a child they know what triggers their child, and what calms them. They know what works in their house. Its the same with each dog. You cannot say that the same thing applies to each dog.

It is the persons responsibility to know what each member of the house reacts to, and that includes the dog. Humans need training not the dogs!

Im sick of people making excuses for Pits and their associated breeds. They’re dangerous, end of.

I don’t care about your anecdotes of being ‘nearly killed’ by a Jack Russell or an aggressive Lab you knew, the statistics don’t lie and Pits are responsible for a majority of deaths and severe maulings and that’s not even counting the amount of other pets they kill and the trauma they can cause through disfigurement.

They are powerful, man made breeds bred to take down BULLS for Christ’s sake and certain characteristics - like not showing warning signs for aggression and ignoring pain - were DELIBERATELY bred into them. They have also been used for fighting for a very long time - again this has been bred into them. There’s a reason why chihuahuas and golden retrievers are not used as fighting and attack dogs!!

People are all rushing to repeat the same thing about not leaving dogs and kids alone - yes great, we know. Did you miss the part of the story where the Mum was THERE and fought the dogs for TEN MINUTES losing her dominant arm and BOTH children in the process? I doubt a Golden Retriever could do that and if you know of a scenario like that then please let me know because that is NOT normal. It’s fucking horrifying what’s happened, I’m sick of people excusing it for the sake of a dog that doesn’t need to exist. There are hundreds of breeds out there that won’t wipe out almost an entire family.

It's like you have no idea about the situation in the UK or elsewhere, at all...

There are plenty of places that have banned dogfighting, but not banned Pit Bull Terriers - in those places, of course pitbulls exist, they do a great many more things than fight and many have been show bred, bred for SAR work and much more.

In countries like the UK that have banned 'pit bulls and pit bull types' and determine what those are via a set of measurements and proportions rather than DNA, we will NEVER eradicate such dogs from the country, because you can 'make' a pitbull type dog by breeding two perfectly legal breeds together and you won't know until they're adult whether they fit those measurements or not!

Well quite.

I disagree. Dogs (indeed all animals) are unpredictable for the simple reason that are animals. If you were to stroke any dog who (unbeknownst to the stroker) was in a bad mood, in pain, got indigestion then you cannot predict the response. Just like humans they can have bad days, but humans have the social skills not to bite the person who has irritated them. Dogs do not.

And there are breeds that are bred to bite.

.It is the persons responsibility to know what each member of the house reacts to, and that includes the dog. Humans need training not the dogs!
Easy to say but most humans are not dog trainers and don’t have the time/capacity or desire to become a trainer, as I said above the people who give me the most advice- it’s nearly always just theory, because I know their dogs and know they don’t do what they say I need to. And it’s fair enough because that’s life- most of us just want a little friend that slots into the family dynamic and is happy, we don’t want or need our dog to be robots

I don’t know any family with a dog who actually does this though. It may be the theory but not (in the main) the reality.
Some dogs are bred to be physically more capable of inflicting harm. Personally I don’t think these types should eb family pets, however well trained they are because of the potential damage.
I grew up with dogs and am not scared of dogs- but wouldn’t want my children in a home with staffie’s, pitbull-like cross breeds, Rotweillers or Alsatians.

There are plenty of places that have banned dogfighting, but not banned Pit Bull Terriers - in those places, of course pitbulls exist, they do a great many more things than fight and many have been show bred, bred for SAR work and much more

There are other breeds way more adapted to SAR don’t make me laugh with your apologetics for a breed that is specifically bred for the fighting pit 😆

I don’t know any family with a dog who actually does this though. It may be the theory but not (in the main) the reality.
We do this, the kids aren’t allowed alone with the dog. It’s a pain but the same as having a toddler/baby, he’s a puppy and mouths and in the first few weeks I saw him get over excited and jump up over and over again mouthing at my tall 14 yo who freaked out and I just thought what’s the point? If the kids are playing myself or dh are there, or he’s inside. If we’re all sitting down and I have to go to the kitchen he comes with me. People can say I’m ott but he’s decently trained for his age, a good tempered little man, but I’ve seen what he does to a teddy when over excited and I don’t want that to be my child’s arm or leg!!!