Woman looses arm due to dog bite

[Drlovestrong]

Dog owner who lost arm after pet bit her is suing RSPCA for £200K https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11992905/Rescue-dog-owner-lost-arm-pet-bit-suing-RSPCA-200-000.html?ito=native_share_article-nativemenubutton

Can we talk about this? I am appalled at the amount of dog bites (fatal and otherwise). What is going on?! I am a life long owner of dogs, they are my favourite animal, but I think this article should be discussed.

A few years back, a friend relinquished her two staffies to a local dog rescue. She hadn't trained her pets and after the birth of her second child she felt she couldn't trust them around her children. One attempted to bite her and she felt they were unstable and aggressive. She fully disclosed all of this information to the rescue and was disappointed and anxious that when she went online to look at the rescues advert of the dogs, the descriptions of them were not accurate and they were being advertised as suitable for families with children aged 5+.

I was shocked that a rescue would do this but have since learnt this wasn't a one off and other people have similar stories to tell. I love dogs and this isn't about me trying to tell people not to rescue dogs but hoped we could discuss our thoughts and opinions on it. Personally I wouldn't ever rescue a dog as a mother with children at home. I had this viewpoint long before any of this came to light. I feel its too risky to have a dog that you cannot be certain of its history in and around young children. Anyway....what do you think? Thanks

I just think it’s mad. I like dogs, and have had some as pets over the years but I can’t believe dogs with history of aggression are being marketed as suitable for homes with kids. You can see how there are so many tragic events unfolding what seems like weekly now. I’m sure the vast majority of bites don’t even make it to the media. I know my local park is now no man’s land at certain times of the day as there are so many big dogs running wild. It’s just not worth the stress to try keep the kids safe in it. I know a small dog was recently killed by a pitbull there and the owner of the dog ran away and just left his pitbull behind while the other owner of the dog that was attacked had tried to intervene but couldn’t save their pet. They were lucky to not get badly hurt. No idea what happened to the pitbull I know it was taken away, but very sad on the other owner and I don’t know if the horrible dog owner will ever be found that ran off. I think we need more enforcement of the laws in place and as others have said, stricter laws around ownership and breeds. It’s a shame because some people are wonderful and responsible pet owners but have to worry about walking their well behaved dogs because of bad owners!!!

I agree. The RSPCA failed in their duty of care.

The bizarre thing is that the RSPCA will happily kill hard to rehome dogs at the drop of a hat.

Thats the impression I get of them, they’re more likely to euthanise than others, which makes this case make no sense. If they knew, I’m surprised they didn’t euthanise.

This exactly.
it’s hardly rocket science.

I’m also surprised at “only” 200k. But as pp said that may be some sort of legal guideline? I know we have set amounts on our work insurance but that’s not for negligence cases, just “lost an arm? Have £x”

I am one who went for a yorkie precisely because they can’t do huge amounts of damage and I’d be able to overpower it quickly. The dog in the article needed tasering multiple times to get it off!!

I’m sure there was a case where police were entering a house for whatever reason and couldn’t get past one of this type dog. So they tasered it to subdue it, but it died. The owner was all over the local rags pulling the sad faces and saying it was a sweet thing and the police had murdered it, was going to sue etc.

I fostered a dog with some challenging behaviour around separation anxiety. I hoped being with him all day would reassure him. Ultimately he continued to bite. He was a gorgeous dog but I had him pts. He would have ripped someone’s face off. Made me very upset but it was the right thing to do.
That dog, with a bite history, should have been pts. If the victim gets 200k compensation it’s still not enough imo.

@SleepingTilSummer Ah, maybe that's it. Awful if that's the case, £200k is nothing when you're facing the rest of your life without a limb

Crazy. And what’s amazing is it was only 15 months old. It looks massive and couldn’t be physically controlled without being tasered several times.

We had a staffy rescue which was a great experience, such a beautiful and loving dog. I’m put off getting another dog now, and one of the main reasons is that our local parks have a lot of big and poorly controlled dogs and a neighbour of mine had her small chihuahua attacked by a big dog in one of our local parks 😢 she managed to separate them (which you’re not even meant to do I believe) and her dog was okay but had to have surgery and it was a very frightening experience.

The rescue needs to take some responsibility - but so do pet owners. Acquiring an animal, realising you can’t cope with it, then passing it off to a charity FOR FREE and expecting them to sort it out is absolutely not ok.

I feel bad for this lady AND the dog. Whenever I’ve seen one, the owner can’t wait to tell me it’s an XL BULLY. ok mate.

OP - in the situation you describe with your friend, given all the information she shared what was she expecting of the rescue? Keep it kennelled forever (at no cost to her) or PTS (at no cost to her)?

I thought from the article the woman was fostering the dog for the RSPCA - she didn't own it.

Rescues gets absolutely slaughtered when they PTS dogs.
They cannot win either way.

This is a shocking and horrifying story, I feel very sorry for her but at the same time did she not realize that it wasn't a good idea to keep a large powerful carnivore as a pet 😢

I do find it interesting however that the dog had already tried to bite her a couple of days prior. I wonder if that will impact how the case is seen. But they failed to remove the dog when this was reported which is very odd. It all seems to have been handled so poorly.

yep - I’m referring to the OPs friend in the original post and the original pet owner of the XL, not the lady who’s been attacked.

Oh gosh yes totally agree.

a jack Russel bit my ex, and he is a big man, needed a paramedic and hospital with loads of stitches as it was a nasty bite.

god knows if it had been a child, the bite wouldn’t stop bleeding

Honestly I think anyone stupid enough to get one of these dogs deserves whatever they get, perhaps if more people see that the owners end up maimed or dead the dogs won't be so popular🤷
Or will they just become more of a status symbol, I'm so hard I can handle this dog etc.
Jesus wept the sooner we can get dog free zones the better 🤬

Well presumably she wanted the dogs to be advertised as suitable for an experienced owner in a no child household, rather than advertising dogs that were given up due to unsuitability with children as ‘fine for kids age 5 and over.’

I feel sorry for the woman but at the same time she's a fucking moron

So - like the lady who has been attacked?

Dog breeding needs urgent regulation. We need to stop the breeding and selling of dogs by backstreet breeders.

I did some volunteer work for this one.

The limited dog behaviour knowledge of some of the dog handlers (employed) was worrying.

Even more so, I spent some time there with a large, mastiff and had observed some worrying behaviour. The dog took hold of my arm with some force (not enough to break skin) and would not release it when he thought I might leave the room. I distracted him with a ball and left him secure. I reported that I'd seen this to the behaviourist and she could not have been less bothered. I am pretty sure she dismissed it as me being precious. Later that day, the dog badly bit another volunteer on the leg, breaking through jeans and skin.

A few days later I heard the story being told as if the dog was a 'perfect gentleman' and so the bite was unprecedented, unprovoked and unexpected. It may well have been unprovoked but it was not unprecedented nor unexpected - the dog had warned us clearly he had some behavioural issues but this had not been headed.

It was so frustrating and left a sour impression.

If the lady who was attacked was an experienced handler who was given all the information that the dogs had previously bitten, then yes. The issue op mentions is that her friend was completely honest about the dogs, and the rescue then lied when trying to rehome them. She wasn’t ‘expecting them to kennel them forever’ she was simply having the reasonable expectation that the rescue wouldn’t lie.

Well that dog should have been put down and never rehomed.

But why do people want dogs who are large enough and have the ability to overpower them and potentially to kill? I know there will be dog owners of certain breeds who will disagree and talk about how great their dog is and that every dog has the potential to bite. But it's never chihuahuas or miniature poodles killing people is it?