Another fatal dog attack

[Viviennemary]

I felt sick when I just saw this on Sky News. A nine month old baby in Wales. Its desperately sad. But when is anything going to be done about those dangerous dogs. Legislation is needed.

To add. I don't like Staffordshire Bull Terriers at all, they have been abused by arsehole backyard breeders BUT there are a strong core of decent breeders and owners of well bred SBTs that are as horrified by badly bred, aggressive bull crosses as the rest of us are.

Therefore I think there needs to be strong legislation and licensing for ALL bull (fighting) type breeds including SBTs in order to protect the public from the backyard breeding/crossing of them and also to protect the pedigree SBT breed itself.

Quite. The sort of people who own these brute dogs are primitive beings. No education. No prospects. They are the lowest rung on the social ladder.

So, being able to intimidate others with these dogs gives them a fleeting sense of power and status.

So I got off the train today and some huge dog - not sure if a bully - was pulling at its lead towards me.

I realised later it was probably because it smelt my sandwich in the large paper M&S/ bag, so I don’t think it was being aggressive. However I don’t want dog drool over my food/bag and idiot owners like that never replace the items their dog destroys. Thankfully it never touched me although it came close.

The owner was useless! I let her and the dog walk ahead of me out of the train station after that because I wanted to put distance between us and watched them walk down the path from behind. The dog was literally pulling this tiny thin woman around so she was zig zagging instead of walking straight down the path.

It may or may not have been aggressive but either way it’s another instance of someone having a dog they can’t control and bringing it into a crowded public area. Absolute joke.

For some yeah it probably is.

But there are a lot of people who believe that ‘it’s not the dog, it’s the owner’ mantra and that their dog is soft and gentle. And they are, until they aren’t.

I’ve seen any number of Z list slebs heaping praise on these dogs. Yes, maybe those who listen aren’t very bright but not being brain of Britain doesn’t mean you deserve to be torn to shreds, or your children do.

It's not about deserving it's the fact that they will keep willfully taking the risk and putting the rest of us at risk. The CCTV footage of XLs running at random people and savagely attacking is chilling, there's a few that stay in my mind, there's one where a man is walking his dog & an XL runs out of a property and attacks the dog, the owner finally turns up and after a struggle drags the XL off only to get it back on to his property and the XL pulled free & got that poor innocent dog again! There's the footage of the woman at a train station walking two XLs, both start attacking a man who eventually gets free but the useless woman ay the end of the leads then proceeds to try & take these aggressive dogs that have just attacked someone on to a busy passenger train! Luckily police were there and stopped her! But she was willing to cause carnage and potential fatalities by taking those dogs on a train!

The worst one that stays with me is footage of a mum walking a dog with a little boy on a trike at her side when an XL runs out of a property and locks on to her dog, she's screaming and the little boy is screaming and it's lucky the dog didn't turn on that little lad or he'd probably be dead now. The useless owner took ages to get out there and get their dog off.

We shouldn't be endanger just waking down a street incase one of these fighting dogs jumps a fence etc and comes running at us. People simply shouldn't be allowed to own dogs over a certain size & strength! Should we be allowed to have pet Gorillas?

Two arrests made on suspicion of child neglect and having a dangerously out of control dog. Good.

@FlyMeSomewhere There's the footage of the woman at a train station walking two XLs, both start attacking a man who eventually gets free but the useless woman ay the end of the leads then proceeds to try & take these aggressive dogs that have just attacked someone on to a busy passenger train! Luckily police were there and stopped her! But she was willing to cause carnage and potential fatalities by taking those dogs on a train!

I didn’t hear about this but it sounds horrendous. I really think we either need to start having pet free carriages in trains or making owners put a muzzle on their dog if not an outright ban, seems a recipe for disaster bringing various temperaments of dogs into a confined space and potentially crowded noisy area. Everyone will claim their dog can handle it until it can’t and then passengers will be blamed for being bitten as they were “too loud” or coming “too close” etc.

And I completely agree even if the intent of the “it’s the owner not the breeds” crowd isn’t intentionally harmful it is still causing harm so they must be roundly called out as they’re literally a danger to the rest of us.

I don’t disagree that we should ban bully breeds but if we are to go on statistics then stepfathers pose a far greater danger as to tiny babies in front facing car seats. It comes down to how far we are willing to let the state dictate our personal lives. It also comes down to money. There has to be a will to enforce legislation and that means funding which frankly at the moment there’s none of. We are facing a huge hole in the budget so there will be zero appetite for further costly enforcement for something that statistically is so low on the danger list.

I don’t disagree that we should ban bully breeds but if we are to go on statistics then stepfathers pose a far greater danger as to tiny babies in front facing car seats.

Can’t really euthanise stepfathers, though. And I thought front-facing car seats were now illegal for “tiny babies”.

The authorities who issued the Certificate of Exemption must take some of the blame. If a dog is a dangerous breed then what difference does a Certificate make. None.

Yes, but those are things where any of us can have some control. You can decide not to have a relationship or to leave your new partner alone with your children, you can research car seat risks thoroughly before buying. But if someone with an XL bully walks past you in the street, there's very little you can do to ensure your safety.

This. 100%.

But the cost of enforcement has to be weighed against the cost of allowing these dogs to continue to attack and kill people.
Cost of a human life.
Cost of plastic surgery/rehab
Cost of police investigations.
Cost of criminal trials of owners.
Cost of prison for offenders.
Care costs for other children.

I am sure there will be more.

Is it low down on the danger list? Do stepfather's hospitalise 11000 people a year? I don't have to worry about a stepfather running out of nowhere to lock his jaws on my throat! Stepfathers and baby seats are not an issue to society! A baby seat can be used properly, stepfathers aren't a public safety issue either! Everybody is at risk from XLs because they are a defective mutant breed that is too big and strong for any human to control! I don't have to worry about a baby seat or a stepfather ripping my 73 year old mum to pieces when she takes her little dog out! Absolutely she's had to pass XLs without muzzles on & very edgy looking owners! I have too where I live!

Also don't do that state dictating what we do thing! That tends to be the war cry of the most inconsiderate and antisocial members of society! When nearly everybody in society feels the same about something dangerous, it's right minded to do something about it! Most people want this and why would you ever be against it! Don't be that person that wants lawlessness because you've got an issue with authority! That's why the country is in the mess it's in.

I was bitten by a Staffie X as a child.

I was visiting a friend at her home for the first time and was apprehensive of the family dog. Her parents laughed and told me I was more likely to be licked to death than hurt by their dog, he had never shown any aggression before.

Later that day friend and I were alone in the kitchen making food and for some reason the dog, who I had been ignoring, just went for me. He leapt up and sunk his teeth into my forearm and hung there. The Dad was in the living room and came charging in to help. He was a big strong man, ex army Falklands vet, he could only get the dog off my arm by picking up the microwave from the worktop and throwing it at the dog.

35 years later I still have the scars on my arm. So now whenever people laugh at my fear and proudly claim their dog only licks people to death I pull up my sleeve and show them my forearm. I was a young teen, I hate to think what the damage would have been if I was younger.

Meanwhile there are some humans no doubt planning how to create the next mixed breed of powerful dog and teach it to eviscerate things. The dogs are not the problem, the humans who create them are. That needs to stop.

'The authorities' simply administered the exemption scheme which the legislation created. They had no power to assess the risk posed by each individual dog.

The problem is a dog can't be fined or sent to prison. They are the problem not the humans. These dogs are too dangerous to be kept as pets. They all need to be put down.

So you don’t mind animals suffering then? not to mention all the children and adults that will continue to be killed because of the humans breeding them. That makes solid sense!

I think both the dogs and the humans creating them are the problem. It’s not the dogs’ fault they exist, but dogs like this can’t be allowed to be a danger to the public.

I agree the dogs should be destroyed, but there also should be more attention given to stopping people breeding these creatures in the first place.