To tell my sister if she buys a Staffie I won't bring DS around to hers?

[Annarose2014]

I suspect I am. I've heard so much about them being amazing, wonderful Nanny dogs.....

But I've also heard of a lot of attacks. I'm desperately afraid of them, truth be told. I don't trust them. Especially as the dog wouldn't live with DS, but only see him about once a week so its not like DS would be "his" charge.

Sister has wanted one for years and is bitterly disappointed as this is the year she's finally in a position to buy a dog.

But in fairness I just said that she could certainly get one, but would have to see DS elsewhere other than her place as I wouldn't be comfortable with DS in an enclosed area with one in case DS did something wrong and the dog felt threatened and we wouldn't be fast enough to stop something happening.

AIBU?

My sister has two rescue staffies, and they are lovely. My nine month old son sees them once a week, and they are happy for him to stroke them for a bit when they come over for a sniff, but most of the time they just relax on their bed and don't pay attention to him.

I would never leave a child alone with any animal though.

which man, which dog and which common sense precautions are taken.

Exactly! Which man? Not an unrelated one. Which dog? Not an attack dog. Which precautions? Don't go to a house with an attack dog.

'Attack dog' 'Fight dog' I've never heard such nonsense. You are sounding silly WeAll

And dogs don't warn you they are going to attack they just do it

Nope.
Dogs will give lots of warnings that they are stressed and unhappy, the last being a show of aggression.

You might not notice them, or you might notice them and not know what they mean, but the dog will be giving them through the way it carries its tail and ears, and what it is doing with its eyes and mouth and tongue.

Here you go:
A list of things a dog will do to tell you it is unhappy, long before it thinks about being aggressive.

Now think about how many of these you've seen a dog do, and ignored. Especially the 'whale eye' one, which can be seen as the dog pulling a 'what are they like?!' face. Google pictures of kids hugging dogs and look at how many of the dogs have a whale eye. The dog is clearly saying 'I don't like this situation' but very few people actually bother learning enough about dog behaviour to realise what the dog is trying to say.

www.doggonesafe.com/signs_of_anxiety

They were bred to attack Bulls. Rebranding them as 'nanny dogs' can't alter the fact they are attack dogs.

Ha. They were NOT bred to attack Bulls (why would people want Bulls attacked? ). They were originally crossbred from Terriers and Bulldogs

Even small things, in context, can indicate the dog is uncomfortable with the situation. Such as yawning or licking their lips. As the article says. You don't have to spend hours reading about canine behaviour, just read the article.

No dog is 100% safe with a child which is why all dogs should be supervised

You shouldn't be singling out the staffy who by the way is 1 of only 2 dogs recommended by the Kennel Club as suitable with kids

As for your thoughts on Labradors , A&E admissions in UK for dogs bites, statistics show labs as highest amount of bites even though staffy is the uk most popular dog.

Top 5 most aggressive dogs are

In the following order..

Dachshunds
Chihuahua
Jack Russell
Australian Cattle Dog
Cocker Spaniel

A study in uk found.

Wow strawberry, I'm agog at your smug stupidity. A quick Google tells me this much...

"One of the biggest sporting and gambling events in 17th and 18th century was bull and bear baiting. The reason they baited bulls was apparently to tenderise the meat. In fact at one time it was illegal to sell bull meat, unless it had been baited and tenderised first.

The dogs that were used to bait bulls were Old English Bulldogs. These Bulldogs were very different from what we see in today’s breed. They were more like the athletic American Bulldog, but larger and far more heavily muscled. They bred the Bull and Terrier with other smaller terriers creating a heavily muscled pocket fighting dog. This finally became the Staffordshire Bull Terrier we know today. "

I have a mini/short legged JRT and he's adorable but I won't lie, he could rip the face off you when scared/cornered. He doesn't like other dogs either so walking him is always an epic event because I never know who/what we'll encounter. He is trained, he has been socialised and he knows his place in our home but he is wilful and I regularly look like an arsehole when I have to tell children not to stick their hand in his face while their parents look on, encouraging them to 'look at the nice doggy'.

My previous dog, a staffie, was a big dopey lump who thought she was a lap dog and yet people would cross the street with their kids when they saw me walking with her.

Never judge by breed!

Over the past 15 years my brother has raised 3 Staffies. During that time 7 Dc have been born into our family, I have fostered another 47 children. All have had lengthy and frequent interaction with the dogs, none of them have had even a warning from the dogs.
YANBU to be wary of dogs, YABVU to single out Staffies.

One of the biggest sporting and gambling events in 17th and 18th century was bull and bear baiting. The reason they baited bulls was apparently to tenderise the meat. In fact at one time it was illegal to sell bull meat, unless it had been baited and tenderised first.

The dogs that were used to bait bulls were Old English Bulldogs

So quite a tenuous link to 21st century staffies then?

Not at all tenuous actually. A direct link is hardly tenuous.

WeAll,
Is there any dog breed you don't think is an attacks dog, given they are all essential wolves?

As for your thoughts on Labradors , A&E admissions in UK for dogs bites, statistics show labs as highest amount of bites even though staffy is the uk most popular dog.

It seems that the most dangerous is actually the American pit bull. Apologies for the US website, I can't find death tolls by breed in the UK.

www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2010/10/29/dangerous-dogs.html#slide1

Any dog can attack. But give that dog huge jaws, make it very strong, breed it to attack and then have it near children and that makes you a fucking moron.

In the space of three posts we have a claim that 17th/18th century breeding is too distant to indicate temperament today, and a claim that all dogs are still essentially wolves (not by the same poster, I hasten to add). Go figure.

Any breed of dog could turn seemingly without warning. But certain breeds of dog are far more dangerous if that happens, due to their size, strength, jaw and teeth shape, and so on. That anyone even attempts to argue to the contrary makes me want to bash my head into my desk.

I'd rather be bitten by a pike than by a great white shark.

I'm glad you've had some of your views changed op.
Your own text did come across as a bit emotional blackmail though.

Yes there have been ( along with others) news reports on staffie attacks.
Ofcourse they're going to do more damage than a small dog.
Little dogs also bite, but hardly any of these are reported.
All dogs have the potential to bite.
In my life i have never been bitten my a staffie or rottie or any big dog.
I have however been bitten by a
Chihuahua, Yorkshire terrier and a jack Russell.
They are in the news right now, they seem to be the devil dog of the moment.
Few years ago it was the rottie, or the akita.
They are lovely dogs, they'd be one of my first choices if i could have a dog as rescues are inundated with them, mainly due to bad owners having them in the first place!
( using them as status dogs because yes they are powerful dogs) but thAt isn't the dogs fault.
That's a terrible owner who shouldn't have an animal, training them to be aggressive.

The locking jaw for any dog is a myth.

a claim that 17th/18th century breeding is too distant to indicate temperament today,

Of a different breed Smilla

Anyway, much of this is hysteria from people who have never met a dog.

sparechange

Thankyou for that link. The video was interesting. I have grown up with cats, and can interpret their behaviour, but I have not had enough contact with dogs to 'read' them. Hence I am a little nervous of them.

My mum always told me never to pet a dog that was tied up, and that really comes back to me every time I see a child being allowed to touch the many dogs that are tied outside our school.

'Any breed of dog could turn seemingly without warning. But certain breeds of dog are far more dangerous if that happens, due to their size, strength, jaw and teeth shape, and so on. That anyone even attempts to argue to the contrary makes me want to bash my head into my desk'

That just about seems to sum it up, Smilla

"Landrace working dogs crossbred with bulldogs provided the ancestral foundation stock for the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, the Bull Terrier, the American Pit Bull Terrier and American Staffordshire Terrier."

Nice to share breeding stock history with a banned dangerous breed.

Ancestral stock being the key point. If it's 17th C bullfighting that concerns you, ask yourself how many hundreds of generations ago that was. Compared to how quickly new breeds have been created in the past and a breed standard for form and temperament are set (often done within a lifetime) it's ancient history. Traits are bred out of dogs as well as bred in.

As for the 'dogs are wolves' slant, it's true that they're genetically pretty much impossible to tell apart. However cognitively, they're an entirely different species. Current research suggest they self domesticated themselves, and were busy at it 20k years ago. That's a lot of canid generations, it only took Belyaev a couple of decades to select for a domestic fox, with similar physical and cognitive changes to the domestic dog (piebald coats, more graceful, feminine skeleton, interest in humans and increased ability to engage with and understand human gesture, etc., etc.,). (I realise this is irrelevant to the thread, it's just an area of particular interest to myself, and I get all boring and over-sharing when the topic comes up )