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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

436 replies

Annarose2014 · 15/10/2015 10:17

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?

OP posts:
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WeAllFloat · 16/10/2015 11:03

Thing is though, any death caused by a family pet is 100% preventable unlike the pavement comparison. I can 100% stop my kids being mauled in their home. And, I can 100% prevent them from being mauled by family members pets by not going there. I like those odds.

sparechange · 16/10/2015 11:06

Ok, let's try explaining this a different way.

The likelihood of a human getting injured by a dog is basically down to 2 things.
First is how likely that dog is to attack in the first place, how aggressive they typically are, how often other dogs of the same breed attack humans (not other dogs. Humans).

The second is how much damage the dog can inflict when it does attack. This is what you are utterly fixated on (albeit with a very bizarre logic).

When you look at both things together,you could create a rough 'danger score'

So to work out the likelihood of a dog attacking in the first place, you could maybe look at how many attacks there have been in previous years, taking into account how prevelant that breed is.

Sausage dogs and chihuahuas don't feature in the top 10 most popular/prevalent breeds in the UK, but they do feature in the top 10 for bites. So you can reasonably say that those dogs are aggressive. The likelihood of being bitten by them is well above average.

Staffies are either the most popular or 2nd most popular breed in the UK, depending on how you measure it. Yet they don't feature in the top 10 for bites. So you could reasonably assume that you have a very low chance of being bitten by one.

Where your logic seems to depart from everyone else's is how much weight you give to the likelihood and how much to the potential damage, when calculating the overall risk. I personally find it easier to live with a very very low likelihood of something going wrong, even if the potential 'wrong' is worse.

Put another way, you and your children have to make a journey. You have the choice of 2 cars to get you there.

Car 1 is being driven by a drunk driver in a brand new car with loads of airbags and safety features.

Option 2 is a very experienced driver in an older car with no airbags.

Which car do you get in to?

Your dog example is car 1.

FisherQueen · 16/10/2015 11:12

Dogs bite for a multitude of reasons and often in the case of serious or fatal attacks we will never get a real idea as the dog will be destroyed before any investigation is done. All we are left with is speculation.

Dogs may bite to defend resources (food, water, bed, toys, owner etc.), because they are ill or in pain (a sudden behavioural change should always have a vet trip as first port of call), fear, prey drive,lack of bite inhibition or redirected aggression. What the dog was bred for determine it's response to fear - a sighthound is more likely to run away (but prone to lead frustration if they can't) while a terrier is more likely to aggress (normally noise) as it has been bred to hunt things larger or of a similar size to it so needs to be "game" (similar reasons for dachunds). However dog bites are vanishingly rare and fatal attacked even more so. As I said above there are common denominators to these attacks but they aren't usually breed.

I should add that during my career I have been bitten twice. Neither time was by a staffies or a dog who had been typed.

WeAllFloat · 16/10/2015 11:12

Um , if the driver is meant to be the owner of the dog, then I chose option 3, the sober driver in a new car....or the good owner with a safe dog breed.

tabulahrasa · 16/10/2015 11:13

"Still no one has the answer to why some breeds attack and some bite"

There is no difference, one person's attacked is another persons bitten.

They're not technical terms.

sparechange · 16/10/2015 11:18

the good owner with a safe dog breed

The 'safe' breed being the one which doesn't feature in dog bite statistics? Like a labrador or staffie?

Also, you know that you can 100% prevent your child being run over on pavements by never letting them leave the house. You'll do that right? Because you want to 100% avoid risk of death?

But that'll be your house without stairs, because stairs mean a child is at a 'very high risk of being killed'. A risk thousands and thousands of times greater than being killed by a dog.

And we know you love to eliminate any unnecessary risk because that is what responsible people do.

Oh, and you have zero cleaning products in the house. Even locked away. Because deaths by poisoning account for around 30% of child deaths. So you can 100% eliminate that risk by not having anything in the house that a child could ingest and get ill from. Even if it is responsibly supervised at all times. Because supervising at all times isn't good enough for dog owners, so it certainly can't be good enough for bleach owners either.

Got to keep avoiding 100% of risk, right!
Nothing is too much trouble for our DCs when it comes to our risk assessments!

tabulahrasa · 16/10/2015 11:21

There are no safe breeds of dog.

A good dog owner knows that, they pick a dog that they can meet the needs of, they look after it, they train it, they socialise it, they respond to their dog's body language and they make sure that the dog is never in a situation that makes it uncomfortable and that people are always safe around it.

That is what makes a dog safe, not the breed.

WeAllFloat · 16/10/2015 11:23

I don't need a dangerous dog. Nobody does. Choosing one is stupid, and selfish. All your silly examples are things people need to do to live a normal life, owning a dog capable of killing is not one of those things.

TheMotherOfHellbeasts · 16/10/2015 11:26

There is so much hysteria about dog breeds. Of course the breed will have an influence on how a dog reacts to things (and what their baseline motivations are), but their experiences in life and the way they were trained has an infinitely more significant effect. Its absolutely sensible to think of what you want from a dog before you get one, when your interests and lifestyle match what your dog wants, everyone is happy and everything runs more smoothly.

We don't live in the UK, we have three dogs, one of which is a banned breed in the UK and the other two are a breed which is banned in several other countries. I've had dogs all my life, many different breeds, and our current three are the ones I trust the most (I'd never trust any animal 100%).

tabulahrasa · 16/10/2015 11:26

"owning a dog capable of killing"

Like a patterdale or a Jack Russell?

TheMotherOfHellbeasts · 16/10/2015 11:28

Oh, and I need a "dangerous" dog, we have a lot of human and animal predators here, my dogs have saved my life several times.

WeAllFloat · 16/10/2015 11:31

So, again, why are some breeds banned? Is it because they kill more than other types.....yes.

EnthusiasmDisturbed · 16/10/2015 11:33

Technical terms Confused

So those children that have died it been from bites nothing more than that yet other children/adults have only needed stitches for ?

sparechange · 16/10/2015 11:36

You do realise you are utterly incapable of understanding statistics and therefore making informed risk assessments though?

It is fine to have an irrational dislike of things, dogs included, but please stop trying to claim it is a safety thing.

The fact that you can't define a 'safe' or 'dangerous' dog behind 'a small yappy one' vs 'one I don't like the look of' is one thing, but your bizarre dogmatic insistence that you are right and all the statistics are wrong is just embarrassing now.

Dog ownership is proven to bring a number of benefits, including health ones, which a lot of people would say massively outweigh the absolutely minuscule risk of a fatal attack. Lots of people (probably ones with a better ability to understand and interpret statistics) have made the judgement call that the benefits far outweigh the risks and therefore they own a dog.

You've gone from saying no one should own a big dog, to no one should own any dog, to no one should own any dog AND your DCs will never come in contact with a dog. All while maintaining that your DCs will be exposed to lots and lots of risks, with potentially fatal consequences.

6 children drowned last year in pools with lifeguards. 8 drowned in the bath.
8 people died by being bitten or hit by a mammal that isn't a dog. 2 people were killed by hornets.

Put into context, 1 death a year from a dog is really not a risk that deserves the ridiculous reaction from you.

tabulahrasa · 16/10/2015 11:37

"So, again, why are some breeds banned? Is it because they kill more than other types.....yes."

No.

Pit bull isn't even a breed in the UK, they banned a 'type' dogs that have no pit bull ancestry at all are declared to be of type all the time.

The other breeds have never had a large enough population in the UK to have caused any issues.

You're mistaking it for a sensible law, it's not.

FisherQueen · 16/10/2015 11:38

I feel a bit like this is howling into the void but I will continue. Breed is irrelevant up to a point with any trait in a dog, most breed traits have to be switched on by an environmental cue. So a rather nice study showed that we shape our dogs based on our perception of what they will enjoy or want to do (e.g we play fetch more with retrivers and tug more with terriers). When those traits are switched on (chase for example) some breeds will get more positive feedback for performing those actions them others.

Similarly elements of temperament are extremely heritable and fearfulness has been demonstrated to be extremely resistant to environmental change. As fearfulness is the basis for an awful lot of aggressive behaviour it would suggest that some elements are heritable.

There are certainly dog breeds that I consider more dangerous tp humans but staffies aren't one of them. Filas, yes; bully kutta, yes but staffies or pitbulls? Nope.

WeAllFloat · 16/10/2015 11:40

Pretty sure the law makers who have banned certain breeds understand statistics. And, maybe dog deaths are rare, but you should include disfigurement and trauma in your safety stats....I can 100% stop my kid being deformed by dogs in my house, I like those odds too.

tabulahrasa · 16/10/2015 11:43

"So those children that have died it been from bites nothing more than that yet other children/adults have only needed stitches for ?"

That's not what I meant at all - just that in most cases those two words are pretty interchangeable.

In cases where people have died the breed of dog isn't a factor

TheMotherOfHellbeasts · 16/10/2015 11:45

Our three dogs are breeds known for being absolutely fearless (and our three all are) they also all have excellent judgement and are very highly trained. A lot of banned breeds are, usually fearless rather than fearful (massive generalization there.)
There is a huge amount of misinformation about a lot of dog breeds, owning a dog, regardless of breed is huge responsibility which should never be taken lightly.

needastrongone · 16/10/2015 11:47

A good dog owner knows that, they pick a dog that they can meet the needs of, they look after it, they train it, they socialise it, they respond to their dog's body language and they make sure that the dog is never in a situation that makes it uncomfortable and that people are always safe around it.

Really, that sentence by tab sums the whole thread up doesn't it?

FisherQueen · 16/10/2015 11:53

OK - definitely howling into the void. The DDA is widely acknowledged by lawyers and dog experts not to be fit for purpose. Of the four banned breeds there were vanishingly small numbers of them in the country when the legislation came in for example only 1 Japanese Tosa. Hardly a statistically significant population.

WeAllFloat · 16/10/2015 11:54

Breed absolutely matters, when the breed determines the dogs jaw size, build, jaw locking tendencies etc. They might be lovely, but they are also built to kill, even if their temperament is cuddly, the body is that of a killing machine.....designed to maul and attack Bulls. There are scores of lovely dog breeds, who's body isn't based on its ability to kill things.

needastrongone · 16/10/2015 11:58

Which breeds to you specifically consider potentially appropriate then float?

tabulahrasa · 16/10/2015 11:59

"Pretty sure the law makers who have banned certain breeds understand statistics."

They might have, if they'd had them to hand at the time, it was completely kneejerk legislation after one high media profile attack.

"There are scores of lovely dog breeds, who's body isn't based on its ability to kill things."

If you're going for not originally bred to kill - then actually there are a lot less breeds than you'd think.

EnthusiasmDisturbed · 16/10/2015 12:00

77.4% are unable to manage their interactions with the dog Hmm

Really I would post a more thought out link than that to support an argument

I have not read of any children being fatally attacked by a poodle, spaniel or Labrador though I am sure someone is going to post one or maybe they are just not reported