To think that Staffies are not "nanny dogs"

[Flowersinyourhair]

Ok. I await the cries of "it's not the dog, it's the owner" and "we had one and it was wonderful" etc etc. However, once again here we are looking at a news story about a dead baby and a seriously injured toddler as a result of a Staffie attack. AIBU or does something drastic need to change regarding perceptions of dogs like this who are apparently fine, until they're not. This dog was, it seems, the dog of a PC. Not a thug or a dog fighting yob. A PC.

I await the barrage of abuse here. I just feel so sad about these poor defenceless little boys who harmed no one and have suffered so tragically.

A small child can vex a dog easily.
A dog defends itself.
It's nature.

^^ This.

Metaphoricus I am sorry but you are wrong!!!!

Whatever. I can live with being wrong. What I couldn't live with is owning a dog that savaged my child.

I'd rather be wrong than risk being sorry. Maybe I should not be posting.
I have some experience of this scenario.

"I have a vet in my family, so I obviously take notice of what she says"

"My bil is a vet..."

I predicted to myself that somebody would pick that up.
But it's not that hard to explain,surely?

In fact my sil's father was a vet also.

Does that make me less believable?

You can't be less believeable because you honestly sound like you're making shit up. You're also spreading untruths about a breed that already has a lot if bad press.

Any dog can attack but some do more damage than others. We rescued a collie when i was young it was really sweet and never showed any aggression until one day we where out on a walk with it on the lead a man walked past and it went for him biting through the back of his trousers.

I think alot of people forget that dogs are animals the amount of pictures i see on facebook with babies and children lying all over dogs who look pissed off make me cringe. Its not a toy its an animal. As for staffys they sadly can do alot more damage than some other dogs due to their muscular frame but personally ive met many more vicious chiwawas in my life!

A breed that killed a baby today, maimed a toddler and has done the same to countless others previously! It's terrifying how blind some people are to this and that is exactly the reason why the law has a part to play in protecting children.

"You're also spreading untruths about a breed that already has a lot if bad press". I mean really?? Is this sort of comment for real? "Bad press"??? The reporting of babies and children being killed is now officially "bad press"???

I've had dogs all of my life and been bitten by.... The spaniel, the Yorkie and by a lab.

All breeds can bite.

Flowers
Given the context of the fact that we're talking about the death of a baby I think it's a little ridiculous to suggest that someone saying this dog breed is dangerous is "on a wind up" don't you?

Thank you for saying that, and of course, I'm not.
I think this thread may have hit a little too close to home at the moment, especially as it's yet another pit bull breed killing a child.I have very recent experience of a pit bull type dog biting a small child outside my house and it was very frightening for me and the child and her parent.

So, no, I don't really have much time for lovely doggies at the moment.

Please don't twist my words. I didn't link anything in my comment to what happened to those kids.

Staffies do get a lot of bad press. They're the folk devil of choice in the papers at the moment. The truth is that despite many disadvantages, the vast majority of them don't bite.

I gave a four moth old baby and my blood went cold when I read what had happened so please don't think I'm trying to downplay it.

A labrador nearly took my face off, sat in my buggy outside the post office when I was 3, if a helpful squaddie hadn't kicked it 6ft n the air it would have at least finished ripping my ear off.

Shall we put them all down?

Ach.
I've had a dog I felt cool with being about my child. But this was a long time ago and was a very exceptional dog.
I'd still not leave my dog and baby in that situation.

It really isn't the breed; a Jack Russell recentlyish killed a baby. Staffs are powerful, but not nasty like JRs ime.

This was a bigger x breed, apparently. And people do try to make Pitt-bull kinds.

It's just so sad. :(
For the family. For the poster who's DC's saw it unfold and are terrified.
Just so so sad.

You're also spreading untruths about a breed that already has a lot if bad press

I'm not responsible for the bad press. Staffies/pitbulls get bad press because. . . . . . well I can't imagine why. Can you?

Questionable- "Please don't twist my words". I didn't twist your words- I copied and pasted them. Your assertion that these dogs are being given a bad press is mind boggling to me.

Of course they are. You don't hear about the thousands that are 'good citizens'. The papers are only interested in the stories about the ones that bite. That and the tendency of people to label anything vaguely bull terrier ish as a staffy or pit bull is bad press.

It's the same with anything. Take plane crashes, for example. You never hear about the thousands of flights that take place without a hitch,just the planes that crash.

Sadly death sells newspapers so they'll keep rolling out the gory stories where some poor unfortunate person dies.

metaphoricus i'm scared that two vets in your family can be telling you completely wrong information which you are now passing on
( and a simple google search will tell you that )

Top dogs that have bitten are dogs like the german shepard and jack Russell, but staffs are going to do more damage.
Any dog ( any animal) has the potential to bite though.
All potentially devestating to a very young child/baby.
I've spent time around rotties never had any problems.
Spent time around little tiny dogs and got bitten by all of them
Not going to say that all of them are terrible dogs though.
Ofcourse the papers are going to report this, it's a death, a tragedy.
Whatever dog did it they would report.
However what they don't report on is all the other attacks done by smaller dogs.
( look it up, not long ago attack on a young boy done by a lab).
As i said earlier, years ago the hated dog was the Rottweiler, now it's the staffie. It has a bad rep due to ( SOME) bad owners using them as status symbols.
As of yet we don't even know what breed the dog even is though!
The neighbour THOUGHT it was a staffie mix. ( mixed with what??) He could be wrong completely.

mis well i'd like a world minus ignorant people and spiders but it's never going to happen, just like a dog free world is never going to happen for you.
Some bad dogs does not equal all bad.
Some never bite and are beloved members of a family.
Seriously, shoot every single dog?
Wtf is happening on this site at the moment?
3 threads this last week with vile comments about animals. ( could understand if it was about the dog in the story but it's not!)

flowers you can't see how a newspaper can be bias

It's the same with anything. Take plane crashes, for example. You never hear about the thousands of flights that take place without a hitch,just the planes that crash

But if it was Concorde that kept having engine failures, and mayday alerts, and low fuel pressure warnings, and brake locks, and hydraulic system failures, and finally crashing into a hotel in Paris, you'd think they'd take it out of the air, wouldn't you? Oh wait........

Such a sad sad story, that poor family!

Knew it wouldn't be long till the 'devil dog' brigade came out.

ALL dogs are potentially dangerous, ALL dogs have the potential to bite, ALL dogs should be supervised closely around children and never left alone with them!

Good owners train and socialise their dogs to minimise these risks, bad or negligent owners end up with dangerous dogs. It's not rocket science!

Look how many neighbours of this dog say they barely saw, PC or not that wasn't clearly an undersocialised and underexercised dog. Hardly what I would call good ownership and now a baby has paid the price for the owners failure to raise a safe dog.

I have a rottie, the 'devil dog' of a few years ago. He's 9 now, has been raised with 3 children and I'd honestly trust him with my life. I would never however leave him unsupervised around children, no matter their age, that's common sense. He was trained from an early age to follow me on command and that means to put the kettle on, go the loo etc. It's simply responsible ownership whether you have a mastiff or a Yorkshire terrier!

"Your assertion that these dogs are being given a bad press"

Well they are, the dog is a crossbreed, it's being described as a large staffy type dog...it could be anything.

I regularly meet 2 dogs that I assumed were staffy crosses - they are in fact lab crosses with two completely different breeds and not a drop of staffy in them.

Nobody is safer from me knowing that they just happen to look like staffy crosses.

Much more relevant in terms of prevention are the reports that the dog concerned today wasn't in fact the children's family pet, but the dog of their landlord - because that is something that's identified time and time again as a risk.

I feel so sorry for those parents

Two issues: first is every illegal dog owned, the owners say it is a Staffie.

Second is I grew up with a Staffie who was the sweetest, waggiest thing you would ever meet. I've never left a child alone with a dog, my mum had a horribly aggressive setter. But all dogs can react, it's not the breed. I think if you looked at breed attacks labs are the front runners.

Yaaaaawn flowers it's not the breed.

Rottweilers have gone through this Dobermans, German shepherds, pit bulls.

Powerful dogs yes, that can do great damage no doubt, but ALL dogs can do real damage, can we really only own dogs that we could get off in an attack? That's probably about 10 toy breeds.

Fact is, accidents happen with dogs, IMO, you should have to have a licence for a dog, and an extra expensive special licence to breed dogs, the law should make it compulsory to exercise your dog, and feed it properly.

In short, yes, it really is the owners, not the dog's.

Meant to say clearly WAS an undersocialised dog

But if it was Concorde that kept having engine failures, and mayday alerts, and low fuel pressure warnings, and brake locks, and hydraulic system failures, and finally crashing into a hotel in Paris, you'd think they'd take it out of the air, wouldn't you? Oh wait........

No, they'd blame the people operating it... Much like the owners of dangerous dogs are to blame.

The newspapers like to use 'hard language' when describing staffies. They don't do that with other breeds.