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.

Is anyone able to boil down the fatal dog attack statistics better to give a better overview? Something more like 1 in 10000 staffies/bull breeds cause a fatality, 8 in every 10000 chihuahuas/toy breeds cause a fatality (figures obviously made up!)

This would make this argument easier to weigh up, unless I'm being stupid which is quite possible...,

I can't believe that some people are still on the comparison of dogs with inert objects such as knives. Dogs have moods, they can move about of their own free will. A knife is unlikely to suddenly turn on you is it? You'll only get hurt by a knife if there is some sort of human intervention hence it is easy to put the knife safety away.

*safely. My phone makes it's own sentence up sometimes.

And adds unnecessary apostrophes

"Something more like 1 in 10000 staffies/bull breeds cause a fatality"

It can't really be done, there aren't official statistic for either dog ownership or fatalities by breed.

This year though there have been 4. 2 were bull terrier 'types' as in identified by sight, not actually that breed.

The main microchip company estimates 356 000 staffies in the UK, but their data excluded crosses and unchipped dogs - so TBH twice that is still a fairly conservative guess.

It's such a small statistic that you can't do it per 10000 though and it wouldn't be hugely significant anyway, because it would take one fatality from a rare breed and they'd come out top forever.

I'm not minimising those deaths btw, one is too many - but statically, an average of 4 a year is very low in comparison to number of dogs.

Fatalities Tab. Do you have the data for injuries?

The percentage of dog attacks by bull terrier type dogs for instance, the number of deaths by pit bulls in the US, the number of injuries by the same breed

In isolation, those statistics mean very little. If, say 15% dogs owned are bull terrier types (however you define that) and 10% of attacks are by them, they are actually safer than average. Shrieking "10% of all attacks are by bull terrier types" in isolation doesn't give you a meaningful figure. Likewise, just quoting the number of deaths. Any death is horrific but breed is not a predictor unless those breeds are disproportionally represented.

Any normal human with a degree of empathy would find these attacks horrific and would want to reduce them, preferably stop them. We could ban all dogs but the outcry would be such as to make this impossible. They're used by the police and army for crowd control; bomb detection; drug detection and rescue work at disaster sites. They are working animals on farms. They're used as guide dogs for the hearing and sight impaired. They can warn of impending epileptic fits and sniff out cancers. They help people on the autistic spectrum and can be used for therapy - that's before you even start on the day to day benefits of pet ownership.

So you're then left with a root cause analysis to try to control factors that tend to provoke attacks. As has been explained repeatedly, breed is not much of an indicator. It's no good saying "but look at press reports, most of the time it's staffies" for the reasons given above, ad nauseum. Generally what works is education. Which is not to blame anyone given some of the horrendous accounts on this thread. But if you go on You Tube sadly there are plenty of videos posted by people saying "look at the cute dog playing with the baby, aren't they having fun". Yet it's obvious to anyone with a bit of knowledge of canine body language that the dogs in these are very stressed.

This isn't a competition to see who can do the best sad face, or who has the most compassion or is most upset. Sometimes, in emotional situations, you actually have to make a logical analysis to prevent these horrific incidents recurring. Banning particular breeds does not reduce attacks so we need to do something else.

"Do you have the data for injuries?"

By breed? No, they don't exist either.

In 2014-15 there were 7227 hospital admissions in England...and there's no figures for just England but the UK has an estimated 8.5 million dogs.

its a vicious circle, some people buy into the hype and believe they are inherently dangerous, dicks like the fact people are intimidated by them, the press helps this along and so on.

remove the stigma, they are no longer desireable by dicks. of course this will just push the problem on to the next breed of choice. when i was a kid it was rotties that were the dog du jour for thugs. then dobermans, now sbt's.

I totally get the need for education here. Completely. However, a dose of reality is a part of that education too and being realistic about the likelihood of bull type dogs causing far more significant injury than some other types is part of that. Let's not pretend that reading body language of dogs will prevent all issues. This thread contains lots of stories where people were operating completely normally, sitting on a sofa etc, and their dog snapped with no signal and no perceiveable warning. Stories where the parent was right there and had to battle to get the dog off. When they go, they go big and people, particularly children, don't fair well when that happens. Again, the Internet is covered with these stories which are so sad and painful to read. People on here have spoken of their regret and empathy for those victims of dogs which is, of course, the right thing to do, but surely the wise thing to do is learn from the experiences being presented? To take these stories as education. To my mind, if I heard someone with a small child tell me they were getting a bull type dog I'd be very concerned, justifiably concerned. I think it is foolhardy and irresponsible of people on this thread to argue that there would be no risk to the child.

Children have no choice. They are at the mercy of their parents to make choices to keep them safe. I think it's entirely reasonable to question whether bringing a powerful dog into a child's home is sensible.

"when i was a kid it was rotties that were the dog du jour for thugs. then dobermans, now sbt's"

Why these breeds do you think? Why do thugs choose these ones?

To clarify, I understand that pp are arguing that dogs come with risks. However, some seem to be arguing that their is no increase in risk from a poodle etc to a bull type dog which I don't accept.

I can't believe that some people are still on the comparison of dogs with inert objects such as knives. Dogs have moods, they can move about of their own free will. A knife is unlikely to suddenly turn on you is it? You'll only get hurt by a knife if there is some sort of human intervention hence it is easy to put the knife safety away.

You are intentionally missing the point. People aren't comparing knives and dog. They are comparing risk.

People have moods and move about of their own free will. They drive cars, sometimes dangerously. And yet I can bet you leave your house.

Gabilan, I'm quite willing to accept that dogs like dachshunds and cocker spaniels are probably bitier than SBT's. I suspect a number of breeds are. My issue isn't about the frequency of attacks it's about the strength and power of the dog. One of dd's friends has a staffie/pit bull mix (registered with the police as I understand) and I can't belief the strength of this dog. You can see its muscles rippling under its coat and dd's friend (who weighs about 13 stone and is about 5ft 8) struggles to control it on a lead.

A powerful dog which is stronger than your average human adult will be lethal if it attacks.

I don't think we should only consider this in relation to SBT by the way but in relation to any dog which an adult isn't strong enough to subdue - rottweilers, Great Danes, mastiffs, etc. I think people need to think long and hard as to how safe it is to have a dog like this around small children.

imo? their looks. and the number of people who say they are scared of them and would fear for a childs safety around them

i have small children and your concern is massively misplaced, plus the dog was here first and because im not a massive twat i didnt think of getting rid of her when they came along. i managed the risk, as i would with any pet.

You don't have sharp knives, cleaning chemicals, nuts, a car, etc?

I have kitchen knives and cleaning chemicals and a car because I need them. When a child is visiting I keep them apart as of coruse I did when DS was a child.

Strictly speaking I don't need nuts, but they are a part of my diet, and almost any food can be harmful to a child if mis-handled. And when my adult but nut-allergic niece visits the nuts are put well away.

But nobody, nobody, nobody needs a pet dog. And if you have one near a child the potential for tragedy is always there.Why risk it?

I can't quite because my phone is being awkward.

But...

Re people being attacked without noticing a warning or signal, that doesn't mean there wasn't one to be noticed, or hundreds before that.

a staffie x with a pit whatever is NOT a staff, its a mutt. purebreed staffs are much smaller and way less powerful than a x.

i can pick mine up very easily and control her when i need to (vets for example, shes terrified and thrashes about, strong yes, but not some sort of terminator dog), i doubt i could pick up a pit x staff. stories like "my cousins boyfriends brother has a sbt x mastiff and it was enormous" are irrelevant when discussing sbt's as a breed.

speaking of vets mine is always pleased to see mine, says its rare for him to see a full staff nowadays as they have been xbred to fuck, i wouldnt mind betting the number of actual full staffs is smaller than we think, edpecially when all the media need to do is print a pic of a massive dog with a split head and wedge shaped face and call it a stafgie type and voila! calls for them to be shot and judgements on sbt owners.

ffs

GahBuggerit - we've been through that, apparently breed matters when it comes to how much risk there is of an attack, but it doesn't matter when determining breed....

GahBuggerit your not seriously suggesting that actual breed should come into an argument about staffies?? I'm sorry but a mastiff x bull looks like the media interpretation of a staffie type so that is what it must be- you are being so unreasonable

But nobody, nobody, nobody needs a pet dog. And if you have one near a child the potential for tragedy is always there.Why risk it?

I would disagree. I need a dog for my hobby. Without a dog i am just stood In a field.

My son who has Aspergers is far better with a dog than without.

I don't need to go to the park, I walk down the road with the kids to go to the park. Because it's fun. A car could come off the road and hit me and my kids. When we drive to our pils house there is a chance we won't make it there.

Adults and children are killed by other people all the time. But most of us don't go build a house in the middle of nowhere away from all other people.

Who in life only does stuff because you need to? Who avoids anything that might be fun because there is a small risk attached?

There are literally thousands and thousands of staffys in family homes. Most do not attack anyone.

Banning a breed does not work. I don't and never have had a staffy. I am not particularly keen on them. Not sure why, probably because of the reputation as a 'hard mans dog'. I wouldn't choose to have one. However I still don't agree with the op.

Nor do I agree that people only take a small amount of risk when something is 'needed'.

i know i should know better than to bring logic into it, especially when ive just read a comment suggesting a dog may attack a baby because its place in the pack has been disturbed

No one NEEDS a lot of things. Do you eat steak? Enjoy it? You dont NEED it. Like getting on a plane to go on holiday? but you dont NEED to. Have kids? why? Do you NEED them? no.

i enjoy the companionship of a dog, i prefer her to many humans, i like my kids to grow up with a sense of caring for and respecting an animal, my dog gave me a reason to get out of the house when i was at my lowest. no, i dont NEED her, just like you dont NEED the internet, steaks, holidays, children.

Well sorry to say Gah but that happened to my DSis. She had a youngish dog and then a baby and from it being the baby in the family, it's position was usurped. Dog's personality changed overnight, it could not be trusted anywhere near the baby and so it had to be rehomed. To me it makes sense, it's like your only child having to get used to have a brother or sister, sometimes it's a long old road.

A dog almost never attacks without reason or without warning, it's just that the warnings are often missed. Once you start talking to the people involved, nine times out of ten it turns out that there were obvious causes and obvious warnings which went unnoticed because the people involved didn't understand their dogs and didn't know what to look for, hence the need for greater education.

Dogs are actually very good communicators and when they are unhappy they tend to make it known in more subtle ways long before resorting to actually snapping or biting. Things like displacement behaviours, avoidance behaviours and stress/appeasement signals. In all my time working with dogs I've met very few, if any, who have aggressed without giving ample warning signals first. If you know what to look for, these signs are hard to miss.

One huge mistake some dog owners make is to tell their dog off for growling. When a dog growls its telling you it's seriously unhappy with a situation. By telling it off you aren't making it feel any less unhappy, but you are removing that essential warning. If a dog growls at you, don't punish it, respect what it's trying to tell you and give it space.