AIBU to think this dog is dangerous and to report

[JemimaPyjamas]

Posting in AIBU also for traffic.

I board dogs, and I walk dogs. In short, I love dogs and I am very good at my job. This is not an antidog thread AT ALL!

A neighbour a few doors up from me has a staffie cross. The owner is a lovely woman who, she's told me this, suffers from anxiety. I also think she drinks quite a lot to cope with this (due to the bottles in the recycling and the semi coherent late facebook posts.) She loves this dog with all her heart and I suspect she has become quite dependant on him. She says that staffie's have a bad press, which I agree with, and that people are uncomfortable with her dog 'as they won't understand how to handle staffies' or 'assume he is dangerous just because he's a staffie.' I don't agree with this.

She got the dog from the Dogs Trust and he had only been there a few days when she adopted. I now think that possibly he wasn't assessed thoroughly.

In the 18 months she has had him, she has stopped seeing friends as much as as there is a high chance the dog could attack. She walks him either very early or very late as he is, as she puts it, 'reactive' especially towards men. He will lunge (and is very strong) and go for someone, whether it would go as far as biting or just be barking I am not sure.

The dog also goes berserk when anyone goes past the house, not just barking but teeth baring and aggressive, jumping up or at the windows. His owner says 'he's just letting me know someone is there' but it doesn't look like that to me.

When she first got him, I suggested (tactfully!) that she should take him back to Dogs Trust to get help. They provide lifelong support so she could take advantage. She said no, it was too far. Its about an hour's drive away so not a huge distance. I think she is afraid the dog will be taken from her if she goes back, or gets 'official' help and so she pretends that her dog is okay and 'just needs special support.'

I am now very wary of this dog, and I think she is becoming more insular and afraid to seek help. There have been recent incidents there the dog went for a man at the bottom of the street, or pulled her over (she broke her arm), or the Tesco delivery driver ended up hiding in her house.

She is overcompensating for the behaviour and coming up with excuses, but I think it's only a matter of time before something very serious happens if she refuses to seek help.

AIBU to, at the very least, speak to the Dogs Trust? It would absolutely break her heart but I am running out of patience as she is refusing to try and address any of the issues.

I had an alcoholic neighbour who got an illegal pit bull and failed to train it. It was constantly escaping and showing signs of aggression. Not far from where I lived at the time, a grown man was mauled to death by an out of control staffie owned by his neighbour in an unprovoked and horrendous attack.

I called the dog warden and the dog was destroyed. It wasn’t the dog’s fault and I have a friend who lives overseas with a pit bull who is lovely, I read about the problems with the Dangerous Dog Act and breed discrimination but ultimately, if my neighbour had an untrained and unsocialised chihuahua that was getting out, it would have been a nuisance. People may have been bitten but no one would have died. But all the people talking about sees not breed etc would not have let their toddler out into the back garden where an out of control pit bull was continuously breaking through the fence. I don’t regret calling the dog warden and involving the police for one second. My family would have been one of those awful news stories otherwise.

Not a day goes past that I am not grateful for us moving far, far away!

@PengAly as someone who works in a veterinary field with dangerous and aggressive dogs I can safely say your very wrong.

Genetics have a massive impact on how any dog turns out, dogs are proven to carry genetic traits and puppies can inherit behaviour from the bitch as early as a few weeks of age, possibly even in utero some studies suggest. This is why it’s so important to select from a breeder who breeds for temperament from sound, confident and happy dogs. I honestly think the breed not deed brigade are dangerous...people need to be aware of the traits they are committing to in ANY breed and not be under the illusion that cuddles and kisses change genetics as that’s a load of crap.

In this case my first concern wouldn’t be about the behaviour of the dog but more the denial of the human in charge of it. If you have an aggressive dog you need to treat it as such and there can be no room for error.

I think you need to intervene in some way, wether or not the dogs trust will come out to her I don’t know. Does she even muzzle the dog when out walking him?

My dp family had a staff, they’d have him rescued since a young dog, he had the perfect home, very calm, nice big garden, literally no reason for him to be the way he was, but he was very aggressive and hostile. On walking him(also v early or very late) if they came across another dog, they would have to hold him by the collar between their legs and he would be frothing at the mouth to get to the other dog, eventually hen the new law came in about owners given jail time, they stopped walking him altogether as it was too risky. They tried muzzling him but due to the shape of his head it was very easy for him to pull it off(if they could get in on in the first place)
He went for dp badly after trying to get through the back fence to a neighbours dog, dp tried to pull him away from the fence and he snapped back and bit dp arm. He would also go mental at the window when people walked past, baring teeth etc

LUckily the poor thing died out of the blue in the summer, such a huge relief for everyone concerned as he was so volatile and unpredictable.
Staffies do get a bad name and there are some lovely ones, but they were bred to fight and their psychical size and size of their jaw means if they do turn, it can have tragic consequences.

I too would be worried that she drinks and that it could go for her or get out and seriously injure or kill someone.

Staffies aren’t bred to fight - that’s simply not true. People wrongly breed them for fighting which is disgusting but they are historically not bred as a fighting dog.

@Maneandfeathers fair enough genetics do make a difference- i didnt work it correctly. However, i dont think its fair for people to assume a dog is dangerous just because of his/her breed. Blame the owner not the breed is still relevent. Also the history this dog has had is way more important than its breed

Word it i meant*

So @Makingmiracles, your family stopped walking the staffy outdoors when the law changed because it was too risky?

The change in the law didn't make the dog any more likely to attack so presumably you mean that the risk of them getting prosecuted if the dog attacked was now higher?

Your family were more concerned about being prosecuted if the dog attacked someone than they were about the dog attacking someone, it was fine to walk the dog so long as you wouldn't be prosecuted for any attack.

@wordthe Dps family, not mine, I didn’t agree with any of it, always thought dog should of been pts as he was dangerous but they wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t do behaviourist either because of the cost, which was another thing I suggested.
I was very relieved when he died.

@Makingmiracles, thank you so much for clarifying and my apologies for wrongly directing my criticism at you 💐

However @makingmiracles I think your story illustrates something important, it seems that your in-laws were very aware that this dog posed a risk of grevious bodily harm to members of the public and yet it was only when they realised that they could be punished if the dog attacked that they took action.
The owners of large powerful dogs are very aware that the dog is capable of injuring or killing people, and yet they are happy to expose the public to this risk as long as they won't get prosecuted

This thread contains multiple examples of people who were mauled to death by powerful dog breeds, in many cases the dogs attacked and killed their owners and of course there was this appalling incident recently
www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/man-has-genitals-bitten-off-in-horror-dog-attack-in-scotland-a3958931.html

www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/english-bulldog-bites-off-scottish-mans-peanut-butter-smeared-genitals/news-story/8b63718ca68265bffdecbf27b71593b8

Tbf, dogs do love peanut butter.

To think he authorised its execution too.

Hardly the dogs fault he dressed his tackle up like an enticing snack.