Reporting dangerous dogs?

[LondonLassi]

Something has been on my mind for a few days after hearing about the poor 12 day old baby who died after being attacked by a dog.

My sister’s neighbour has a 16 year old son who is regularly in trouble with the police. I spend a lot of time there. The screaming and shouting that comes from next door is horrendous and the police are often called out to restrain him. He is not in school. Smokes weed all day. I’ve never seen his face because he wears a hoodie over a face covering (even pre-COVID) I’m just trying to paint a picture of the kind of troubled youth we’re dealing with here. If you make eye contact with him he will swear at you, call you names and threaten you. He is quite frankly a bit scary.

About a year ago they got two puppies from the same litter. They are fully grown now and they look like some sort of pit bull cross. Possibly pit bull/mastiff. They are huge. I’ll attach a pic of what I think they might be. When we sit out in the garden we can hear them next door fighting and growling, they barge my sisters fence to try to get to her small jack Russell terriers. They’ve had to repair the fence three times already after the dogs broke it.

This boy walks the dogs regularly. They are not muzzled. If we happen to leave the house at the same time the dogs go up on their hind legs and get very over excited. The boy has to pull them back to get them away. They try to break free to get to anyone walking near them if they’re out for a walk. Tonight we happened to be leaving as the boy was walking home. The dogs immediately started barking at us and were trying to run towards us and had to be restrained. We often hear people shouting when they walk by because of the dogs trying to get to them. It’s very scary when it happens because they are big and intimidating.

I am terrified of what would happen if these dogs managed to get loose. They have been raised by someone with a violent, anti social background. I can’t shake the image of them getting hold of a child. The boy has a little brother in the house, probably around 6 years old.

What would you do in this situation? I’m thinking of reporting them as potentially dangerous dogs. If IABU please tell me. It just seems like an awful attack waiting to happen.

@LondonLassi urm my dog hasn't bitten my mother? Where did you get that from?? Look up 'doodle dash' while your trying to find where I said my dog has bitten please

And I haven’t even mentioned whether or not I have dogs. I have two actually. Dog haters don’t tend to keep them as pets you know? They are cocker spaniels. They are currently peacefully asleep at my feet. They don’t lunge or bark at people and definitely don’t barge at my fences. I loved them enough to train them properly and sent them to obedience school as soon as possible. My mum definitely isn’t scared of them.

@LondonLassi sorry still waiting about where I said my dog bites?

You’re right. You said she jumped at her. You see, I can admit when I’m wrong. Not like some other people. You still haven’t acknowledged the fact that these dogs are clearly being raised by an anti social nightmare of a person. You just skim past that fact as if it was never presented to you?

@queenofpandas

Are you just purposely trying to be antagonistic? Wtf are you comparing your (possibly badly behaved but certainly not capable of mauling anyone to death) Cockapoo to a mastiff x bull breed dog?

Op has stated the boys mother has said she is scared of the dogs. What harm is there in @LondonLassi or her sister reporting the dogs for damaging the fence and also asking for them to be checked out in case they're possibly a cross banned breed?

If the dogs are deemed legal and not a danger, and stop damaging the fence, then there's no problem.

Would you rather @LondonLassi or her sister do nothing and potentially the 6 year old child or someone else is harmed by those dogs?

@LondonLassi oh goodie. Now in true fashion

Seriously, can you not read?

I can't understand why posters think it is fine for dogs to bark and lunge repeatedly at strangers?

And obviously it will be more frightening the more powerful looking the dog is.
Actual breed irrelevant.

@queenofpandas God, you’re hilarious. Forgive me for not entertaining the opinion of a person who can’t even train a cockerpoo.

@LondonLassi

Honestly, ignore the likes of @queenofpandas and @Dogsarebetterthanpeople

Purely going from what you wrote in your first post I'd be contacting the council or HA, the dog warden, or whoever you report a potentially banned breed to, and also social services.

I'd be surprised if social services are not already involved with this family.

@Honeyhoops thank you! I promise I really am a nice person 😂 They are definitely known to social services. My sister had to mind the little one until an emergency foster family could be found when the mum’s nose was broken. From what I can see online it’s 101 I have to call to report this. I’ll get on to it tomorrow. Thank you for trying to stand by me. I’m sorry you got dragged into this!

Op good luck. As way above, i reported after dog in my and neighbours’ gardens being agressive and territorial.

I contacted warden and police (after direct requests to owners).

Good luck.

No problem. I think, as someone else also said earlier, some people love their dogs so much they are blinkered and feel it's dogs vs people. Others feel the need to defend certain breeds as they know they get a hard time.

The fact is though that unfortunately certain breeds attract a certain type of owner and there's reasons these people have these breeds. The 16 year old boy no doubt thinks these dogs make him "look hard" or he possibly uses them for protection/intimidation if he's into drugs. Either way I doubt he's training them to be soft and cuddly family dogs.

As I said I wouldn't want to live next door to that sort of behaviour from someone else's dogs.

I don't believe anybody else would.

Reading the thread back it seems like the whole breed thing became a stick to beat you with rather than actually listening to the problem in hand.

Honestly, ignore the likes of
@queenofpandas and @Dogsarebetterthanpeople

WTAF
For stating the fricking obvious that all dogs are potentially dangerous..?

Apart from one poster who called me a nutter I don’t believe I’ve been rude/name calling to anyone.

I think you’ll find that I never once said that barking and lunging at people was acceptable behaviour, just that is is often excitement rather than aggression.

I never said barging the fence was okay either, in fact, I do believe I said that I thought the neighbours should be paying for the damage, not OPs sister.

I pointed out that ripping teddies and killing small animals was normal dog behaviour and in no way linked to aggression to people.

And I posted some links proving that nice little family dogs are just as capable of killing people as those nasty bull breeds.

Yes, looking back I can definitely see how I was really awful in my comments..

@sunglassesonthetable Thank you too! Sorry I didn’t say so before. You are right, it went completely off track and suddenly this particular boy and his particular dogs just didn’t matter anymore.

@Honeyhoops I totally agree!

@HeronLanyon Thank you!

I think you’ll find that I never once said that barking and lunging at people was acceptable behaviour, just that is is often excitement rather than aggression.

sorry reposted that by mistake⬇️

@Dogsarebetterthanpeople actually I didn’t call you a nutter, you chose to lump yourself in that category not me. I think this is a very emotive topic and I think certain dog owners will defend their breed to the hilt and are possibly very blinkered to a dogs behaviour so there’s no point trying to argue with them. I didn’t direct that comment to anyone specifically but it you saw yourself in that description, then what can I say? 😉. I did point out though it might be difficult to reason with a poster who’s name is ‘dogsarebetterthanpeople’, as you already clearly already have a dog-bias!

Yes, looking back I can definitely see how I was really awful in my comments..*

Just totally disingenuous.

There was no way you were going to say ' Yes OP this is not a good situation. '

Who cares if a a big muscular dog barks and lunges at passerbys repeatedly with excitement rather than aggression? Really? With the owner standing by laughing! Would you let your dog do that?

Like hell you would.

We can all see what's going on in OPs situation and yet some posters are determined it's just a "snobby ' outlook. Rather than what it is = 2 big strong dogs under the care of a violent , immature owner in a toxic environment. Great.

They haven't bitten anyone and are kept on a lead by all accounts but they sound like their behaviour is pretty unpleasant.

It's crap for OP's sister and it's crap for those dogs.

There was no way you were going to say ' Yes OP this is not a good situation.
In actual fact, I said that I agreed that barking and lunging was not acceptable behaviour.
I said that the barking/lunging and fence bashing may be aggression or it may be excitement and I also said:

There’s nothing wrong with reporting if you feel they are out of control and might hurt you

A lot of my comments were in defense of bull breeds because the OP suddenly went off ranting about pit bulls and how they are so much more dangerous than any other dog.

When the reality is that all dogs, including those ‘family’ breeds absolutely are capable of serious injury and death.
It’s a very dangerous train of thought to think certain breeds are entirely safe, they all have potential at the end of the day.

When the reality is that all dogs, including those ‘family’ breeds absolutely are capable of serious injury and death.
It’s a very dangerous train of thought to think certain breeds are entirely safe, they all have potential at the end of the day.

Except the issue here is not what other dogs can and can't do.

And it's much more likely to be a dangerous train of thought to ignore what the 2 dogs next door to OPs sister are doing on a regular basis.

@LondonLassi

From what I’ve read, a dog jumping up on it’s hind legs and trying to break free from a lead is not a well trained dog. It is considered a behaviour problem that needs attention. Pit bull breeds are responsible for 66% of dog attack deaths. These dogs are strong enough to break down solid wooden fences and have been raised by a violent anti social owner. I’m not an asshole for being wise enough to know this is a disaster waiting to happen. According to the dangerous dogs act a dog is considered dangerously out of control if 1) it injures someone or 2) Makes someone worried it might injure them. I am worried. My sister is worried. Almost everyone who encounters them is worried. I am going to report. If there is no issue here the dogs will be fine and will be allowed to continue as they are. If there is a problem, I might have just saved someone’s child from being mauled in the future.

With all due respect OP, it sounds like you're judging the breed regardless of the owner (who I suppose would actually be the mum in the house, not the teen and you've not said anything about her being aggressive at all?). You keep mentioning it being a pit bull even though loads of PPs have explained why chances are it isn't, yet keep referring to them as such and mentioning the dangerous dog act and banned breeds, it's coming across as though you want them to be pit bulls so they'll get taken off them as they're a banned breed.

If the police have been coming and going as often as you say, it's unlikely they are pit bulls as they would have looked in to that, it's also unlikely that they would be aggressive and not have shown this towards the police officers who were restraining the boy, if they were aggressive their protective instinct would have kicked in here.

You've not described anything that makes the dogs seem aggressive, perhaps need more training, but not aggressive. It sounds like you want them to be because you've judged the owners when you don't actually know much about them.

The fighting in the garden, I have two staffies and when they're playing with eachother it sounds very much like "fighting" and sounds rough, chances are they're playing but to onlookers it can sound bad.

Why not have a conversation with the mum, if you/your sister talk to her enough for her to leave her youngest child in your care, surely you can share your concerns with her about the dogs before going straight for reporting? One visit isn't going to determine if a dog is aggressive or not, as you keep making out. What ever happened to talking to our neighbours instead of reporting everything with no evidence? (The mum, not the son)

People are too quick to judge a breed of dog or a person sometimes🙄

@Dogsarebetterthanpeople

From what I’ve read, a dog jumping up on it’s hind legs and trying to break free from a lead is not a well trained dog. It is considered a behaviour problem that needs attention True.

Pit bull breeds are responsible for 66% of dog attack deaths
Oh dear.
The Pit bull terrier is not a registered breed.
When UK police take a ‘pit bull’ dog, it’s classed as that from its look and measurements.

In the past Staffordshire bull terriers with kennel club papers proving they are staffies have been seized, as have Labrador crosses and mastiff crosses and all manner of other crosses.

‘Pit bull type’ dogs are not huge.
If the dogs you describe are ‘huge’ they are almost certainly not of Pit bull type!

Jack Russel terriers and chihuahuas have killed babies before now, should they be banned?
What about Labradors as they are consistently one of the top breeds in dog bite insurance claims?
Ditto spaniels and Dachshunds..

These dogs are strong enough to break down solid wooden fences
Any determined large dog can..

have been raised by a violent anti social owner
That really doesn’t guarantee anything.
There’s a group of cockerpoos that go for my dog the second they see her and one of them has bitten my DH once and gone for him two or three times without managing to make contact.
Their owners are posh middle class women.

According to the dangerous dogs act a dog is considered dangerously out of control if 1) it injures someone or 2) Makes someone worried it might injure them. I am worried. My sister is worried. Almost everyone who encounters them is worried. I am going to report
There’s nothing wrong with reporting if you feel they are out of control and might hurt you but I do think there’s a lot of stereotyping going on that is really quite unpleasant.

This^^