Woman 80s, Savaged to Death by Dogs, Birmingham

[Flaxmeadow]

A woman in her 80s has been savaged to death by neighbours dogs
Am I being unreasonable to want much stricter controls on keeping dogs as pets

@justkeepswimming0

Why do people insist it isn't about breeds? Of course it is. My King Charles cavalier isn't going to kill someone. He's got the patience of a saint with kids (and my toddler really pushes it with him sometimes). He's basically a teddy bear and we are a busy family, apart from a couple of puppy classes and us teaching him to 'high five' he is this way because that is the temperament of his breed.

I don't care how much of a 'softie' your German Shepherd / insert other breed here is - they have proven capable of doing serious damage, size alone they are a risk. One came bounding up, off lead to my cavalier on a walk and nearly killed him, threw him around like a rag doll. Then his owner called me a cunt!

Too many potentially aggressive breeds have become common household pets.

It's pretty sad that you let your poor dog be harassed like that

@MrsBobDylan There is a huge difference in letting your off lead dog approach a dog / owner you know and letting it approach any dog / owner and it sounds from your post you do the latter?

Id say that's hugely irresponsible tbh. You have no idea of the nature / temperament of the on lead dog. Generally anxious / reactive dogs are also worse on the lead due to not being able to flee. A random dog out on a walk is not your dogs friend and you should be calling your dog away or if it can't be trusted not to approach putting in on a lead.

Our midget dog is reactive on the lead. If your dogs approached you are damm right I'd be telling you to get them away no matter how friendly they are. She is likely to just lunge straight in for an attack the second they got within range. Off lead she'd play and interact happily but she can't go off lead because her recall is not yet reliable.

[ quote]My dogs are brilliant off lead but we are struggling to walk them now because we keep getting shrieked at by terrified new dog owners because their dog 'doesn't like other dogs'.[/ quote]

You are the problem. If someone sees you coming, clips their dog on the lead and moves to give you space to pass, is very obviously trying to keep their dog's focus on them, and/or politely calls out to you to ask you to keep your dogs away, and you let them keep on coming - YOU are the problem. You have no idea why that dog is on the lead or what previous experiences it has had. It is the height of arrogance to think that you know better than the dog's owner.

Bit of a reach, but I'm not going to bite unlike many dogs would who's owners are insisting on here that they are gentle

[quote BlueEyesWhiteDragon]@MrsBobDylan There is a huge difference in letting your off lead dog approach a dog / owner you know and letting it approach any dog / owner and it sounds from your post you do the latter?

Id say that's hugely irresponsible tbh. You have no idea of the nature / temperament of the on lead dog. Generally anxious / reactive dogs are also worse on the lead due to not being able to flee. A random dog out on a walk is not your dogs friend and you should be calling your dog away or if it can't be trusted not to approach putting in on a lead.

Our midget dog is reactive on the lead. If your dogs approached you are damm right I'd be telling you to get them away no matter how friendly they are. She is likely to just lunge straight in for an attack the second they got within range. Off lead she'd play and interact happily but she can't go off lead because her recall is not yet reliable.[/quote]
Just to clarify (I really should stop typing on my phone as I tend to try type less because its annoying) by attack I don't mean by but she would be hackles up, snarling and telling your dogs to back off. That's often the point where I would get yelled at by the off lead dogs owners because they suddenly realise that maybe mine isn't friendly.

If your dog was doing what mine was and paying attention to you and staying within your control my dog would be ignoring yours and would be no issue at all.

FFS don't mean bite not by!!!!

Breeds are a huge part of the problem and it's crazy to insist that they aren't. Too many large dogs around these days that have the potential to do serious damage. I am by large against these size dogs as for every one that is a 'teddy bear' there are plenty that aren't and that teddy bear of yours will have a limit they could reach and by size alone could kill somebody.

Of course smaller dogs can be aggressive, and any small dog breeds that have that temperament shouldn't be allowed to be household pets either. Smaller dogs are, by size alone, far less capable of causing severe damage of death (apart from the small but hench type!)

There are far too many Alsatians kept as family pets these days, I see them daily around here and I'm scared of walking past them and I'm definitely not alone in that. Big dogs are scary because of that potential they have to be dangerous and they should not be as common as they are, there should be strict rules on who can own them and what you need to do in order to do so.

I love dogs, I'm sure the people on here with huge dogs would mock my lovely little breed, however they are a companion breed, small, non intimidating and by natural temperament lovely to be around. Your right to own a big dog shouldn't trump other peoples rights to not feel scared or intimidated in public, when there are so many small friendly breeds available that do not carry the same risks.

People are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think the breed is irrelevant. Chihuahuas can be yappy, aggressive little shits but if one starts on me or my child I can give it a kick and put it out of action, and it isn't going to kill either of us. I can't do that with a rottweiler.

My giant breed dogs don’t bother anyone else. Why should they not exist because you don’t like big dogs.

@justkeepswimming0

Bit of a reach, but I'm not going to bite unlike many dogs would who's owners are insisting on here that they are gentle

Yes its a massive reach

Well done for not rising to it 💐

I do like big dogs wolfie. I prefer them to small dogs. But the fact remains they have the inherent capacity to be more dangerous because they are larger.

@Wolfiefan

My giant breed dogs don’t bother anyone else. Why should they not exist because you don’t like big dogs.

I'm sure lots of people feel intimidated by them, so I wouldn't say they don't bother anyone. You can't blame people for being intimidated by an animal that could kill them, no matter how gentle yours may be, if something aggravated them to the point that switch flicked they could and would be able to easily kill someone and there wouldn't be anything you could do to stop it.

@gimmemoore they don’t though. If we meet anyone who is worried by dogs then they have to come and stand still by me whilst they pass. They will move off the path to let people by and don’t approach people unless those people invite them to say hallo.
TBH I tend to assume people don’t want my dogs anywhere near them. That way no one is bothered by them.

@Fridacaninelo Ever met a Bernese Mountain Dog? Huge, placid dogs. I get your point that a very small dog is unlikely to be able to inflict as much damage, but I think breed is a more important factor than size.

I want much stricter controls but this is the law at the moment

It is against the law to let a dog be dangerously out of control anywhere, in public or private.

A dog is considered dangerously out of control if it

1. Injures someone
2. Makes someone worried that it might injure them

I think number 2 is very important, but I'm not sure most people understand that they can report a dog if they are worried that it might injure them. This needs to be understood more by the general and I think we need to see more people reporting dogs off lead

You don’t need to report a dog just because it’s off lead somewhere it’s allowed to be.

Ever met a Bernese Mountain Dog? Huge, placid dogs.

Yes, I grew up with them as my grandparents always had them. One killed a neighbour's cat.

But we do need to report dogs, off lead or not, that "we are worried might injure us".

So I would include ANY dog off lead with powerful jaws, neck muscles. Any dog that I believe could overpower someone, especially a child

This is the law and someone "worried" would be within their rights to report it

You are the problem. If someone sees you coming, clips their dog on the lead and moves to give you space to pass, is very obviously trying to keep their dog's focus on them, and/or politely calls out to you to ask you to keep your dogs away, and you let them keep on coming - YOU are the problem. You have no idea why that dog is on the lead or what previous experiences it has had. It is the height of arrogance to think that you know better than the dog's owner.

Absolutely this. I had a very large dog who was attacked when on his lead on the pavement by a loose dog who ran up to us and almost killed. After that, even getting out on walks or seeing dogs a very, very long way in the distance resulted initially in quite extreme fear reactions. Luckily I had loads of isolated places to walk, but someone just allowing their dogs to run up to us had the potential to undo all the progress we had made. The owners pretty much invariably told me theirs was friendly and lectured me on socialising my dog properly or not walking him if he was going to have an issue etc. All it would have taken was them recalling when I asked - presuming they were anywhere near their dogs of course or their dogs had any recall at all.

@currahee

[ quote]My dogs are brilliant off lead but we are struggling to walk them now because we keep getting shrieked at by terrified new dog owners because their dog 'doesn't like other dogs'.[/ quote]

You are the problem. If someone sees you coming, clips their dog on the lead and moves to give you space to pass, is very obviously trying to keep their dog's focus on them, and/or politely calls out to you to ask you to keep your dogs away, and you let them keep on coming - YOU are the problem. You have no idea why that dog is on the lead or what previous experiences it has had. It is the height of arrogance to think that you know better than the dog's owner.

Agree - you are the problem.

You own a small breed dog (pug). If other dog owners are 'shrieking' at you, it's almost certainly not because they're scared of what your pug will do. It's because they have a reactive dog who could do serious damage to yours.

Mine is very nervous on lead, and it got worse after she was attacked and badly injured by an off-lead dog in January. I'm currently working hard to reduce her anxiety, but there's only so much I can do if an off-lead dog keeps approaching her and ignoring her body language.

I'm not going to muzzle her, because:

She is already under control, on the lead.
She hates muzzles and would spend the whole walk trying to get it off.
She absolutely lives for human contact and gets a huge amount of fuss and attention on walks. That would dry up completely if she were muzzled.

Most importantly though, if she was attacked again while muzzled, she'd have no way of defending herself.

My Goldie isn’t keen on pugs, probably because he’s had a few Harrass him, luckily he just warns them off (while on his lead) but the owners usually don’t like it.
God knows what their reaction would be if he was a so called dangerous breed like a GR or Rottie but my dog could do a similar amount of damage and years ago a Goldie we had seriously hurt a GS that attacked him.
A lot of people with small dogs don’t train them properly or appreciate that they can inflict damage - the scariest dog I knew was a Westie, it but virtually everyone in the family BUT the difference was the one time it went for me I kicked it hard and it backed off, had it been a bigger breed it would have even very dangerous.

@Flaxmeadow

But we do need to report dogs, off lead or not, that "we are worried might injure us".

So I would include ANY dog off lead with powerful jaws, neck muscles. Any dog that I believe could overpower someone, especially a child

This is the law and someone "worried" would be within their rights to report it

Even if they were well away from you playing ball in the middle of a field?

Flax thankfully they won’t seize and destroy my dogs just because you don’t like the look of them.
People can absolutely report dogs that they have REASON to believe could be a threat. Them existing off lead isn’t a reason.
Police will soon be calling. On you. To tell you off for wasting police time.
Any dog that’s bouncing at strangers and stealing food or generally being a menace? Yep. Report.

@Flaxmeadow

But we do need to report dogs, off lead or not, that "we are worried might injure us".

So I would include ANY dog off lead with powerful jaws, neck muscles. Any dog that I believe could overpower someone, especially a child

This is the law and someone "worried" would be within their rights to report it

Not quite @Flaxmeadow the wording in the act is reasonable apprehension

Its not reasonable to worry a well behaved dog minding its own business is going to injure you just because its for large jaws and neck and is off the lead.

Absolutely if a huge (or small) dog is behaving in an aggressive manner on / off lead in public or behind someone's private fence absolutely report it and push for the police to at least go and speak to the owners.

In my line of work I meet a lot of dogs in their own gardens/ houses...
So far I've been bitten by a westie, a Scottie dog a jack russell and a pug. Very close to having my hand ripped off by a golden retriever...
GSD's rotties, staffies all great. As are Alaskan malamute and huskies. But I would never ever trust any dog completely, the owners all think they're fine but they don't see how they react when they aren't there to reassure them.
Little dogs are babied way too much, not enough training for the owner to understand dog psychology and they get away with murder because the owners just pick them up?!
@gimmemoore I assume you mean German Shepherds? They aren't even classed as a big breed, a proper sized GSD is just a medium sized dog.
Bad breeding needs to end now. In all dogs!