To be so upset about the death of Jack Lis last night

[Aberteifi]

To feel so upset by the death of the poor 10 year old boy last night who was killed by a dog in Caerphilly.
My own son was mauled by a dog at 14 months old he has scars but he is here.
I remember the terror and the fear of it when it was happening and i can't help to feel it now knowing that is what that poor little boy went through last night.
His poor family must be going through the worst pain imaginable and i just feel so so sad for them.
I don't know why this case has really hit me but it has.

@UndertonesOfCake

Thanks for assuming so much about me. I was curious because the sheer number of people wanting fireworks banned because it upset their dogs.

May I assume you are ok with and think it's a price worth paying for nearly 9000 people a year and over a 1000 of them children to be hospitalised every year, just so you can have a pet?

The fact it was a friends house is also scary, my ds is 10 and in year 6, in the next year or so I will potentially have less knowledge of homes of friends he makes in high school, you just don't know what danger they are in in other people's houses. And most of the time they are fine, the parents are lovely and responsible, but just one moment and irresponsible parent can turn your life upside down.

Rip Jack and sympathy to his poor parents and family.

I was in tears reading about it. My DS is slightly older and quite wary around dogs, he actually is a bit nervous around our cats. I can't imagine how terrified the boys must have been and absolutely awful for his parents that he had simply gone to play at a friend's house.
I'm pretty sure a similar age boy was killed by a dog at a caravan park a year or 2 ago when he was (iirc) staying in a caravan by himself. Again my blood runs cold when I think how horrendous it would be to be attacked like that. (For anyone of any age tbh)

BuckarooWithBruceGrobelaar

Totally understand your viewpoint.

@authenticforgery

We all know what type of dog it'll be.

Course we do. It's not going to be a Labradoodle or a toy Poodle, is it?

Just look down the list of the maulings on Wikipedia linked to above : pitbull crosses, American bulldogs, mastiffs, bull terriers.

And we all know the sorts of people who like to have these animals.

There is a local meet up for these types of dogs (bull mastiff/ pit bull types) at my local park and jt is not an uplifting sight. Some of these dogs are tearing at the leash, muzzled but thrashing to get away and they are being held by people not strong enough to control them. I have no doubt that some of them are untrained, under exercised and very very dangerous.
People are strange though. My kids friends mum adopted a dog she did not know through some Romanian dog rescue charity. I said that I didn't want my dd there until the dog had settled in (and they had assessed the risk.) The mum got really huffy and left me loads of messages about how chilled the dog is. The next week it bit her dc. Luckily it was rehomed to a home without children but her poor dc.

@jazzupyourchuff I think having children changes everything. I feel you can take your own risks when it comes to adopting a dog and worst case scenario is it bites you or your partner but you can’t take the same risk when there’s children involved. We adopted a dog last year, agreed to take him without ever seeing him, didn’t even have a description of him (although knew the breed). We stupidly went and collected him without knowing any of this, we could have literally been collecting ANYTHING but I knew it was coming from a horrible place where they didn’t even have a bed to sleep in and were kept outside.

Fortunately for us we have ended up with an absolute saint of a dog. He would do anything for me and I’d do anything for him too 😊 We have a baby now and although I could trust him a million per cent (feel like I’d trust him to watch the baby more than most members of my family) we have another dog who’s not so calm or trustworthy so they are never even in the room with him if I’m not right beside him. As he gets older and starts to have friends over I would never allow the dogs to be out of their room with other peoples children around, even in case they harmlessly jumped up on them

Can anyone explain to me a good reason why people might choose to keep such a large, powerful and potentially violent breed of dog? Because I can't see any good reasons.
I also do think there needs to be more support for dog wardens and actual sanctions for bad behaviour. I know many responsible dog owners but seem to meet loads out and about who don't give a monkeys about their beast jumping up at complete strangers. I was bitten recently by a dog on a lead fgs - owners didn't seem to have a bloody clue.

@LidlMiddleLover Your comment is truly disgusting my son was never allowed to tease the dog that mauled him.
That poor boy did not deserve what happened to him your comment is vile.

I will never, ever understand why people would actively choose to have a creature that they couldn’t overpower, around their small children. It’s terrifying. All the supervision in the world isn’t going to help if an XL Bully decides it’s going for your child.

One of my daughters friends has a rescue dog from abroad (I’m not sure where). The thing is known to be completely off its head. The wee girl is lovely but over my dead body is my daughter going there for a play date.

I thought pitbull and pitbull crosses were banned dogs in the UK?
Not that it will help the poor little guy now, my heart goes out to his family .

Poor little boy, it’s so tragic

@Rubyupbeat

I thought pitbull and pitbull crosses were banned dogs in the UK? Not that it will help the poor little guy now, my heart goes out to his family .

Drugs are banned, guns are banned... People still have banned things.

The Sun says pitbull-style dog. The earlier reports said a large dog.

[quote SirHonkers]@UndertonesOfCake

Thanks for assuming so much about me. I was curious because the sheer number of people wanting fireworks banned because it upset their dogs.

May I assume you are ok with and think it's a price worth paying for nearly 9000 people a year and over a 1000 of them children to be hospitalised every year, just so you can have a pet?[/quote]
They didn’t assume anything about you surely? They just outlined the fact that they didn’t consider your comparison to be very valid.

Nobody is ‘OK’ with 9000 people being hospitalised every year because of dog bites, but no, I personally am not going to rehome my dogs/never own another dog again because of it. I’m not going to never own a horse again because people have been bitten/kicked/killed by horses either.

I would be interested to see the statistics to know how many of those adults were bitten by their own dogs as opposed to someone else’s. I would imagine it’s a a rather large percentage. Children are obviously entirely different as they are not getting a choice about whether they are going to live with a dog or how that dog is trained or treated.

From what I could see online there have been 3 children killed by dogs in the last 2 years. According to the NSPCC there are, on average, 62 children every year killed by their parents or guardians either through assault or neglect. That concerns and upsets me a lot more.

how come there are adverts for American bully's on pets4homes? surely that is illegal?

Can anyone explain to me a good reason why people might choose to keep such a large, powerful and potentially violent breed of dog?

Because they are a fashionable breed. People think having that kind of dog makes them look cool/hard in the way that walking a Pomeranian or Labradoodle doesn't. Because they are involved in dodgy stuff and want that sort of large animal to put other people off coming into their house. Because they think they are effective guard dogs. Because they are a bit thick and don't appreciate the risks?

All sorts of reasons.

I saw that @lochmaree it’s scary as these dogs are terrifying...what the heck !!! Surely they need to be banned ...full stop.

@ilovebrie8 just looked at gumtree and even more on there. plenty of crosses with staffies and cane corso (sp) too.

Scary these are all dangerous dogs...and end up in the wrong hands ....gumtree jeez ....it’s an accident waiting to happen

[quote SirHonkers]@UndertonesOfCake

Thanks for assuming so much about me. I was curious because the sheer number of people wanting fireworks banned because it upset their dogs.

May I assume you are ok with and think it's a price worth paying for nearly 9000 people a year and over a 1000 of them children to be hospitalised every year, just so you can have a pet?[/quote]
I haven't assumed anything about you personally. The data assumptions were necessary to show I hadn't just plucked a figure from thin air, and the word "you" can easily be replaced by "one".

As for the latter part of your post - that's a trick question if ever I saw one. If I say yes I'm happy for people to be hospitalised by dogs I'll look nuts, and if I say I'm not happy with hospitalisations you'll ask why I have a dog.

Do you drive a vehicle? If so, are you happy that 57,802 hospital admissions per year (9180 of which are children) is a price worth paying for you to get around a bit more easily?

The trouble with the Dangerous Dogs Act 1992 (DDA) is that it was a poorly drafted, kneejerk piece of legislation.

A dog can be defined as a pit bull "type" simply by use of a tape measure. The dog could be known to be (for example) a cross between a boxer and a labrador, with not a drop of pitbull blood in it, but if the tape measure dimensions are consistent with it being a pitbull... it's a banned breed. The dog might be the loveliest dog ever, the sort that might cut it as a PAT therapy dog, but if the tape measure says it's a pitbull... you get the idea.

The barking (pun intended) situation means that some puppies from the same litter could be deemed "pitbull type" while others from the same litter aren't.

This is a decent little summary www.bluecross.org.uk/dangerous-dogs-act-1991-what-it

@authenticforgery

the statistics speak for themselves, which is why you can't create a counter argument. These dogs have no place in a civilised society.

This. ^

@ilovebrie8

Scary these are all dangerous dogs...and end up in the wrong hands ....gumtree jeez ....it’s an accident waiting to happen

Exactly.

@Garfunkle

As a dog owner of many years I agree with your statement about filthy dog owners who don’t pick up after their dogs.

I see no reason why a well trained, friendly dog with excellent recall should be leashed on a mountain, woodland, forestry, beach or other large green area.

Problem is, the vast majority of dogs are not well trained with 'excellent recall'... I have lost count of the amount of times I have been walking in the meadow or woodland or across an open field, and someone's out-of-control mutt has come bounding towards me, sometimes knocking me over, very often scaring me, and sometimes being very aggressive. And they most certainly do not have 'excellent recall.'

I have been scared stiff a few times after being pinned against a fence by a snarling dog, with its witless owner weakly stating 'he won't hurt you, he's only playing.'

Seriously, there's not a single fucking brain cell in the head of some dog owners.. The level of stupidity and obnoxiousness for some dog owners, knows no bounds. The 'he won't hurt you' brigade need locking up, and their mutts taking off them.

Fel free to be the mutt-apologist Garfunkle You are fooling no-none. Too many people have had too many bad experiences with out-of-control dogs, (as this thread proves,) for your 'no reason why dogs can't be off a lead' bollocks to hold any water.

I find it quite disturbing that you - and a few other mutt-apologists on here, seem to be way more upset at their precious mutts being slated, than they are of the death of that poor boy. Speaks volumes about tbh.