Dog walker killed by her own XL Bully Breed dog.

[BethDuttonsTwin]

NOT a pack of 8 dogs as was reported repeatedly with concurrent complete slating of all professional dog walkers.

Absolutely awful. So many of us who have worked with dogs knew this would be the outcome and that packs of 8 dogs do not behave in this way.

After investigations are complete we are now told that the only dog destroyed was the walkers own XL Bully Breed dog. Over and over again it is these dogs and still today I see a man strutting around my locale with two of these type dogs, both unneutered and off lead 🤷🏼‍♀️

The Police horse's injuries were really nasty..and horses have tougher skin than humans.

That's a bit of myth. Investigators into the use of whips have found the skin may even be thinner and that horses have more pain receptors in their skin than humans. https://www.equinebehaviourist.co.uk/blog/2015/3/23/horses-have-thinner-skin-and-may-feel-pain-more-than-humans And yes, that attack was really grim. Any dog doing that to a horse of mine wouldn't get a second chance.

Look at the utter incompetents that seem to own those that DO attack.

Exactly. From the story posted about Bella-Rae Birch the 17 month old:

The dog had been bought by her father 'for buttons' just one week earlier and he was intending to stud it out for puppies for £2,000 each.

Drastic overhaul is needed regarding dog ownership.

It’s getting to the stage I’m going to be afraid to let my child walk to and from school (or anywhere) alone as you just don’t know when the next dog attack will be!

Is there anything at all you can or should do if it happens? The thought is quite terrifying.

I'm a police officer in a small northern town- we are now getting 8 dog attack job daily on average .

This HAS to be the fallout from lockdown - everyone got dogs - dogs they couldn't socialise or train due to - lockdown!!!!!

I have a massive German Shepard and a scottie . My gad is way gentler and dopey than my scottie . I call them pinky and the brain .

I was off -balanced by a Great Dane when I was stood still and he just nuzzled into me. So whilst a dog breed may be gentle and less known to bite they could still knock someone over, who would then potentially be vulnerable.

(That said both of mind are social and trained )

A well socialised GSD is a good dog.

So many novices did buy dogs in Lockdown, the amount of 'Romanian' dogs that were bought by people turned down by UK rescues was off the scale ..and none of these dogs are around now.

Probably euthanised or languishing in kennels somewhere.

People made small fortunes breeding and importing mongrels and calling them silly names in adverts like Sprocker~wokker~doo~ dah or versions of..

Working line Border collies sold to Londoners..It was insanity.

Now, thankfully the price of dogs is a third of what it was, but it's still shocking to see ads online- this is no place to buy a dog.

When there was a spate of Pit bull attacks on children 1980's/early 1990's mum hears an RSPCA inspector on LBC say inserting something up the dog's
rectum can make it release it's grip.

A friend had het toddler and baby attacked by an English Bull Terrier that came barreling out of a park and it flew at her children in the buggy, overturning it.

It's owner came running up beating it over the head with a huge chain.

This was about 16 yrs ago ..Her children needed hospital treatment, but are thankfully ok now.

The owner was banned from keeping dogs at the time of the attack.

Always the same type of owner, it seems, incapable of socialising and training any dog.

My friend even now is very wary of certain dogs after that attack.

Throttling with a lead or collar is also suggested in an emergency, but sounds very hard to do in the heat of an attack with a broad dog.

Um... actually under the fur both xl bullies and the leonberger are molosser type dogs (and Leonbergers are listed as molossoid family with the FCI who are pretty much the worlds governing body on dog breeds) - that means all the mastiff types, block headed bully types - Rotties, Mastiffs, St Bernards, and yep, American Bulldogs and their derivative types. The fur is misleading, but a Leonberger can do every bit as much damage as an XL bully.

Heres a Leo with a rather unfortunate haircut! (Pinched from google images)

Most likely redirected aggression.

This is what happens when dogs are scared or super frustrated, highly aroused (in the 'wound up ready to go' sense not sexually... usually) and are restrained in some way, in this case on leads.

With nowhere to go and tension rising, they will lash out at whatever/whoever is nearest and that will be each other and likely the handler.

For this reason too, a dog in a fight may well bite their owner when the owner shoves a hand in to separate, they don't realise what they're doing and just bite whatever is there.

So several big dogs and little dogs, yapping and barking and pulling and one snaps at the other and someone snaps at her and she falls down, its very very easy to see how they just get stuck into whatever they can reach and the more she becomes a dead weight on the end of that lead, up to a point the more they will bite.

Another really dangerous factor is that when a dog is in a fight and has hold of another dog or person, they may not let go - to let go in this situation is to allow their opponent to get a better grip on them, get another grip, so they don't let go.

This is not a breed specific thing this is an individual specific thing, any of the dogs could have done this and if they got her in the neck in the wrong place, she could have bled out fast. Even a Dachshund, if its grabbed and won't let go you'd need both hands and to be standing up to get them off. She was down on the floor under multiple fighting/grabbing/holding dogs.

If you did overpower a smaller dog biting down and not letting go, then the outcome is huge amounts of tearing trauma to whatever they had hold of, so even if you have the strength to rip off a smaller dog - the damage they'd do could be fatal.

Humans are fragile things, the jugular vein is superficial and unprotected, unless a dog has no teeth at all, any dog could pierce that with ease.

I think theres been a significant lack of respect and understanding for what dogs can do, what dogs will do, how dogs behave, and it's been going on for some time. It'd be easy to lay blame at the feet of the 'furbaby' types but honestly, the 'I've got black cargo pants, military boots and a Cane Corso with the ears sliced off it' type 'dogs a dog, my dogs a weapon' types are too - because they believe somehow their dogs know right from wrong and know a good guy from a bad guy... and that their dog won't turn on them. And they use the type of training more likely to cause aggression and serious errors on the dogs part.

It's people we need to educate, and control. Then the dog issue will resolve.

But its much easier to ban breeds, which as I said earlier, has been proven not to work but is what the well meaning but ignorant public cry out for.

Might have been an idea not to start it until it was concluded, but then Daily Mail readers…….

In these instances I don’t think it’s the daily mail readers who are the issue. It’s the people who see a naked emperor and talk about how gorgeous his clothes are. One XL Bully attack after another after another and still ‘it’s not the breed’ is bleated.

Slight misreading of the article there. All 8 dogs DID attack her, but it was the bully that caused the fatal injuries.

Although bullies are not the dogs that bite the most (I believe I read it's actually labs that bite/attack the most, which makes sense as they're the most commonly owned breed), because they are so powerful they DO cause the most serious/fatal injuries. They were bred to fight.

I don't hate them. It's not their fault they're so powerful and were bred to fight. But I do believe that nobody should own one.

Although Leo’s technically may be in the molossoid family, they were originally bred as companion and as family dogs for royalty. They have also been traditionally used for cart pulling and as a watch dog, but never blood sports.

On the phylogenetic tree, they are most closely related to breeds such as the Saint Bernard and Bernese mountain dog. It’s a totally different branch genetically to that of the SBT, American bully etc.

Even shaved it looks nothing like a bulldog of any kind, conformationally or otherwise.
Yes, it’s an extremely large and powerful dog and should be respected as one, however temperament and personality wise it’s a million miles apart from an XL or bull breed.

I’m also fed up of hearing “they were originally bred for xyz”

this is why the bull terriers of today are not like that of our memory. We have great memories of these friendly gentle giants cuddling us and being playful. Those dogs were not the ones that bred the dogs today. Bigger and more aggressive dogs and led to the xl bullies of today, bred by idiots for cash.

you can change a breed a lot in very few generations, certainly make them almost unrecognisable in 100 years, which may be a life time for a human. Whatever they were bred for before is certainly not what they are bred for now (dog fighting and status)

It is just silly to keep asserting she was definitely attacked by 8 dogs, when the authorities don’t even know this given that they’re still investigating five of them and two have been ruled out and gone home.

Surely they can tell pretty quickly by bite patterns?

Robert Cabral on you tube does a lot of work in shelters around Bull breeds and he is a fan of “Macho” type breeds, Belgian Malinois - But he too is concerned about the unsuitability of XL Bullies- he says some very aggressive unstable lines are present in them- and they are an accident waiting to happen.

It IS the breed.

Even in “ Gentle” breeds ( Whippets) there were certain individuals who were known to pass a “ Sharp” temperament ( with other dogs) down the line (1980’s)

Good with people- but sharp around other dogs.

Educating the public- When will that ever work-
depressingly it seems to be a particular type of personality drawn to these “ Killer” type dogs

Not the type to listen to advice- but they want to enhance their status in their eyes with a dog that IS capable of killing people and other dogs.

It wasn't a "bad" dog - it was a badly-trained dog, whose needs weren't met on a day-to-day basis. The "behavioural issues" from being a puppy are down to no proper training and not enough physical or mental exercise for the pup - they are highly intelligent as well as physically active, and need a lot of mental stimulation (which decent training actually provides) and a lot of exercise.

The woman who bought her didn't make any real attempt to train her properly from what I have seen/ read, and then passed her on because she couldn't cope. Shiva (formerly Maple, IIRC) was a good dog spoilt!

That's not to say such a dog can't be difficult or even dangerous - the longer bad behaviour is allowed to continue the worse it will get - but it wasn't her fault.

Another lovely animal let down by her owner.

Another lovely animal let down by her owner.

I think pretty much any dog that ends up attacking people has been in some way let down by their owners or breeders. However, what is standing out for me now is that we don't seem to be able to educate ourselves to do better by our dogs. So then we do need better legal controls. Not the kneejerk legislation of the 1990s but some thoroughly researched, well drawn up legislation that restricts who can own dogs and what type (particularly size). We also then need to control how many dogs can be walked together at any one time. Because they are pack animals and when that pack mentality takes hold, they can be very dangerous.

And yes, the humans are the ones at fault and letting dogs down. So we need to restrict who can keep dogs and who can exercise them.

.And actually beating them doesn't work, because the pain just makes them fight more. The only thing that really works is strangling or choking them and that does put you at significant risk.

This is an excellent point that people either seem to ignore or are unaware of.

I saw a horrible piece of footage some years ago where a service dog was attacked in the underground by a bull breed (don't know which type). The thug owner kicked the hell out of his dog, which of course made it even more aggressive because it then felt itself to be under attack. He finally dragged his dog off, leaving the service dog badly injured and terrified, and the blind owner past themselves with fear and distress. (The footage was shown in the hope that the thug would be recognised).

This isn't just a dog half-killed and an owner terrified - both will be traumatised by the attack. A service dog takes a long time (and a lot of money) to train. An attack like this can leave it useless as a working dog. And because it will have bonded with the owner, having to be returned (not everyone can keep two dogs) for re-homing is doubly distressing.

As @WisherWood says - only choking can stop such a dog, and that depends on the type of collar (if any) they are wearing, and whether you are able to twist it hard enough to put pressure on their windpipe. You have to make the dog desperate enough for air that it lets go to take a breath, then you have to very quickly pull them away. That takes some strength and courage.

Just pulling them away, even if if you are able, can leave the victim with dreadful wounds because the dogs hold on.

I know this sounds dreadfully cruel, but when I saw footage of that attack I was hoping the the dog would get kicked - hard!

I have a massive German Shepard and a scottie . My gad is way gentler and dopey than my scottie . I call them pinky and the brain

Love it! 😂

I'm sure yours are well-trained, though.

When there was a spate of Pit bull attacks on children 1980's/early 1990's mum hears an RSPCA inspector on LBC say inserting something up the dog's
rectum can make it release it's grip.

I've heard that, too, but I wouldn't risk it unless there was someone to hold onto the dog's collar - I could see any animal you did that to turning straight round and re-directing its aggression onto you. (Plus, even grabbing a collar in the heat of a fight is difficult - aiming (say) a stick at the comparatively small target of a dog's anus wouldn't be easy)

a dog in a fight may well bite their owner when the owner shoves a hand in to separate, they don't realise what they're doing and just bite whatever is there

Been there when my terrified spaniel was attacked by 2 border collies. My dog bit me, but it was totally unintentional. (Those particular two dogs have caused a lot of trouble round here - we had another run in with them just this morning as it happens.)

Surely the limits on the number of dogs a walker have to take into account the type of dog being walked? The article says that most licences allow walkers to take 4 to 6 dogs (not sure about the situation where this lady lived but it's known she was walking 8).

Now there's a massive difference, literally, between walking 6 Yorkshire Terriers and 6 Great Danes, for example. Surely the common sense solution is, for example, 1 large dog at a time, 2 to 3 medium sized dogs or 4 to 5 small dogs?

@Wisherwood - most local authorities do limit the number of dogs whch can be walked (by a walker) at any one time , but many walkers ignore the restrictions, I think. Makes me wonder if they have insurance because that would be invalidated if they were walking too many dogs (limit locally is 6, but I have seen walkers with 8).

My favourite local dog walker is an ex-police dog handler and he never has more than four, and that includes his own two - so if he has his dogs with him, he only has a maximum of two other dogs. (And the dogs love him!)