XL Bully attack | 8 year old boy seriously injured

[ThisOldThang]

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/schoolboy-8-seriously-injured-after-28610020

"A schoolboy is in a serious condition in hospital after being mauled by what is believed to be an XL bully.

Merseyside Police were called to Wadham Road in Bootle just after 5.20pm on Saturday following reports a dog had bitten an eight-year-old boy to the head in the communal area of flats nearby.

The boy was rushed to hospital with serious head injuries and required emergency surgery. He remains in hospital in a serious but stable condition."

IMHO the ban doesn't go anywhere near far enough and all XL Bullys need to be put to sleep.

AIBU?

I’m an animal lover, who would prefer to get rid of a rat humanely, but I’m on the ‘put them all to sleep side’. I think it’s awful that it’s come to this, but how many more attacks and deaths need to happen. Last summer, I was at a family festival and there was this bloke strutting about, shirt off with 2 XL bully’s on leads. No muzzles. He was a skinny little thing as well. If they wanted to go after something/someone he wouldn’t have been able to stop them. It takes a special kind of person to take 2 dogs like that to a family event with little kids running around. Do they not realise that people aren’t looking at them thinking ‘wow, they’re really cool and powerful’ instead they’re thinking ‘what an absolute idiot’.

Or, "Bloody Hell, I'm scared of those dogs."

No-one is saying that a pet is equal to a human.

What we are saying is that we all have to take responsibility - if you have a vulnerable family member - eg a toddler, a child who has learning difficulties etc - than you make damn sure that they are safe beside you, and not "darting off" anywhere.

Dogs are not the only threat - there is traffic, bigger children who might be running around excitedly and cannon into them, which could seriously hurt a small child, they could badly hurt themselves falling over play equipment - there is any number of hazards. If they "dart off" in the street, the could go under a bus. Or, God forbid, be the next James Bulger.

If a dog is on leash, under control and behaving well it is considerably less dangerous than any of the other hazards I've mentioned. A parent has the responsibility to keep their child away from dogs, just as much as a dog owner has a responsibility to train, socialise and control their pet.

I was on a train recently and this selfish woman kept letting her dog roam around the train carriage on a long leash while she was in her phone not paying attention. Everyone was trying to ignore it. It kept coming into the floor of my seating area which was annoying. I’m sure if I had moved my legs and kicked it accidentally before I noticed it and it had bitten me, I’d have been blamed.

Why didn't you say something to her @Fageyoghurt ? People like her are aPITA but if no-one complains they'll never see any need to change their behaviour.

And I am 70 years old and have been around dogs all of my life, and can honestly say that I have only been growled at twice, and one of this occasions was when I was standing between my dog and one which wanted to get to her.

I admit that I have had badly trained dogs and silly puppies jump up at me, and I always tell them "Down", because this shouldn't be happening, I agree - I wouldn't let my dogs do it because at the very least it can spoil people's clothing, and at worst could knock someone flying, but aggressive dogs (other than these XL bully type) are very few and far between.

You have been very unfortunate if you have met more than one in your life.

Do they not realise that people aren’t looking at them thinking ‘wow, they’re really cool and powerful’ instead they’re thinking ‘what an absolute idiot’.

More like "What an a-hole."

They are not children but the poster isn't saying they are either. They are comparing the intellectual capacity of Dogs and children to a particular age, which is entirely true and scientifically proven. You can have 2 entirely different species with brains ..that have the same intellectual capacity. As our frame of reference is only with humans, this is the age of a human that is compatible. Surely you get
That ?

100% this!!

So, knowing that you have this unstable dog, you always muzzle it in public don't you?

Unfortunately no, they don’t have enough brain cells to generate that much self awareness! There is no good reason anyone would have one of these dogs other than to boost their own ego. The dogs are rancid looking and the damage they can do is terrifying.

I had agreed with her comment saying that children should be taught not to approach dogs.

I merely pointed out that unfortunately despite parents and owners best efforts, things do still happen and gave an example of such an event.

A toddler suddenly darted off and grabbed a dog. (Since this has also started a debate it was a huge park and the parents were next to their child. The family were one side of an ice cream van and the dog was another, I'm sure of the parents had seen the dog it would've been a different outcome)

This poster decided that the parents were irresponsible, as her children were always 'reined'.

Using her logic I could've flipped the story and said it was the owners fault for having slack in the dogs lead, meaning it had enough room to turn and bite the child and that the dog should've basically been sat between the owners legs. Or that the owners were irresponsible for taking their dog to an area for families.

This is the sort of poster that blurs the lines between treating dogs as humans and seems to want to blame children being children. Hence why I referred to her as leashing her children.

That’s missing the point. Whatever the relative intellectual abilities of dogs and children - and it’s obviously a completely nonsense comparison anyway - to liken the reactions or behaviour of children to those of dogs is foolish because they have nothing in common at all.

You might as well draw an equivalence between a child and an octopus. Do you see?

I too think all XLBullies should be PTS. They were bred for their aggression, it’s in their DNA, they are mega strong and have a powerful jaw that can hang on. They are popular obviously with brain dead humans, who use them as a weapon because they are cowards. Any rational, dog loving person who decides to choose a dog would not go for one of these hideous animals. They are ugly, powerful beasts and the breed needs wiping out. Yes there have been dogs in the past with reputations, GS, Rottweiler, Doberman, but how many actually killed a human. These Bullies are killing machines.

It was 2boysNosleep who referred to me 'leashing' my children (put on reins). That same posters is of the view that my lines are blurred.

I know the difference between dogs and children, the only similarity between the two is that both can be unpredictable and out of control.

But we do make comparisons between humans and other animals (especially mammals). There’s a whole branch of psychology dedicated to it (comparative psychology). Humans are animals, after all.

Octopuses are supremely intelligent, by all accounts and may be capable of forming emotional attachments, even to humans. So comparing a human to an octopus is not a particularly strange thing to do (although I imagine octopuses are probably cleverer than us).

US Pit advocates blockading the memorial service of a victim

So does that mean all other biting dogs should be put to sleep then?, like rotties or shepherds?. Thought not.

No, but they should all be banned as pets. Or at the very least required to be on short leads and muzzled in public.

Have they killed as many people as XLBs have over the past few years? If they have, then yes I’d probably be arguing for them to all be euthanised too.

I've still got the scar on my leg from a German Shepard coming out of nowhere and biting me when I was 10. So, I'd be quite happy to see any of the large and powerful breeds, banned as pets. They don't need PTS, because numbers of deaths due to these breeds aren't comparable with XL bullies, but I'd be happy to see them fazed out.

I did ask her to remove the dog. She kind of blinked at me in surprise and then did so but two minutes later went back to her phone and let it start roaming again.

At that point I just stood up and grabbed my luggage, then I asked her to move her dog -which was now blocking the aisle - out of my way so I could walk by. It seems she expected me to walk over her dog while carrying luggage?? But anyway, I found a carriage with no dogs. Luckily it wasn’t a massively busy train so I didn’t have to stick to my reserved seats.

I also emailed the train company and asked them to consider having designated dog friendly carriages like they do in Finland and other countries. They said they’ll consider it but I doubt it.

But really if they allow dogs on trains they need to have enough staff to be able to enforce rules are followed like being kept under the seats, not on the seats and not in the the aisle or other peoples seating area. And perhaps they could add signs around the train reminding dog owners. That incident happened on my journey home from my friends, but on the way out there was actually another dog in my carriage. This one was completely off leash walking up and down the aisle in a crowded train. I didn’t want to start walking up and down the train with an unsupervised dog in search of of the owner. It’s just not my job. It’s not really fair customers having to confront other passengers especially as some people can be very aggressive and hostile.

Thousands of people attend NHS hospitals for dog bites every year. I’ve personally witnessed dogs be aggressive to other people and heard people tell me various stories including ones I’ve read on here which include stuff like their partners dogs growling at their children or their neighbours dog snarling each time they go out in the garden so while I don’t think most dogs are, I don’t think aggressive dogs are all that rare.

It doesn’t happen every day granted and the last time it happened to me was October on the coastal walk but then as I said I don’t really interact with dogs (except the dogs of a few trusted friends which are lovely and calm) and give most a wide berth.

@Fionaville thats awful. Was the owner around ? What happened to the dog?

The dog had escaped from it's house and I was just walking to the shop with my friend, it wasn't my area it was where my friend lived. The owner just came along and took the dog back, didn't do anything. I believe my friends dad went and had a word. The owner said the dog had run out the front door when somebody knocked. My parents reported it, I had to have stitches but the dog didnt get PTS. That's what worries me about the 'muzzled in public' order. Dogs get out.

This is horrifying disgusting and it beggars belief 🤬😢

That’s terrible. I don’t know when this was but back in the 90s and noughties you did see dogs on their own a lot more often. I find it odd that dogs that have caused injuries requiring hospital treatment aren’t automatically PTS when they’ve been reported.

And yeah that’s the issue with the muzzle orders, it’s very common for dogs to escape when the front door is opened unless the owners are really on the ball. I see it a lot and quite often if i go for a walk, I find myself scanning residential streets to check.

In my early 20s, one evening I was approached by a staffy type dog barking aggressively at me on my way home. thankfully I happened to be about 50 yards from a childhood friends home. I managed to inch past it and rang my friends doorbell. Her mum was already practically at the door, she later told me she’d actually got up to see what all the very loud barking was about. So she immediately invited me in and we waited for quite a while, but it was getting late but the dog just wouldn’t move.

My friend wasn’t in, but eventually my friends older sister walked with me to her car and the dog which was still there started barking again and following like it was going to attack one of us. It was SUCH a relief to reach her car and and she drove me home. We were both shaken up. I think I’d have been bitten if I’d not stopped in at my friends house. Grateful family helped me out.

If you have a dog that cannot cope with a toddler running around without an aggressive reaction you have a dangerous animal that has no place out in public
👏🏻

Unfortunately I have been regularly chased, jumped up at and growled at by dogs when simply minding my own business in a public area. I know the issue is not toddlers not being on reins
Me too, I'm sick to the back teeth of dogs, I wish they were dog free areas where I could guarantee not having to encounter any of them.