Two fatal dog attacks in 48 hours

[ThisOldThang]

There have been two fatal dog attacks within 48 hours:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c80egr50vmmo

"Police are urgently hunting two dogs they believe were involved in killing a man found dead outside a home in Birmingham.

The man, aged 33, was found dead in the back garden of a home in Rubery on Wednesday.

Police said two dogs had been seized but they were hunting two more American bulldog types."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyn4yxm7jko

A man who tried to fight off an XL bully with a broom as it mauled his friend to death has said the dog "just turned on him".

David Daintree died after his pet attacked him at his home on Ashley Court in Accrington, Lancashire, at about 21:30 BST on Tuesday.

I think it's time for a cull of Bully XLs and similar breeds.

AIBU?

My friend lives next door to someone who has what looks like an XL bully. It's clearly not registered, as it still has its balls. The fence between their gardens is only about waist height and she's in a permanent stress that it may get into her garden and attack her, her son or her own small dog.

The owner is an irresponsible twat, leaves the dog alone for very long periods, never walks it and when he's at home he seems to smoke weed all day long. His own kids have been taken into care.

I've tried to encourage her to report it, but she's scared of possible retaliation. I'd report it myself, but I'd feel dreadful if I did and he thought it was her, and retaliated in some way.

This breed DOES just turn - that's what adds to their danger - people are lulled into a false sense of security, and believe they are safe.

I read this morning that the second guy was also not the owner, they belonged to his brother (the ones running loose). He was probably dead for a few days, too, because he was found after neighbours reported a foul smell.

I think the problem is that pitbulls were originally bred to maul and fight to the death. That was their only function and they actually enjoy fighting/mauling.

They might go an entire lifetime without ever switching into attack mode, but if they do they can't be stopped without choking out the dog until it's unconscious or dead.

Owners are playing Russian roulette every day for 12+ years. All it takes is five minutes of the 'breed trait' to become active and you and your family could be horrifically injured or killed. A pitbull type dog might be completely fine for 99.9999% of the time, but that 0.0001% is enough to kill or maim somebody

All dogs are not the same.

Extremely unpopular thing to say and slightly tangential but.....this is connected to the wider culture of people taking their dogs absolutely bloody everywhere

Indeed. Dogs are fur babies and it's mean to be mean to them (ie by leaving them at home while you go out shopping or for a meal).

And yes I've seen dogs lunging towards people and it's only because their owners have got a very good hold on them that they don't get to them. And when they see another dog. Oh my goodness the barking and growling. It must be exhausting to own a reactive dog.

Powerful dogs with the potential to kill in the hands of fuckwits. Highly doubt the dog “just turned” there will have been many warning signs missed. There is really no need for dogs of this type to be bred at all but certain types of people will always wants to own “status” dogs and this is the end result

Any dog can turn. I remember reading a story on here about a woman who'd been decorating and she dropped the paintbrush. Her dog (just a mongrel) went mad and took a chunk out of her arm. As she had a young grand-daughter, she had the dog PTS. It had never reacted like that before, but she was worried it would happen again. Also the dog was quite old by then, so maybe it had canine dementia (is that even a thing - I believe cats can get dementia, not sure about dogs).

After reading the Reddit article linked by pp, I feel my opinion that these dogs have a hair trigger to aggression and give no warning signs - not enough time for an adult to remove a child to safety certainly- is vindicated.
The article should be enough for anyone to realise these dogs are not family pets because they are human aggressive and they kill humans.
The fact that deaths continue to occur show that the current legislation is not working. Attacks may usually be in the home but the police and public were very concerned about the two dogs loose after a death. They will be very very dangerous until caught/shot.

I must say when I read one of these accounts, where it's the dog owner who is attacked I find it hard to feel any sympathy at all. However it's not just them, and it's not just certain breeds, any dog can attack and harm people. I imagine that the things we see in the news are just the tip of the iceberg, eg my MILs elderly gardener was attacked by dogs from a neighbouring garden. He was hospitalised and off work for many weeks. It was not (wrongly) not reported to anyone. The country has gone mad with its soppy love of dogs and treating them as if they were human. Any dog that attacks any human should be PTS at once.

I am exasperated by the 'It's not the breed / dog, it's the owner' dog liberalists.

It IS the dog.

When you watch a Border Collie at work with sheep, yes it's partly the training, but it's also the dog. No one uses pugs or fox hounds as sheep dogs. Same with any domesticated breed that has been bred to bring out the most human-useful aspects of it's natural instincts.

These dogs have been deliberately bred and engineered to be what they are - and it is stupid for people to keep them as family pets. Also stupid and cruel to keep a Border Collie as a lap dog. Because of the very nature of the dog and its breed.

No one needs a dog heavier than many humans bred to hang on with teeth with a 350lb force literally until the death.

You are missing the point. An environment like a large shop is going to be stressful for a dog. There may not have been any attacks in Selfridges but it doesn't mean its the correct place for a dog. It's not fair on the dog to do that to them.

I was in a local cafe last weekend and saw a large dog lunge towards 2 smaller dogs. The same dog snapped at and came very close to biting the leg of the waitress who was serving the table. I have also seen it in the street and in parks. Just because you haven't seen something doesn't mean it didn't happen and certainly doesn't give you the right to be so condescending to pp

Does anyone know if there is a petition to cull these things?

It depends where you live and a certain amount of "luck" surely?
I currently live in a nice Hertfordshire town. Most people have dogs. Mainly doodle/poo/sausage dog types. So far I've never seen any aggressive behaviour. Lots of annoying "friendly" jumping up at times though.
But I used to live in London. While living there I've seen teens/yound adults struggling to control dogs lunging for animals/humans. A fully grown man pulled over by a dog as it went for a squirrel. Been chased by a dog barking aggressively at me while running. A large dog going nuts barking at a random old man in a furniture shop for no reason i could see. The owner was trying to drag it out but it was just fixed to the spot. Just because I don't see these things happen now in my small town it doesn't mean they don't happen elsewhere.

The problem is that by allowing all the nice mainly "friendly" doodles and poos into Selfridges and cafes and shops, you also allow in the XL bullies and other aggressive badly behaved dogs. So you're lucky if you live in a nice town full of old people and families with cockapoos etc and your local shops are fine. If you live somewhere with aggressive dogs owned by knobheads who have no interest in or cannot control them then it's a different story.

You think they give a fuck?

Places know their customers.

I have never seen an XL Bully in John Lewis of an independent coffee shop, or the local independent pub with a resident folk band that charged £6 a pint (normal for S London), all of which are chokker with fur babies.

The local Wetherspoons on the other hand won’t allow any dogs (except assistance dogs) even in the extensive beer garden. They know it would be dog fight / Bully central. This is a Wetherspoons-wide policy.

Someone walks one past my son’s nursery everyday when I go to pick him up.
The owner does not look strong enough to control it. They need to be culled.

I work out in my local park a couple of times a week and regularly see a very large XL Bully being walked by a tiny, petite woman. It's muzzled but she'd have no control over it if it bolted on her. Imagine that in her back garden, not muzzled, getting out under the fence or through an open door. I'm also pretty sure she has kids, I've seen her walking it with a tweenage girl before. I just do not understand why people take the risk.

There is another dog walked there by a man most days. It's not muzzled and I think it's because it has short legs so doesn't quite meet the height requirement to be deemed an XL Bully but in every other way it looks like one - it's very broad in the head and chest, has that massive wide mouth and stocky muscled body. Again I doubt he'd be able to hold it back if it took off - the owner isn't much taller or heavier than me (normal size female 5ft 6, if anything he's a bit weedier than me) and those dogs can weigh 60kg or or more. The guy keeps it on a lead but it makes me so nervous when he appears - I'm often only a few feet from it when he goes past. Even worse if I'm doing a plank or stretches and my head is literally at same height as the dogs.

@CitronellaDeVille @Dwappy you might be surprised. I live on the edges of a very gentrified neighbourhood in London and the park I work out in is classic 'yummy mummy' territory. Both dogs I've mentioned are walked by white middle class looking people, especially the woman who looks very well off in her Sweaty Betty hoody and yoga pants outfit.

And even if it were 'the owner not the breed', so what? We know for a fact we cannot somehow force every single dog owner to be perfect. What even is perfect? Even if people had to take classes, they might not implement what they learn. Even if you do everything 'right', who knows what happened to the dog in puppyhood before you adopted them? Even if you have them from birth, do we really want dogs among us who have to be raised with such absolute perfection every single second of their lives or they might suddenly kill someone? I've read enough threads of bully owners who can't have guests around because even a small noise will set them off. A sudden movement. I've seen people blamed for a bully mauling because they ignored the dog. I've seen people blamed for a bully mauling cos they approached the dog. You just can't win. Bad owners will always exist, doesn't mean we should all just throw our hands up and accept the chance of us or our children being mauled to a horrifically painful and scary death because apparently the owner caused it. You can't force what people do in their own home. There will always be bad owners like there will always be bad parents, partners, employees, etc.

But yes, with this dog, it's the dog. I just can't get past how silly that argument is when people say it's the owner not the breed. Funnily enough they never move to the next logical step... cos there isn't one.

If you asked me whether I'd rather have a loaded gun on my kitchen table while my kid was having breakfast or an XL bully sat next to us, I'd choose the gun. Because at least you have to touch the gun to fire it and get someone killed. With a bully they're far more scary because of the autonomy.

I'm as big an animal lover as they come, vegan for decades, absolutely adore and respect all nonhuman animals and believe very passionately in respecting and protecting and treating nonhuman animals as if they are as 'worthy' as us. Anti-speciesist to my core. Despite this, I would support a cull at this point. Clearly the recent legislation doesn't go far enough. I think it's time to safely and humanely euthanise them all, to prevent further deaths. In this life you have to be utilitarian. It's simply not safe for them to remain amongst us.

I feel sorry for these dogs too. Their genetic makeup is to kill, fight, maim. They actively enjoy it. They are bred for gameness. They enjoy mauling other living beings like a cat enjoys chasing a feather, you can't remove their nature from them. They can't be happy in your average calm family home not fulfilling their own basic instincts. It's no wonder so many of them 'snap', and it's ironic it's called snapping as if it's some unexpected aberration when in reality they're just reverting to their nature.

parkrun500club · Today 09:50

Any dog can turn. I remember reading a story on here about a woman who'd been decorating and she dropped the paintbrush. Her dog (just a mongrel) went mad and took a chunk out of her arm. As she had a young grand-daughter, she had the dog PTS. It had never reacted like that before, but she was worried it would happen again. Also the dog was quite old by then, so maybe it had canine dementia...

Yes, it is a thing; cats and dogs get all the same things as humans.

My nan had a really old Labrador, the most placid thing ever. He was the most tolerant dog ever, we used to do all sorts to him and he just rolled over and wagged his tail. He was 15 and started to act strangely and one day, he just got up and went for Nan. She had to have him put down.

Terrifying

Spaniels can get "rage syndrome" - very rare now as breeders (mainly) did the right thing and did not breed from dogs or the littermates of dogs who had it.

Its onset was rather earlier than the typical age for an XL bully attack, but I was wondering if there could be a parallel condition. The hideous levels of interbreeding, and the number of dogs in UK which come from lines which have been known to snap and attack, mean that (if there were a syndrome) then there are a lot of dogs potentially at risk.

Because it seems to be true that many are indeed nice reliable dogs (if well socialised and trained). But that a proportion of them just snap and attack out of the blue. And there's no way of knowing with this type of syndrome which dogs would be affected. Plus this breed/type is notorious for poor breeding standards (inbreeding, poor/non-existent socialisation by inexperienced or just plain dodgy breeders). Plus, aside from some people who just like massive dogs and know how to deal with them (which I would say is a small minority), there is a real problem with the owners - the type who choose totally deliberately the latest notorious breed, who don't care about breeding standards, don't meet the needs of the animals and may play fast and loose with the restrictions. And are probably eyeing up a cane corsa right now.

Thought I saw a lady with two xl bully dogs whilst driving earlier in my village It unnerved me. If they wanted to go in opposite directions, she’d struggle. I gave a 28kg lab, and he’s strong enough, and he’s not even considered a large lab.

If the law says it’s too dangerous to be outside in public unmuzzled then it should also be illegal to own one in a home with children. You can’t have a gun in a home because it’s illegal so why are you allowed an illegal breed if you have anyone living there who can’t consent.

If you’re uneducated enough to think you can overrule genetics then that should be a risk you take yourself without involving anyone else. I have 0 sympathy by anyone mauled to death by their own terrible choices.

I agree.

I am in first time mum group on FB and have seen a few posts to the effect of ‘When the health visitor comes around will they refer me to SS for having my XL. He’s a big softy wouldn’t hurt a fly’ since the ban came in.

I find it appalling that people have these in the house with children.

Of course it’s a huge safe guarding issue. How is it any different to having a weapon, or signs of drugs misuse in the house? It’s something which increase the risk of harm to child significantly. In fact it’s worse, in that it cannot be controlled by the owner at all.