Great Dane now on the attack - please can we do something? *Distressing content warning*

@KimberleyClark some people do keep them as pets. Not everyone eats them.

@Stryke I am also vegan.

Mass murder of canines won’t happen because we are a civilised, dog loving country (Paul O Grady statue).

Just because a few hundred people on mn are triggered by a dog, that’s not the norm.

I don’t know anyone that doesn’t love dogs, 🤷🏼‍♀️they either own them or are happy to dog sit for me, and to go to dog friendly establishments. If they do have an intense hatred of dogs, they hide it well and must be very false. If you have to pretend to like something so people will like you then I feel very sorry for you. 💐

I do agree with you that the vast majority of posters on here probably don’t have the guts to air their sickening views in public.

When dogs are so unhygienic, dangerous, costly, smelly, and people STILL choose to keep them in their homes, I have to think they have been brainwashed by slick marketing.

You need to get out more and stop generalising.
However, you could equally apply these descriptions to many humans and particularly children

Sadly that’s not true. Pet food industry meat is procured from various sources, most is not from the byproduct of the meat for humans industry.

Yes they do but not many compared to dogs.

Agree, well put.

Overdramatics on this thread as usual.

Great Danes aren't generally aggressive. Feel bad about the injuries but there was obviously a reason that the dog bit the boy. Not victim blaming, but very often noone is reading the dog's body language.

Here's a tip for parents - stop bloody letting your small children interact with strange dogs, especially if you have no idea how to read a dog's body language. And supervise your kids with all animals, yes, even your loving family labrador.

And no, I am not a dog apologist. I don't really like dogs being in human places like cafés etc, but this was a pet shop so yeah, there will be dogs.

I have worked in a lot of animal shelters and witnessed animals being euthanased because they 'bit a child'. What you don't hear about are the reasons why the dog reacted like this. One young child was stapling the family dog's ear with an office stapler, around 3 times before the dog bit him. Dog put to sleep. It's an uneccessary reaction when in fact this was the child's fault (actually the parent's fault, the child was quite young). Child wasn't being supervised whilst alone with the dog. Disgusting.

Bugger off with your ban all dogs, kill all dogs overdramatic shite. It's never going to happen.

I didn't say it was. I said as a "byproduct of human activities" not a byproduct of producing meat for humans.

I know some meat in dog food is from animal culling, some is from fish bycatch etc.

Please show me some evidence that animals are bred and killed for dog food.

@PassTheDuckie Pet food industry meat is procured from various sources, most is not from the byproduct of the meat for humans industry.

I'm curious about your source for this claim - in the UK, the animal protein in pet food is a by product of human food, and may not contain ingredients such as euthanized animals, ingredients from an animal that has not passed vet inspections as fit for human consumption at time of slaughter, waste products, road kill, or diseased meat.

Amazing post you are the kind of dog owner the world needs. You recognise a dog is an animal with its own unique needs and not human. So many new dog owners call their dog furbaby , drag them around human centred spaces it's actually abusive. A dog needs to feel secure and treated as a dog not as a surrogate child.

I would like a type of dog but I like too many activities that aren't dog friendly. I wouldn't expect a dog to slot in my life which is what many new owners expect.

and in 2021, over 17000 animals were killed by dogs

Why are you vegan?

What relevance is someone's choice to be vegan?

Sadly I feel the opposite in terms of what will happen with dogs in society. As it's becoming more and more common for younger people to be priced out of housing and settling down, coupled with general cost of living concerns and environmental concerns, more and more people are turning to "fur babies" instead of kids.

I totally get and empathise with that decision. But the result is society is becoming more dog friendly, not less.

I’m interested because the choice to be vegan often goes hand in hand with kindness to all living creatures and advocating for mass culling doesn’t sit alongside that. The idea is horrific to me and I find it hard to square it with someone who chooses a diet / lifestyle which seems so polar opposite.

That said; I’m open to learning.

I didn't mean "sadly" because I'm a "kill all dogs" person btw, blimey the last few posts on this thread have got a bit manic.

I just mean it's likely in a society that is more dog friendly in all avenues (including more people WFH) it's very unlikely that we will see a reduction of dog ownership, and not an increase.

With that increase we can expect a proportion of more irresponsible dog owners unless things change and owning a dog is considered a more weighty responsibility.

@ThisNameIsNotAvailable I’m vegan and I agree however, have a friend who is vegetarian and wears fur.
She explained that she doesn’t care about animals particularly, she wouldn’t cause them harm but sees no issue wearing vintage fur. She simply doesn’t want to eat dead things.

I’m curious….if we took the PETA agenda to its logical conclusion (and there are clearly people of that mindset, given the calls on this thread to “euthanise all dogs”), you eradicate all pets - so there go dogs and cats - we all turn vegan - goodbye cows, pigs, sheep and goats - horse racing and riding are abolished - farewell horses, then what….? Is the ultimate goal really an animal-free world? It’s not a world I’d want to live in, or pass on to my children.

Getting rid of all domesticated animals pets, livestock, game birds etc) wouldnt equate to an animal free world! In the uk, we'd still have foxes, pine marten, badgers, otters, mink, squirrels.... etc etc.

Im not suggesting thats preferavle.

@Sas12 Youre right, of course. I should have been a bit more precise and said “domesticated animal-free world”. Point still stands though, it doesn’t sound the sort of world I’d want to live in.

Was the animal destroyed?

I have owned and bred Great Danes all my life, as have my parents.
Yes, they're a giant breed ( one of two only giant breeds, the other being the Irish Wolfhound )
They're known as the gentle giants of the dog world but like any other breed, you will get the occasional rogue one.
I don't know what happened in this story, if it was something that the child did, if the dog acted out of character or if it was simply a rogue dog, so I don't want to pass comment on that.
I do feel for him though.
They're very lazy dogs and despite their size, they actually need less exercise than a small dog. In fact, too much exercise is actually bad for them.
All this hysterical talk of muzzling and banning etc is exactly that... hysterical.
Back home, all dogs over 2.5 kilo have by law, to attend training classes with their owners until the trainer is satisfied with the conduct of both.
This is something that I would like to see happen in the UK.
This is something that I insist on any potential owners of my pups participate in. If they don't, then they don't get a pup, simply because I can't be certain that they're going to be serious and capable owners.
There are more attacks by smaller dogs than there ever are by larger dogs, but you can never say never.

Worth a reminder

https://www.pdsa.org.uk/pet-help-and-advice/looking-after-your-pet/puppies-dogs/canine-body-language

The crux of the matter is irresponsible breeding and irresponsible ownership added to the craze for cute fluffy dogs that are dressed in clothes and as far removed from how a dog should live as can be. Cuddling and buying treats constantly is not loving a dog and how we end up with stressed animals that are more likely to bite.

People moan about not being allowed to rehome a dog because they are out too many hours, leaving a sociable animal alone and then have young kids which impacts the attention and time that can be provided to the dog, but these are things that contribute to unhappy stressed dogs and make bites more likely.
we need stricter controls on breeding and selling dogs as well as not allowing dogs in ever shop or cafe which makes accidents more likely to happen.

In the BMJ this week. Are dog bites a public health issue now?

Looks like the increase in bites is in adults. There are also some mentions of ‘near-decapitation’ in the full article. How does that happen??

‘Dog Bites
Rising fatalities, injuries, and NHS costs: dog bites as a public health problem
BMJ 2023; 381 doi: doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p879 (Published 27 April 2023)
Cite this as: BMJ 2023;381:p879

Numbers of dog related injuries are rising in the UK, so should attacks be treated as a public health concern? Adele Waters considers what should be done to tackle the problem
Last year saw a sudden jump in the number of people in England and Wales dying because of dog bite injuries. While a typical year records three fatal attacks,1 the death toll in 2022 totalled 10.234 Four of the victims were children.
Hospital episode data for England5 also reveal an upward trend in the number of attendances for dog related injuries in the past 15 years. There has been an 88% increase in attendances, from 4699 in 2007 to 8819 in 2021-22. Growing concern about dog related attacks have prompted media reports across the UK.67
Behind these statistics lie sizable welfare costs, both in the toll of psychological and physical injury to human victims and their families—including life changing disfigurement—and also in terms of the animal welfare burden. Many of the dogs involved in attacks are subsequently euthanised.
There are also financial costs to the NHS. Researchers at the University of Liverpool with Public Health England recently estimated the total cost of dog attacks to the NHS, using hospital attendance and admissions data in England.8Publishing their findings in Scientific Reports last year, they estimated direct costs of treatment to be more than £25m for the financial year 2017-18. Estimates for total costs of hospital attendance and admissions amounted to more than £70m for the same period.
The research also revealed demographic and regional variations in dog bite incidence, as well as typical presentation and management (see box 1). The figures show that rates in children have remained stable and the rise in dog bites is in the adult population: incidence has tripled in 20 years (1998-2018). Rates are higher in Caucasian people (perhaps because white people are more likely to own dogs, the researchers suggest) and there appears to be a strong association with social deprivation (also reported in other research9).’

Very interesting@HaveYouSeenTheTime thank you for posting from the article.
I hope this will be a trigger for some proper legislation to control the numbers and types of dogs which are kept as pets.

Of course dog bites are a public health issue. There is a reason you need a tetanus when you get bit.