dd was bitten by a dog at a kids party today

[Moomin]

The dogs were kept indoors for most of the party then someone let them out towards the end. Dd1 who's 4 loves dogs and was stroking them in the garden. At the end of the party she went indoors to use the toilet. One of the dogs was standing in the kitchen from what we can gather and dd went to stroke her again and the dog went for her and bit her face.

dh found her crying hysterically and realised what had happened. The skin on her cheek was punctured in one place and was bleeding a bit, the rest of her cheek was swollen. He came out to tell me carrying her and i think i was in shock. The parents of the kid whose party it was were apologetic but not horrified. They have 3 kids under 4 and apparently the dogs have never done this before. I think i was in shock. we decided to go home not to hospital as we had the baby with us too and i rang nhs direct when we got in. Her tetanus is up to date but Dh took her up to primary care on the advice of the nurse on the phone and they prescribed antibiotics just in case.

the dad rang dh to see how dd was. I think i still can't believe how close she came to being really badly hurt i feel quite numb. I was so angry when we left i could hardly speak. It was all so fucking middle class, dh saying to them not to worry and them saying oh dear but not too loudly in case we spoiled the end of their ds's party (well that's what it felt like)

Dior, see my post further down in the thread. My dad was seriously injured by an Alscasian dog as he walked away from a neighbour's house.

He still has plenty of scars on his arms and legs and his right wrist was never the same.

Like others have said, there is always a first time and I think the first time is when something should be done.
We had a dog years ago ... my parents had always loved dogs. When he was about 5 years old he bit my mother. Totally unexpected and uncalled for ... he was her baby and she was the one who fed him and loved him. He nearly broke her arm.
My mother couldn't bear to have him put down so the vet advised her to have him neutered to calm him down. A few weeks after that he went for my brother's girlfriend ... she had long leather boots on and he lacerated them - god knows what he could have done to her leg had she not been wearing the boots.
My parents didn't hesitate. The dog was put to sleep without hesitation. Sad but necessary.

To depresseddogowner ... I am sorry you are going through this sad and difficult time ... but tbh I would have reported your dog too
It is just too risky for dogs who bite to be around people ... imagine if your dog had bitten a child in the face?

I can't stand dogs around my children ... I find them too unpredictable ... and my children's faces are too close to the dog's mouth ... One of my best mates has just got a Staffie puppy and it is causing a bit of an issue because my kids are terrified and don't want to go there anymore ... she is very lively and jumpy. Apparently Staffies are lovely with kids but, well, I am not so sure ...

I am so angry. It is the owners stupid fault, not the dog's.

Moomin, I really hope your DD does not develop a phobia of dogs through this horrible incident.

Stupid, stupid people for letting the dogs out at a party full of strangers.

I saw my dad being attacked. I can still hear the absolute terror in his voice, the only time I have EVER seen him lose his cool. He screamed at me to run, run, run home and to scream at all the kids to get the hell out of there. The street was full of kids.

I remember rushing home to find my mom on the phone, luckily to another neighbour who was a nurse and had a surgeon for a husband. They came running to our house. I remember the surgeon calling an ambulance.

A dog that bites needs dealt with immediately, no matter what.

moomin what a horrible experience for you and your dd.
I can totally understand how you feel, and am sure if I were in the same situation I would do the same thing..

BUT

just to play devils advocate for a moment... you don't actually know what happened. I mean to say, you don't know if your dd did just go and pet it and it turned.
Maybe she trod on its paw or something, inadvertantly.. maybe she teased it.

All I am trying to say is that you don't know what happened in there, and it may not be fair to report it to the police.

I think this is actually quite a difficult one to call, because every situation is different. If my dog bit a child totally unprovoked, I would have it put to sleep, no question. I also wouldn’t give a dog like that to someone else because if that dog then bit someone else it would be my responsibility even though the dog wasn’t mine any more. Similarly if someone else’s dog bit my child unprovoked, I would request that the owner of the dog have it put to sleep. I wouldn’t go to the police, I would go to the owner directly, as I feel that we’ve become too much of a society where we take legal action to resolve issues, when generally they could be resolved that much quicker if we did it face to face. However, and I wait to get shot down for this, if my dog bit a child because that child had provoked it, was pulling its ears, sitting on it, putting its hands in the dog’s mouth etc, I wouldn’t have it put to sleep. Nothing annoys me more than people who say “oh we have this lovely dog, and my kids ride on his back, pull his ears, pull themselves up on his fur etc etc”. I agree that if you have a family dog you should feel that you can trust that dog with your children, however, I also believe that children should be taught to respect animals, and I do not agree that having a trustworthy family dog means that you can do absolutely anything to that dog and expect the dog to sit there and take it. I have a 11 year old lab, and I absolutely, 100% trust her with my ds. I know that he could potentially sit on her etc and she would do nothing. However, I do not, and never did allow him to do these things, because this is not the way we treat animals, moreover, you can’t teach a child that it’s ok to maul your dog at home, but billy’s dog down the road might not be as tolerant.

Wannabe - My parents gave their dog away because she snarled/snapped at me. She didn't bite me. I was teasing her...I was 4, but I do remember doing it. She was a lovely dog, but I think she saw me as a puppy that needed putting in its place. However, she want to a home with no children in it, and was loved very much.

i spoke to my mum about this thread today (my parents have a dog). she said maybe the child was teasing it, as no-one saw it, but it should still be reported.

Can someone explain to me please, why dog owners always say "Oh he's never done anything like this before..."

I was bitten, as a child, by our neighbour's dog. I was standing next to my Mum while she was talking to our neighbout when the bloody thing launched itself at me. Neighbour said "Oh she must have been provoking him!" I was standing still, doing nothing. I've never liked dogs and certainly wouldn't have gone near the bloody thing.

DepressedDogOwner - the woman might have been in shock at the time, or the bite might have been worse than she originally thought, which might be why she didn't originally say anything to you. Sorry - but I have no sympathy for someone whose dog bites. Anyone who comes with me and my girls with a nasty, growly thing is told to keep it away or I will break its furry little paws.

you should report them, they should have had the sense to keep the dogs locked up with visitors.

ive got a jack russel who lets my 18month pull him around but i never let him run free when my sisters 3 kids come round aged 5,3 and 1. even tho hes never bitten my ds you just never know and its not worth the risk.

my friends daughter now 16 was bitten when she was 4 very badly, still got scars on her face. it was my friends inlaws dog and they refused to put it down so my mate didnt visit again and they lost touch. really they should put the owners down half the time as ultimately its their fault for not having the sense to lock the dogs up

I must admit I'm always amused by this thing of "he was always so gentle and good with kids".

Of course he bloody was, you wouldn't have kept him in the house if he wasn't! No one ever says "he was always a tetchy, belligerent little animal, I always knew he'd launch himself at an unsuspecting victim one day".

That's the whole point, that even the gentlest and loveliest of dogs can bite, sometimes out of the blue. Which is why they should be treated as dogs, not as children and I'm always so irritated by those dog-owners who treat their pets as children and are outraged when you don't perceive them in the same light when you're out and about with real children.

I certainly didn't provoke the dog who bit me last week. Other than walk past 'his' gate. Some dogs do bite for no reason.

blimey! a lot of thought-provoking stuff here.
Update on our situation: After logging off last night I had a talk with dh and got myself into a bit of a state. I'm sure it was a delayed reaction to what happened as i didn't feel i could get upset in front of dd and then had spent the evening in a kind of numb state but after reading all the posts and thinking about how i really felt i got quite angry. Dh was still of the thinking that we should just be releived that nothing worse had happened but i was absolutely horrified that something had happened. I tried to make dh see it from several different viewpoints, e.g. what if it had been our dog that had bitten one of our friends' children's faces? (dh agreed he'd be absolutely mortified) Or how he's feel if someone we knew had knocked dd over in their car and she hadn't been badly hurt but the possibilities of the accident kept replaying. I was desperate to make him see how awful i thought this was.

In the end he asked me what i wanted: i said i thought i wanted the people whose dog it was to show some real remorse - maybe i wanted them to react in the same way i would have done if it had been my dog and their child, and they hadn't done so which is why i was so upset. I told dh that i was going to report them but that he could ring them first to warn them and see what their reaction was, as we hadn't spoken to them since the incident. Dh didn't agree exactly but he aid he'd support me in whatever i chose to do. I guess he was conscious of them being friends of his, which to my mind was an irrelevance, tbh.

This morning i nearly wept all over again when dd came into our room: her face was swollen and her lip had come up so that you could see a second puncture mark at the side of her mouth . I decided to ring my MIL to get her take on it. She said she would talk to the owners and see what happened. So I got dh to ring them and he spoke to both of them. He said they were sorry and concerned but not beating themselves up about it (again i think this is a class thing maybe???) The mother said that she'd shut the dogs inside again after they'd been out but her son and some other kids had gone inside the house and left the door open and that's why the dog was in the kitchen. I'm sorry but a responsible person would keep the dogs properly locked away if they meant business but she obviosuly wasn't too worried about the dogs being capable of biting anyone, so i spose her worst crime was complacency. This morning i was glad that dh had talked to them and that they seemed contrite. To my mind, the problem is theirs really. If they are happy living with this dog that they now know has attacked a child then they have to tackle the situation. In a purely selfish way i know my dd is ok because she is never going there again: if dh wants to see his friend he will have to meet her in town. I'm not exactly happy with this but i don't think i'm going to report it now (???)

btw dd seems fine in herself today, she's atlked about it quite a lot. After going to bed saying she didn't think she'd have very nice dreams she announced this morning that she dreamt that our dog (who now lives with my dad) had arrested the 'naughty' dog who had bitten dd and taken her to prison. Our dog was wearing a doggy helmet and had doggy handcuffs. She (our dog) then came home and 'loved dd very much'. I'm sure she made this up but I'm glad she is able to see things in a positive way!

It is your choice Moomin but what happens when you hear of another visiting child that gets bitten by this dog?

don't know - that's why i put question makrs after that statement about not reporting it now. Dh did ask them how they would feel if it had been one of their ds's who had been bitten and they agreed they'd be really upset. They also said they'd make provisions now for properly shutting the dogs up now when other children visited.

might ring the police tomorrow and have a chat with someone about what would happen next if i did report it and what the various options are.

Think you should report this a it wasn't just an ankle nip - plus get a docs assessment as a record of the injury.

Definitely discuss it with the police with a view to reporting it. Please don't be inhibited by the fact these are posh people with pedigree hounds. It bit your dd in the face, moomin. I am so glad she is OK but I think you have all had a lucky escape :(

It bit her on her face. Report them. I couldn't give a rats arse if they had 20 pedigree dogs and they were millionaires. It bit you daughter on the face. I can see why you are torn though.. your Dh is still friends with this woman, do you think he'd prefer you not to report it incase he loses the friendship?

That's what i kept trying to say to dh: IT BIT OUR DAUGHTER ON THE FACE!!!!! But i've kind of been talked into been terribly reasonable and understanding about it, and i don't quite know how or why... am very confused

Dh would like to stay friends with this woman but it's not like they're very close. Before all this happened on saturday i was sitting there looking at everyone thing 'what are we doing here?' - it just wasn't my thing at all, but like i said, it's dh that socialises with her not me.

the other thing that dh kept saying was - would you react like this if it had been one of our close friends whose dog had done this? my answer: 1. YES too bloody right 2. I know for a fact that none of my close friends would have reacted like these people did; they'd have been horrified and totally apologetic and offering to have the dog put down even (like I'd have been if it were our dog)!

Sorry Moomin but can't see why you're dithering here - report it. It bit your daughters face - nuff said.

GHOSTY - i hope you're still reading - please see my post (much further down - Sat eve) about our Staffie - not so good with kids.

i feel uneasy around staffies s well (sorry sparklygothcat, i know you have one). its the fact they are very muscler and have a lot of power behind them. my dd3 was scared of sparklys staffie, but now they have started cage training him, she is very interested in him in the cage. i am very nervous tho.

One rule my dad always taught me regarding dd was to go with your instinct. You seem to want to report it, so I would. Your dd is more important than any relationship. Your dh needs to realise this. Ask them to meet you (neutral territory, of course) or photograph your daughter so they can see the damage the dog has caused.

It is up to the family if they want a dog around that is so quick to snap. FWIW, my dog has been trodden on (opps, he has a habit of sitting right behind us when we are wondering around) & does nothing more than howl & run to his basket.

If my dog ever bites anyone, it would be hard, but I would have him put to sleep. I wouldn't tolerate that, no matter what the circumstances were.

Agree that the parents should have taken more steps to contain the dogs, especially with large numbers present. It's irresponcible to just hope nothing happens, they should be preventing accidents like this!

been discussing this issue with DH, cos his Mum is about to get a new dog (to overfeed and not to exercise), we both love dogs, but we won;t have one at home, and if one ever bit our DD we would report it regardless who the dog belong to.

TBH DH said he would run the bloody thing over himself.

Speak to the poice see what the options are, but get it on record somewhere, just in case it happens again and then they can't say 'it hasn't biten before'

Really sorry to read about DD, think she is very brave.