Brother’s dog attacked my 2 year old

[ADR25]

Hi,
Looking for some advice. Me,my husband and our 2 year old were at my mum’s house for a family lunch yesterday. My brother has recently moved back in with my mum with his dog (a British bulldog). The dog has always been boisterous but yesterday my son was standing quietly in the garden holding hands with my husband about 6 feet from the dog and she just went for him and had her mouth around his leg. Fortunately she did not puncture the skin but he was obviously very scared and upset. Me and my husband are very shaken up too (particularly my husband who witnessed it and was in floods of tears) and he is saying he doesn’t want him in the same house as the dog ever again. According to gov.uk aggressive behaviour is against the law.
My mum supports us and says the dog needs to go to kennels when she has my son overnight and needs to be elsewhere when she has him on Fridays, although we’ve said she could just have him at our house. Yesterday my brother was very remorseful and talked about rehoming her as her behaviour in general has been concerning. But today he is adamant that he’s not rehoming her and my stepdad says my mum should just see our son at our house.
So my son is not welcome at his grandparent’s house because we’re afraid he might be mauled to death?
It would be another story if it had happened to my stepdad’s precious daughter or granddaughter.

Yes, apparently she doesn’t have a clear routine of walks and feeding times etc and he can’t even afford to get food in for her at the moment!

This whole thing is incredibly worrying, especially considering how quickly the dog went for him with no obvious trigger! The family are in denial. I’m so sorry.

This animal is a ticking timebomb.

We had a similar thing happen. The dog saw behaviourists, vets etc and yet has gone on to bite 3 more people and they've all required stitches in hospital. What's I've learned is that a dog with a bite history is actually very likely to do it again and that's with someone willing to put in the hours training, which your brother doesn't seem to be.

My husband was similar to your husband but actually did report the dog, although nothing happened. I would say that it's unlikely your brother will get a prison sentence or the dog would be PTS. The child attacked in our situation had to have surgery and stitches and nothing happened to the dog or the dog owner.

I've seen dog owners do this a lot 'oh he's so lovely, he's just nipping', 'oh he made a little mistake, he's a lovely dog really'. They have no idea how serious it is, it's like the dog is the child to them. It's very strange.

Sorry, I forgot to say I'm sorry this happened op and that it's not being taken seriously. It's a horrible thing to happen.

Well that’s the decision made for you really OP I’m afraid.
if he can’t afford food for her, there’s no way he is going to cough up for training/behaviour work - if he had been mortified and prepared to at least discover if the issues were solvable then I would have deferred reporting but in this case I would report it

Surely if your report gets something done you could actually be preventing another person from being bitten? He won't go to jail for this encounter but a worse future one he might..

Your brother sounds totally irresponsible, sorry.

There are too many dog owners like this around.