Urgent help needed please - dog bit toddler.

[WheresMaHairyToe]

Rescued my dog 7 months ago, he was a stray and is between 3 and 5 years old. Lab/ lurcher type mongrel.
He has been wonderful - quick response to training in the home, not quite 100% on toileting but getting there, fantastic with my kids (all over 8.)
Today, we were at the beach for a couple of hours with my 3 plus 5 assorted niece and nephews. Dog completely fine.
Got home, everyone settled, kids playing in garden. Dog took himself to bed in another room. 2 year old niece followed. Nobody witnessed what happened, but niece was bitten on the face. Small cut and bruising - bad enough!
My brother wants the dog out of my house. He isn't insisting on PTS. I rang 4 shelters, all said he was not able to be rehomed, so would be destroyed.
I've put him in kennels to give us all some breathing space, and am waiting on two shelters calling me back. He had never shown a single sign of aggression before this, but apparently did not growl before biting. My brother got to him seconds after the bite, and said he was also aggressive to him.
I got home about 10 mins after bite to a very unhappy dog.
I am heart broken, I don't know what to do. I am considering building him an outdoor run and muzzling him when he's near children, but that seems awful.
Sorry if this is incoherent. I'm in a bit of a state!
Please help with advice if you can! Or if you know of a no- kill shelter anywhere in NI.

As plenty of others are saying this wasn't the dog's fault. I trust my dog 100% and we are due our first child in October, but I'd still never leave the two alone together- kids (especially around the age of your niece OP) will follow dogs and poke them, tug on fur, be rough etc and it's not fair on the dog. Your dog taking themselves off to their bed was them clearly communicating "I want my space now" and unfortunately for the dog there wasn't an adult around to ensure that your niece gave the dog space. I'd honestly reconsider whether you truly want to rehome and this honestly wasn't your dog's fault at all.

But if you don't want to learn about how to keep yourself or your children safe around animals, I'd suggest that you don't interact with them at all

And that's fair enough too. But then - if you're a dog owner, please keep your dog away from my children, who don't wish to interact with it. The number of times people allow dogs, off leads, to wander around and approach kids is staggering. The standard line is "Oh, he's just being friendly". I don't know that - and I don't care.

Veterinari I teach my children never to approach a dog without first asking the owner, and they have all done a dog safety course with the local German Shepherds Club (we're in Germany).

However my toddler (no longer a toddler, but at the time) was "snapped at" by a family dog in a situation where we had no warning the dog would even be present. The dog's owner brought the dog into a mutual family member's house where my then toddler was playing on the floor, the dog entered ahead of her and bit - sorry "snapped at" him, leaving a ragged wound which took a very long time to heal.

We got all this crap about that just being natural dog behaviour and how the then under 2 year old child should have known better then to move his hand when the dog ran up to him and "took it in his mouth". The owner was absolutely defiant about it being "just how dogs are" and how I should have taught my very young child about dogs, it was clear I didn't have one, dog had just as much right to be there as child etc. etc. Owner felt I should have laughed the injury off as a lesson learned - by me and my child.

I really regret not taking the child to the minor injuries unit, not only because it might have healed better with a stitch but because I wish it had been put on record.

Turns out the dog had "snapped at" various other people causing an array of minor injuries - adults and children - but all extended family members who had been bullied into not seeking medical attention to protect the dog because "that's just how dogs are" and it "didn't mean any harm".

The onus should be on the owner to protect other people from the animal they made a choice to own, and the animal from potentially being harmed or PTS when it does hurt someone who will complain.

Sadly we have to teach children (when they are old enough) to keep themselves safe from various dangers because there are idiots who believe themselves entitled to endanger others through carelessness or ill intent, but many of the dangers could and should be being prevented in the first place, rather than being allowed to dictate how we live.

5More

Fair enough that's an unpleasant experience where that particular dog's owners had not been responsible, not managed their dog's behaviour and allowed him to learn to use biting as his default response when stressed by unexpectedly encountering a child, and despite all of this, were not supervising the dog's social interactions.

However none of that is relevant to the OP's scenario where the dog has been previously fine with kids, was actively trying to remove himself from a child, and the parent was not supervising the child's interactions and allowing the child to pursue the dog. I understand this is likely an emotive topic for you given your poor toddler's experiences, but you can't compare apples and oranges.

Each case should be evaluated on its own merits - blanket PTS is not the solution and neither is irresponsible pet ownership or parenting. Its up to all of us to be informed, understand dog behaviour and supervise dogs and children appropriately - and that didn't happen in this case

5moreminutes - that's a totally different situation and I agree with veterinari that it's not remotely relevant to the OP's situation (and also that her posts on this thread have been excellent).

As mcakes said: "It seems that it is only dogs that have to live up to some crazy idealised version of themselves where they are not allowed to say "piss off out of my space" in the only language they have?"

My cat would also scratch and possibly bite a todder who was bothering him - he's a grumpy fucker. My dog is immensely tolerant with small children but I never let them torment him and if he shows any signs of having had enough of them fussing over him, I take him away.

I think that far from dogs being the only beings who have to live up to an ideal, they are the only beings from whom humans are expected to suck up receiving injuries without having signed up for the risk.

Being killed by a dog is rare but over 7000 people per year need hospital treatment as the result of dog bites (realistically the number of people not seeking hospital treatment out of fear the dog will be put to sleep will be far higher and those seeking hospital treatment will either not be members of the dog owner's family, or be badly injured).

I'm not saying PTS. I'm saying responsibility for what a dog does and for stopping it from ever harming anyone is always 100% with the owner.

*Over 7 thousand people in the UK that should read - 2000 of them children.

I'm not saying PTS. I'm saying responsibility for what a dog does and for stopping it from ever harming anyone is always 100% with the owner.

Fine that's your personal opinion. But neither the law nor the science support it.

How does science not support owners being 100% responsible for their dogs?

@carolinesbeanies if you're going to misquote stats, my top tip is don't link though to the original article when it exposes the Utter BS you are spouting .
Your previous stats on US death rates (I'm assuming you are limiting this to dog bites, you don't say) are equally misleading.
No one knows why that dog snapped; all we know is that a 2 yo was left alone with it. As an adult, having had toddlers around family dogs and now as a dog owner myself, I would never leave a 2 yo with a dog, especially a tired one who has taken itself off for a sleep.
I certainly would not jump straight in with PTS hysteria.

It may also interest you to know that cows kill significantly more people than dogs. But weirdly people are generally less hysterical about that. And the farmer isn't necessarily accountable.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cows-officially-the-most-deadly-large-animals-in-britain-a6727266.html

The fact that there are SO many more dog-human interactions and yet proportionally many fewer significant injuries or deaths gives more support to the fact that most dogs don't want to injure humans - they are usually stressed and cornered.

5 that situation is terrible and I'm sorry your DC was put through that. But that was an aggressive bite, where the dog had deliberately and without warning, charged in and attacked your DC. It was not a warning snap.

However the circumstances in the op are completely different. The dog tried to remove himself, he was followed by an incorrectly supervised very young DC and gave a warning snap. He did not charge, and bite a toddler on sight.

Verinari that is probably because dogs are everywhere, often off lead, in public spaces, in people's homes. People encountering cows have made an active choice to walk into a field full of cows. People walking down the road and having an off lead dog run up to them have made no choice to encounter a dog.

Dogs seem to have a role in cow attacks too

www.thebmc.co.uk/Taking-care-around-cows

So youre saying "theres a risk of damage from being around cows, especially if you provoke them, people concerned about that should stay away" then? You think that if a parent was to allow their toddler to run into a cow field and the child got injured, the parents would be to blame? Thats interesting.

The cow issue is not really a meaningful comparison - most of those are work place accidents and those that aren't involved dogs! From the article you linked to yourself:

"The majority of victims by far are farm workers, with 56 of the 74 deaths [over 15 years] from this group, while mostly lone walkers who had dogs made up the remaining 18 who had been killed"

How does science not support owners being 100% responsible for their dogs?

Well for a start we know that you cannot predict an animal's behaviour in every situation (just as with humans) but that we can identify triggers for some individuals.

The study that Carolines linked to earlier demonstrated clearly that it was the human behaviour immediately prior to a bite (staring, leaning over and pushing face into dog) that was the common trigger for aggression. Dog owners (such as the OP) cannot necessarily prevent unsupervised children from performing these triggering behaviours (especially when the owner is not present). In the OP's example her DB was responsible for supervising his own DD and did not. The OP was not present. How then could she have predicted and prevented that this would happen? Therefore how can she be responsible for it?

This is why the weight of scientific evidence focuses on education of parents and owners for appropriate and informed supervision of dog-child interactions rather than assuming that the owner (who may not even be present) is responsible by default e.g.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3811042/

There are many factors which may influence serious bite prevention
Some are outlined here
avmajournals.avma.org/doi/abs/10.2460/javma.243.12.1726
There are obvious triggers relating to dog owners (such as abuse and mismanagement of dogs) but also several relating to lack of supervising adults and inappropriate interactions.

Its a multifactorial problem - sweeping responses and blanket apportioning of blame are unlikely to result in constructive solutions.

Storm I'm saying you make an active choice to walk through a cow field, often being near a dog is not an active choice at all.

If the farmer had invited the toddler into his field of newly calved cows / with a bull as his guest then he would most certainly have a moral responsibility regardless what the letter of the law is!

How then could she have predicted and prevented that this would happen? Therefore how can she be responsible for it?

She owns a rescue dog which she has not long had and which spent time on a beach with 8 children, 5 of whom are not part of its household, and then it tried to get away from the children when it got home. It was her responsibility to know this might well cause the animal stress, and not to abdicate responsibility for it while she had small children as her invited guests with access to the room the dog was in! She should have been paying as much attention as if she had left any other dangerous item at floor level in an unlocked room!

Yes dogs are perceived as a threat by cows and can result in attacks. Just as children can be perceived as a threat by dogs and result in attacks.The perception of threat resulting in aggressive behaviour is the common denominator.

Why does it matter that most of the cow fatalities are focussed on farm workers? Most dog attacks are by pet dogs in the home so those circumstances are pretty similar

People encountering cows have made an active choice to walk into a field full of cows. People walking down the road and having an off lead dog run up to them have made no choice to encounter a dog.

This is true - but the prevalence of bites as a result of off-lead dogs randomly approaching strangers in the street is negligible. The vast majority of bites occur by known pet dogs in the home. So not really a reasonable comparison.

You think that if a parent was to allow their toddler to run into a cow field and the child got injured, the parents would be to blame? Thats interesting.

Umm yes - I'd expect a parent to appropriately supervise their child around a potentially dangerous animal whether that's a dog or a cow. Why is that so interesting?

5 But you're assuming that dogs are only attacking people when not approach by a person, which is pretty much opposite to reality, where most (not all) dog bites occur when dogs are approached, after already making it clear to that person, they wanted them to go away. So in reality not quite so different to cows as you make it sound.

it tried to get away from the children when it got home. It was her responsibility to know this might well cause the animal stress, and not to abdicate responsibility for it while she had small children as her invited guests with access to the room the dog was in! She should have been paying as much attention as if she had left any other dangerous item at floor level in an unlocked room!

Yes I agree that if the OP had been present these points may well be valid. As however her brother was the responsible supervising adult (and assuming the OP does not have psychic powers) its a bit of a stretch.

Do you really believe that when you're a guest in a relative's home you can abdicate all responsibility for supervising your child's behaviour? Or is it your host's responsibility to be paying as much attention as if she had left any other dangerous item at floor level in an unlocked room! and be responsible for your child's interactions with electric sockets, sharp corners, stairs, water etc. even though you are there? Really? Does your parenting stop as soon as you're a guest?

vet I think storm was making the point that 5 will only blame the parents of a child, if DC hurt by a cow but only the owner of a dog, if DC hurt by a dog. It's a somewhat contradictory view for 5 to take.

I got berrated on MN recently with a dog question about having a puppy, and someone saying we shold be ashamed of ourselves getting puppies when there are so many rescue dogs needing homes. I have had rescue dogs in the past, and puppies who died of old age, the last one was 17, the previous one 18, the rescue was a lab/red setter cross, he was neurotic, bit a friends face, we were all 4 sitting talking, he just jumped up and bit my friends face, luckily he was dog friendly, and OK about it. He tried to bit my late Mum when she tried to put a lead on him. He was very protective of my DD who was then 5, a friends DH tipped her upside downside, she was scared and very uptset, the dog went for his throat, we had worked very hard for 2 years with his dog,house trained him. Was pregnant with no; 1 DS, so he was retured (RSPCA) they said he would be put to sleep, not re-homed, I was very upset. Had a friend last year, she is a middle aged medical proffessional, who already had dogs, her rescue, nearly tore her nose off, made a hell of a mess of her face, she was really upset at having the dog put to sleep, said she felt guilty, I told her the dog could have killed a child.I love odgs, have had them since I was a child, we had another rescue dog, some years later, by a well known rescue organisation, who say they never put down a "healthy" dog, - even if it bites someone. I have 2 dogs, now, was prepared to rescue agan, but all the organisations we looked at said must be only dog, or not suitable with young children, I look after my young DGC, so I travelled several hundred miles for one puppy, had to be vetted and checked by breeder, (he is now 11) and a 2 year old also bought as a puppy, met parents, she was home reared. As other posters have correctly said, you cant watch dogs, or kids 24/7, you go to the loo answer the door the phone, I personally would not be happy with either my own children or others and this dog, but perhaps she could chat to the people where she got the dog. Our first dog we knew nothing about, the second one we met the owner, an elderly lady who seemed geniune, but basically told us a lot of lies about the dog.

Veterinari I love your posts!! 🙌🏼

nanny well that's a weird argument. That's like saying only adopted humans would have a criminal record. Breeding is absolutely no guarantee of behaviour.