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.

I don't see how you can keep a dog when it has bitten a small child. Sad all round but when people make excuses, it helps nobody except the dog and its owner until something horrific happens with no warning. Don't let there be a next time.

There was a warning. The dog took himself to bed for peace and quiet!

For those who are saying it's bad to say pts, what would you say if it was your child, oh, that's ok confused

I have a dog and a 2yr old DD (plus 5yr old DS) and I would be extremely upset with myself, if I had allowed that to happen to both my DD and the dog. (This dog gave a warning snap, not an aggressive bite). In my circumstances if it happened because of my failings, due to the age of my DD, I would be looking to re-home away from very young DC, with people who were capable of understanding dog body language and behaviour. There is no need to put a dog down for a warning snap, after so much stress and the dog trying to get away from the situation.

I've dealt with horrific bite wounds in hospital from 'placid' dogs who have 'never ever' hurt anyone before and know the people well. The amount of times I've heard people say 'they must have done something to provoke it' or 'they must have used the wrong door' or 'were they carrying food' or whatever it might be. I just don't understand the mentality that it's in some way excusable ever. It should never be excusable for a dog kept as a household pet to bite and also it is never OK to leave small children with dogs (but again, this is both about parental supervision and the dog owner's duty to anyone encountering the dog)

Blue if I slapped a child I wouldn't get away with it just because I could have chucked them downstairs instead.

If you own something dangerous you have to keep others safe from it - not just say "suck it up, my dangerous possession could have killed you instead of just cut and bruised you".

I think OP is doing right by apologising profusely, taking full responsibility and putting measures in place to keep the dog safe from doing something worse next time and to keep people safe from the dog.

Dogs are actually the only case where people on MN say victims have to suck up injuries because the thing that caused the injury didn't mean it/ could have caused an even worse injury.

It doesn't matter to the victim that it is "just how dogs are" - the owner needs to understand how the animal they've chosen to own is and be 100% responsible for making sure nobody is hurt by their animal - the onus is not on everybody else, but on the person who has chosen to own something complex and unpredictable and potentially dangerous.

I agree its not the dog's fault - it is always the owner's fault. People make mistakes and the OP is owning her mistake and taking responsibility. It absolutely isn't the guest's fault, and of course in the case of a 2 year old pretty much nothing could be their fault yet.

There will have been plenty of communication from the dogs in the run up to these incidents. Unfortunately most people have no idea how dogs communicate and will have missed it all. The dog learns that he is not listened to and has to escalate his communications for the ignorant humans.

"I've dealt with horrific bite wounds in hospital from 'placid' dogs who have 'never ever' hurt anyone before"

But this wasnt a "horrific bite wound", it was a scratch and a bruise. For all we know the toddler could have been pushed away by the dog and stumbled into a coffee table!

You don't need to rehome your dog or Pts.
This is entirely the fault of whoever was meant to be supervising the two year old.

Lil the child was 2.

A 6 year old can be taught a bit about how to understand signals, a 4 year old can be taught to stay away from dogs unless the owner is holding them and invites them over, and to "be a tree" if an off lead dog approaches them. A 2 year old can't be taught that.

The owner of the dog is the one who should understand it's signals and should not have allowed a 2 year old guest to be alone in a room with a dog, and should have know that the dog was at the end of it's tether and been on high alert to keep it separate from anyone except herself.

The owner wasn't there. She arrive 10 min after the incident.

5 you have critisized me then gone on to say the same thing I have in my posts

To take one point that I have said and twist it to not match up with everything else I have said is silly.

And I stand by the fact that a warning snap is not the same as a human physically assaulting someone. It is the dogs way of screaming fuck off, with no intention to actually hurt - totally unlike what a human would be trying to do, if they slapped someone.

Blue causing cuts and bruising to the face would be assault if a human did it to a 2 year old, not the same as raising your voice and moving them out of the way!

So you expect dogs to understand the intricacies of human social behaviour and to mimic them? When humans as the 'more intelligent' species don't seem to be able to grasp even the basics of dog behaviour?

Sorry but if you as a functional responsible human adult choose to keep children and dogs together, it is your responsibility to keep them safe. Yes you may need eyes in the back of your head, or alternatively baby gates etc. But if you don't feel you can be responsible then as a parent you shouldn't be allowing your child to interact with a dog. The attachment in this post shows the common low-level signs of stress in a dog - how many parents actually pay attention before the growling/biting stage?

Basically it comes down to an animal losing its life and a child being injured because parents don't understand dog behaviour and put their children at risk - and the weight of scientific evidence supports that. But its much easier to blame the 'aggressive' dog than to recognise that dogs usually bite our of fear (not aggression) and that most bites are preventable with appropriate supervision, because its an uncomfortable truth for adults to live with.

Carolines
I have not advised prosecution. Ive highlighted the act that exists. I actually went straight to euthanasia. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200.

Actually you didn't highlight the DDA - I did. All you've done is demonstrate that you don't understand it.

And please please give me the link to your 'US government funded study' that shows that
"Most children were bitten by dogs with no history of biting children. There is a high rate of behavioral abnormalities (aggression and anxiety) in this canine population. Common calming measures (neutering, training) were not routinely effective deterrents."

This might be because neutering is not an effective calming measure - in fact it increases reactivity in dogs, and if the aggression is a learned response then neutering will make no difference
www.apbc.org.uk/articles/dog-aggression-faqs

Unfortunately behaviour is much more complex than you seem to think and is driven by many different factors.

And it makes sense that most children are bitten by dogs with no history of biting. 100% of the dog population has no history of biting until the dog bites, so its pretty logical that would be the case, its like saying that most children are bitten by dogs with 4 legs - so I'm not sure what your point is?

Such diametrically opposed views here!
I equally don't understand the mentality that all dogs are meant to suck it up no matter what is done to them.
The dog in question very sensibly took itself out of a stressful situation but was followed by a toddler who presumably interacted with it in a way it didn't want. What on earth was it meant to do? Sit there and accept whatever was done to it until the child got bored?

I have already sort of asked this upthread but am asking again (not facetious - am genuinely interested in an answer):
What if it was my cat that badly scratched and injured a child's eye because it wouldn't leave her alone? Or my horse that kicked your child for pulling it's tail? Would you say it is dangerously out of control and ask for it to be put down? Or would you say it is doing what comes naturally and the adults around should have done more to keep the child (and animal) safe?
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?

5 nobody has blamed the 2yr old. They have blamed the adult in charge of both DC and dog, at the time, for allowing this to happen. So why on earth do you keep going on about people blaming the victim / 2yr old?

Also the sensible posters have praised op for looking at ways to ensure that an adults failure doesn't put the dog or a DC in that situation again.

Blue sorry that you feel I did that. It was not my intention.

As I see it we agree that a human is responsible and an animal can't be. We disagree that the father of the child should just shrug off facial injuries to his child. We also disagree on whether snappy biting is aggressive - I say it is aggressive, the only caveat is that it is only the first step in aggression, not the most aggressive act the dog is able to carry out. I also disagree that it would make the dog blameless even if dog behaviour experts say it isn't aggression - to the person whose child has been bitten in the face that is academic.

You seem to me to be arguing that people should look at cuts and bruises from a dog's teeth in the same way as a human raising their voice, and I disagree with that. I think a snap causing cuts and bruises is akin to a slap - the dog could have caused worse damage, so could an adult. A slap isn't a full on beating or attempted murder, but nobody would accept an adult slapping their child and leaving a bruise (or indeed and not leaving a bruise) just because it wasn't meant to do permanent damage.

I disagree with people putting the blame on the child's father - the owner of the dog is responsible, as the OP has admitted.

So you expect dogs to understand the intricacies of human social behaviour and to mimic them?

No Veterin - I expect the dog's owner to take 100% responsibility for learning about reading their animal's signals and for what their animal does. It is not the job of the rest of the population to learn all the subtleties of pets other people chose to own in order not to be bitten in the face or worse.

I'm assuming the brother knows the dog is a rescue of unknown origin....yet still left a 2 year old with it.....
Now the dog biting the child is bad enough, whatever the reason, wether it was being harassed or just spontaneous aggression, and the child had a lucky escape, I'm inclined to agree that if the dog wanted to do serious damage the outcome would have been far worse. Not that it makes it any better.
As for aggressive behaviour to the brother after.....this is a rescued stray of unkown origin.....a large, angry, possibly shouting man advancing at the dog after it has bitten (probably knows this behaviour is wrong as has not been aggressive thus far to OP family ) is going to behave one of two ways...cower and submit or go on the offensive. Who knows what it has been through in the past, not an excuse as such but an insight into why it reacted the way it did.
Rightly or wrongly I believe the dog to have been defending itself (from its point of view anyway), and whilst many dogs have severe aggression issue and may need to be PTS, this seems to be a case of an animal pushed too far.
Now the OP knows this and has several options.
PTS - a knee jerk reaction but a valid choice, many would agree the risk is too great.
Rehome with full history, accepting the dog may be PTS - that's just shifting responsibility in my opinion. It won't fix the problem, it just won't be OPs problem any more.
Keep the dog and do all the things suggested here, vets, behaviourist, crate, keep separate from children/supervise at all times and educate the children whilst accepting the risk that it could happen again and could be much worse.
If undertaking this option I would also be suggesting that any visitors or visiting children's parents are informed you have a dog that has some issues so they can make an informed choice about what they are exposed to, and so they can be sure to behave appropriately around the animal....e.g. Does no good to crate the dog or separate it if a child sticks its fingers through the bars of the crate etc.
We do this anyway even though our dog has never been aggressive as some people are allergic/scared of dogs.
Kennels may be confusing the dog now but if it gives you valuable headspace OP to make a measured and informed choice then I think it's worth it.
Good luck

"I think a snap causing cuts and bruises"

It was one cut, and one bruise. And we dont even know it was a snap that caused it.

"A slap isn't a full on beating or attempted murder"

An adult human has many many other ways of communicating than slapping, slapping is unacceptable because talking, holding, seeking help from the parents etc etc are all available to them, and they have the understanding to know that.

A dog snapping is much more instinctual, much like someone jumping and screaming when startled. If you were around someone who said "your scream injured my childs ears and they're crying, you should have stopped yourself, youre not safe around children!" would you agree?

It is not the job of the rest of the population to learn all the subtleties of pets other people chose to own in order not to be bitten in the face or worse.

Fair enough. 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. I know lots about animal behaviour, and know exactly what my pets do and how they behave. Which is why I know that an unsupervised toddler chasing a dog who has chosen to retreat (step 4 on the ladder to aggression) is not going to end well. However me as a pet owner knowing that won't keep your child safe, Just as me knowing that swimming pools can be fun but also dangerous won't stop your child from drowning. Only the person responsible for watching the child can do that. And yes no one is perfect and yes lapses in supervision happen, and sadly its the child and the animal that pays for the adult's error.

Sorry to hear what has happened.

As you don't have any very young children yourself in the home I don't see the need to re-home the poor dog.

The dog is a good dog, you've said he's been easy to train and has fitted in well.

Any dog can snap if fallen on/poked/hurt or felt threatened by a young child. It doesn't sound like it was a frenzied attack by any means, the dog has reacted to something the toddler has done.

This should never have been allowed to happen as the toddler should have been supervised.
Secondly the dog was probably over tired/hot after being at the beach, did he have access to water & shade?

I think you've done the right thing in giving yourself time and space to think things through. I hope you don't decide to re-home him. What happened was due to irresponsibility of parent and lack of safety gate/crate to separate the dog from kids.

It wasn't the dogs fault. It wasn't the toddlers fault either. Everyone else in the house at the time was to blame for allowing it to happen.

I hope the parents can see sense and not project their guilt onto the dog.

5 intention does make a huge difference - it even does within human law about human on human altercations.
The dog did not intend to hurt the human because it was using a dogs way of screaming fuck off. If a human hits a human they would usually be intending to cause harm - if the human for some reason didn't have the comprehension to understand their actions would hurt thus wasn't intending to harm, then it does effect how the law see's it.

If the dog had behaved outright aggressively and actually tried to properly attack I would be saying straight off to PTS. But this dog did the doggy equivalent of screaming fuck off and unintentionally hurt a small child. So whilst action needs taking to prevent either a child or the dog being put in this situation again, the dog did not act aggressively, in that it had no intention of harming - it was just using the dogs only way of screaming fuck off, after all his other ways of saying leave me alone had failed.

Great last post Vetinari!
If this unfortunate and distressing situation for the OP means that a few more people are at least made aware of low level dog stress signals and the huge amount of communication most dogs give before their 'last resorts' of growling or snapping then something positive has come out if it.

• Veterinari

Yes that was an excellent post veterinari