My dog bit an old lady.

[Milliemoons]

And I feel so awful about it. He’s a chihuahua, he’s tiny but he still drew blood. He’s never done it before. It was super windy, I had my newborn in a pram and my three year old who was running off and I took my eye off him for one second and he just launched himself at this poor lady.

He was off lead but he usually is and I’ve never had a problem (he’s 7). We were in a public park where dogs are permitted off lead. Needless to say I won’t be risking that again.

She was really worried about needing to go to the doctor to be vaccinated (I assured her he was fully vaccinated and healthy). I apologised over and over but the poor woman was shaken up.

I just keep thinking about it. DH says not to worry, I apologised and I reassured her I would not be allowing him off lead again.

Has this happened to anyone else?

She needs a tetanus jab - the fact that your dog has had jabs is irrelevant.

Your poor children - it will be their turn next.

All of this! Any puncture wound carries a high risk of infection. Where was the bite located? If it was somewhere like her hand then she would probably require preventative antibiotics and a tetanus injection if she’s not had one for a while.

A newborn and a 3 year old and a chihuahua - what can you be thinking?

Says who? There's no legal requirement to have a dog on a lead in a public place other than by the side of a road, in parks where restrictions are in place and on land containing livestock.

And all this ‘dog should be pts of they show any signs of aggression whatsoever’ - hmmm, where to draw the line? Is barking at a postman aggression? Or growling when you try to reclaim a stolen sock or whatever? We have to remember - these are animals! They are not going to behave impeccably on our terms all the time.

You shouldn't need a law to tell you what's sensible. It's sensible to have a dog under complete control in a public place. So that means on a lead.

Biting someone and breaking the skin is over the line, not sure exactly where the line is but that definitely crosses it. Where do you put the safety of a baby?

No, only in the event that the dog is an immediate danger to members of the public. In one-off cases like this (where reported) It would go to court if the CPA regarded it as worthy of pursuing; otherwise it would be a question of the police speaking to the owner about the incident and giving pertinent advice to ensure it didn't happen again. In this case, the dog is half way through his life and has never previously shown aggression. I can't see the CPA pursuing this case through the courts.

Could the dog be out of sorts due to the newborn/ changes etc. i honestly think you should take him to a vets just for a check over.
To people saying the dog should be pts, his is the first time this has happened, op is already mortified .

I think it depends on the owner and what they view as aggression. To me, barking at the postman or growling in possession of an item would not be acceptable behaviour from my dogs.

But this thread is about a dog making an unprovoked attack on a stranger and inflicting a bite wound. I don't see how anyone can deny that this is aggression and the dog is a potential danger.

Hi OP, I bet you're worried sick now - I've seen this sort of pile on before.

I posted the other day about my dog barking at someone; was asking for training ideas and got a similar reaction (reminds me of that Mitchell and Webb sketch where they all shout SHUN HIM ...). I used to post here and get a lot of support when my last dog died so I thought yeah be great to get advice again ...well, mostly nope.

I did have some good advice from a few posters, but I think the very best thing I did was call the Dogs Trust behaviour help line, they've been a godsend. See what they say first. It is open till 5 today but it's nearly that now, so by the time you've ploughed through all this probably will miss it. Call in the morning:

https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/get-help/behaviour-support-line

Are you the poster who’s dog was lunging and snapping whilst you ‘wrangled it’ and ‘gripped onto the bannister’?

If so, yes, your dog was similarly aggressive and required a muzzle and decent training. It wasn’t a ‘pile on’ - it was several pages of people horrified you’d waited three months after the behaviour began to seek help and then minimised it as ‘normal,’ which it wasn’t.

@LandSharksAnonymous hi again. Were you the poster who made things up that weren't in my OP? And have repeated those things again here? And were generally really contemptuous and provocative? And here you are again grinding someone else down? Nasty.

Any balanced post 👏🏻

Ahh, so it was you.

Actually, my first post was very measured and the OP thanked me for it 😊As, unlike you, she recognised it was a serious issue (and didn't wait three months before addressing it). Is your dog still lunging at people?

There is no need to be offensive.

Dog bites are very dirty, she needs a tetanus jab and you need to keep your feral dog on its lead

Do you have a link to the thread? I’m not a dog owner - is it considered a problem for dogs to be barking and lunging at passerbys?

It seems to be normalised in my building for some dogs to lunge and bark. I would say about 3 of the 7 I see regularly around do it.

I was walking past a guy who was next to the lift as I was coming down the stairs. The Labrador type dog immediately starts barking and pulling towards me.

Maybe it smelt my wariness but then another guy was walking past on the other side and it changed direction and lunged towards him too with a snap. I was a bit unsettled tbh

The owner didn’t say anything but I just raised my eyebrows and said yikes disapprovingly 😆 tbf to him it was under control but if the leash slipped or broke it does worry me how these animals would react in my building since they probably see the whole apartment block as their territory. I do question the wisdom of large dogs being cooped up in our fairly small flats.

I live in a rent to buy place but because of the behaviour of various pet owners I’ve decided not to buy. When I do eventually buy a property it’s probably going to be a house as my experience here has reinforced that I resent sharing spaces and paying service fees for communal areas which (some) dog owners kind of spoil somewhat.

No, it doesn't. A highly trained dog with excellent recall and which has been trained to stay within a short distance of the owner, who is fully focused on what the dog is doing and continuously reading it's body language/facial expression, doesn't need to be on a lead to be fully under control. If the law required all dogs to be on a lead to be under control, that is what it would specify.

is it considered a problem for dogs to be barking and lunging at passerbys?

I'm a dog owner - lunging and barking at passers by is completely unacceptable.

As was the behaviour of @Milliemoons and her dog. Any dog that bites a human - even old ladies (who are generally seen as not quite human on MN) - should be put down.

@Loconos https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_doghouse/5419294-dog-in-1st-floor-flat-barking-on-stairs-and-landingfoyer-wwyd?page=1

It is 100% a problem for any dog to be barking and lunging at people going past.

It is one thing for dogs to do it to other dogs - and usually the result of a bad experience (such as being attacked as a puppy, we call these dogs 'reactive') but dogs that lunge and bark at people are a very different kettle of fish and should be muzzled outside the home. If the dog is doing that to humans, it is absolutely not 'fine' or under the owners control.

I've said this before but if any of my dogs did that and the vet could find nothing wrong with them, and I have exhausted every option, I would put to sleep. Dogs are too powerful - even little ones - to be out of control and lunging at people.

It sounds all too much a dog with 2 DC OP. You have also given the poor woman the wrong advice. She needs to go to the hospital for a bite! Any bite you would need to to the hospital... I hope the lady goes she could get a serious infection. Theres so much bacteria even in a humans mouth.

Because as OP said, he's never bitten anyone before, so this is new behaviour. He bit a woman who was apparently not doing anything to him, so if he's willing to do that unprovoked, it's probable that he will bite if he is aggravated, and high pitched noises and unwanted petting or rough handling from children are likely to be much more aggravating to most dogs than someone who is minding their own business.

Come on. Does this really need to be spelled out???

Aggressive behaviour in dogs typically comes to light in the first 6 months to two years of the dog's life. Unless there is a physical cause behind the aggression, it is very rare for a dog to reach middle age and suddenly start acting aggressively. This is my experience over a 20 year period of working as a qualified dog behaviourist with thousands of dogs. And I disagree that dogs are unpredictable. Dogs are actually highly predictable when you know how to read them, which sadly a lot of owners don't.

Aggressive behaviour in dogs typically comes to light in the first 6 months to two years of the dog's life. Unless there is a physical cause behind the aggression, it is very rare for a dog to reach middle age and suddenly start acting aggressively. This is my experience over a 20 year period of working as a qualified dog behaviourist with thousands of dogs. And I disagree that dogs are unpredictable. Dogs are actually highly predictable when you know how to read them, which sadly a lot of owners don't.