Strix Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 19,000 dog bites a year require plastic surgery. Usually when you see a case in the news, the owners think the dog was of previous good character, and was considered a trusted part of the family. Are all those people, who know their dogs better than you, wrong? and what exactly do you expect these people to say once they're confronted by the law? Quite honestly, I find the majority of dog owners blissfully ignorant of all the communication signals dogs use - they think they're dumb animals, or substitute children, both of which can be ignored Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medusa Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 19,000 dog bites a year require plastic surgery. Usually when you see a case in the news, the owners think the dog was of previous good character, and was considered a trusted part of the family. Are all those people, who know their dogs better than you, wrong? My dog is a trusted member of the family, but she's never left alone with a child, so there's no way that she could ever bite any child in my home. If I have to leave the room to go to the toilet or cook dinner the dog comes with me, and if we're all in the living room together I watch every time that the children and dog are in contact. I'm not watching for the dog to bite the child, I'm watching for the very first signs of her feeling that she's being crowded, or having her space invaded, or having hands too near her eyes, or whatever, because that's the time to correct the child so that the good relationship is maintained. Anybody who says that a dog bites without warning is talking twaddle. The signs may not be in English, but they're there and it's our job as dog owners to see them, understand them and act on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number Six Posted February 13, 2012 Author Share Posted February 13, 2012 If you truly believe that you are in control of all of the risks when you're out on the road then you haven't thought them through, and if you have never lost a loved one or seen one dreadfully injured in an accident that was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time then you're incredibly lucky. I believe I manage the risks to a level that I'm comfortable with. I never claimed to eliminate them entirely. I take marginally more risks when I'm in the car on my own I suppose, and when I was single I took many more risks when a quiet country road with good visibility presented itself. Such is human nature I suppose. Your statement that if I haven't seen or known anyone dreadfully injured in an accident then I am very lucky seems to suggest that most people do know someone who has been injured. A kid at our school had his legs broken by a car near school because he ran out in to the road without looking. It was his fault though. Even he admitted that when he came back to school on crutches. The risks are not just from other road users. The risks come from other road users making errors of judgement, drink drivers, mechanical failure and blowouts, unseen black ice or diesel spills on the road (for you or someone trying to stop whilst coming towards you), things falling off the back of trucks, rocks being thrown down onto the carriageway by idiots on bridges above, falling trees in gales and a thousand and one other risks which you cannot control no matter how much you think you can. As I have said, I've never claimed to have eliminated risks. My car - old and knackered looking as it is, is mechanically sound. I don't drive tired. I assume all other drivers are idiots. I don't take risks when it's cold - and have winter tyres on in autumn and winter. Believe it or not, I do try and look up at bridge gantries if I can - bearing in mind that in busy traffic there is more risk from looking up than there is of something being dropped. What I do is eliminate risk, and I calculate that the benefits of driving (time saved, being able to get to places I wouldn't be able to otherwise etc.) outweigh the risks. But I'm not saying there won't come a day when I'll be proved wrong; a day on which I miscalculate and the risks are too high. There is a risk with keeping a dog, as much as people deny that there is. It's not a risk that's as easy to control, and for me the benefits of dog ownership (which I'm not clear on; if we had a dog I'd have another responsibility but I'm not sure I'd get much benefit) do not come anywhere near to outweighing the risks no matter how small they are. Evidently you and others disagree, that's the nature of debate. It's interesting though that so many posters don't try to understand the opposing view (not you). When you next see an almost brand new car which was equipped with all of the safety features that your car has but has been truly mashed up in a crash with a heavy goods vehicle anyway, how would you rate what has happened? Was that dead driver able to ameliorate the risks from being on the road? Every part of life is risky. You choose what sort of risks you are prepared to take and I'll choose mine thank you. I'm not the sort of person to eat fugu for the thrill of nearly dying from tetrodotoxin poisoning, but I trust my dog and whilst I don't expect you to understand that, I do expect you to grant me the common sense to make my own decisions on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uptowngirl Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 That's a slightly false analogy. My car has been designed to offer protection in the event of a crash, and besides which I am always in control of it, and so am able to manage the risk to a large extent. I'd be less likely to take her out in a bubble car with no seatbelt if the drivers of the other cars on the road were prone to unpredictably trying to drive in to it. By the same token most dogs have been designed not to bite your face off, pretty much the same applies to cats. Selective breeding means that most breeds are pretty benign and more likely to save a child from being attacked rather than attack it. On the other hand I probably wouldn't leave my child in a room with an African Hunting dog or a Tiger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppins Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 You really don't have the first idea about dogs if that's what you think happens. The fact that you mention 'be well trained' just underlines your lack of comprehension Strix about time you came off your high horse being a dog owner, you're not the only one thats has a dog, get over it, it's nothing new you know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number Six Posted February 13, 2012 Author Share Posted February 13, 2012 My dog is a trusted member of the family, but she's never left alone with a child .... You trust her that much eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number Six Posted February 13, 2012 Author Share Posted February 13, 2012 The list of risks that we take on a daily basis is enormous. Everything, from eating and drinking to laughing have a risk attached.. We've established that. What you haven't done is provide any backing for your implication that, given that everything has a risk attached, you might as well take unnecessary risks. Not that you do, I note. Your "trusted" dog is never left alone with children, which is very responsible of you, but doesn't suggest you trust it much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medusa Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 By the same token most dogs have been designed not to bite your face off, pretty much the same applies to cats. Selective breeding means that most breeds are pretty benign and more likely to save a child from being attacked rather than attack it. On the other hand I probably wouldn't leave my child in a room with an African Hunting dog or a Tiger. And on the same scale, I wouldn't leave any child in the room with the dog that I assessed over the weekend. She will be rehomed very carefully with people who have no children because she's a risk to anybody who doesn't understand dog body language and children are at the top of the list of those at risk because of their size. However, I was confident that I wouldn't get bitten because it's in my interests to learn what things are likely to make a dog more likely to bite, bearing in mind I go into the territory of large and sometimes very nervous and highly strung dogs on a daily basis. I have got very practised at completely ignoring the dogs, showing neither defensive nor attacking body language and letting them check me out without issuing them a challenge, since I'm intruding into their territory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert_Baehr Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 ... would you forever worry that it'd chew your kid's face off it they looked at it the wrong way? ... I just don't happen to think keeping a dog that may or may not maul a child is one worth taking. You've made it quite clear that you don't want to have a dog, so don't get one. Your real question doesn't appear to be about other people's reasons for having a dog, but rather whether they hold the same opinion as you do. Some do, some don't. We haven't got a biological urge to keep dogs.... You don't and many other people don't like (or want to keep) dogs, either. The fact that dogs were domesticated many thopusands of years ago (A burial site in Germany called Bonn-Oberkassel has joint human and dog interments dated to 14,000 years ago. The earliest "nobody-argues-about-it" domesticated dog was found in China at the early Neolithic (7000-5800 BC)Jiahu site in Henan Province. ) suggests that there is some in-built urge for humans to keep dogs. - As the article suggests, that may have been '[A] partnership is based on human needs for help with herding and hunting, an early alarm system, and a source of food in addition to the companionship many of us today know and love.' If you want a pet, get a rabbit or a cat, You never read about them mauling people. Whereas there were over 3,700 admissions to hospital following dog attacks in children in 2005. Speaking as somebody who has been 'mauled by a rabbit' (the back legs of a rabbit can do quite a lot of damage ) I disagree with you there. Furthermore, there have been a number of instances of cats climbing into the cots of small babies and (inadvertently) smothering them. If you keep animals (dogs, cats or rabbits -and probably rats and gerbils too) then it would be wise to keep an eye on both the children and the animals when they are together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
claire1976 Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 All dogs are unpredictable and should not be left unsupervised with any child. However, if you know your dog well and you've trained it you will see warning signs if the dog is unhappy. A low grumble or growl is their way of saying enough is enough, there is nothing bad about a dog growling, those that don't growl are the ones I would have serious concerns about near children. If you watch puppies play together you will see them teaching each other about bite inhibition and this is extremely important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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