r/TikTokCringe • u/GhostofTinky • Aug 25 '26

Discussion This is a disaster waiting to happen.

The dog isn’t allowed to be around a toddler because he growls at her. I don’t get it. A family dog is supposed to get along with the whole family. Why are the parents concerned about why the dog “doesn’t like her”? What about the child’s safety?

9.8k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

3.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

340

u/usernamegoeshere2020 Aug 25 '26

We’ve just had a baby killed by a dog in NZ, so this is timely.
I love my pets (dogs and cats), but I’d be so worried with a baby/toddler around a pet behaving this way; also it can’t be good for the dog to be in this stressful state all the time either right? Not fair to anyone and feels like a preventable tragedy waiting to happen.

68

u/Jessiphat Aug 25 '26

I’m also in NZ and was so angry and saddened when I heard that report. But I’m not actually surprised. There’s no reason for child mauling and deaths to be happening. It’s willful ignorance and totally preventable. The dog attack statistics are out of control here right now due to lax policies and poor enforcement. Ultimately it’s owners who are the problem, mostly because they can’t see that some dogs actually don’t have a place in society.

It’s obviously due to social media, and I’m SO sick of it. Apparently it’s never the dog’s fault, all dogs are “innocent”, and they should have the same rights as humans. There is never any acknowledgment that some animals just don’t need to exist. They don’t enjoy their lives, they are dangerous to anything that breathes, and they are almost always owned by people who aren’t clever enough to recognise or manage any of this. I’m not saying we should send out death squads for people’s pets, but I really think we need to be cracking down a thousand times harder than we currently are. Yes, some dogs are dangerous because their owners have fucked up. But some of them are just born dangerous.

Watching this video above makes my skin crawl for the baby.

11

u/Yuugian Aug 25 '26

A couple of my neighbors didn't really get that "my dog is really friendly with me" doesn't translate to "my dog will be really friendly when i just let them wander the neighborhood" and several of them were really aggressive

3

u/Jessiphat Aug 26 '26

It’s just plain stupidity and selfishness isn’t it…

1

u/Yuugian Aug 26 '26

It's also illegal. We have leash laws here, they aren't policed very well, but the police will show up if the dog's being a nuisance

1

u/Jessiphat Aug 26 '26

Crazy how the fabric of society has been rapidly breaking down. Most modern countries have leash laws, and they get ignored everywhere.

9

u/HelplessPenguinGod Aug 25 '26

Dogs have such good "marketing" a huge amount of people genuinely believe they are "man's best friend" and will instantly love and do anything for their owner with no care to training or breed.

2

u/Jessiphat Aug 26 '26

That’s a really good way to put it. It also explains all the badly behaved lap dogs that people get. They want a cute little puppy and then don’t do any work, so it becomes a yappy, neurotic pain in the ass. I have so much respect for a well trained working dog, it’s amazing what they can do. I genuinely do like dogs, but they require so much work to be happy and well adjusted.

13

u/Jaded_Fuzzball Aug 25 '26

I used to know an idiot woman that acquired a large American bulldog that she had to keep locked up when guests came over. (my children and I were the guests.)

She ended up having to leave it with someone else for a while. The someone else decided to dump the dog in the shelter while Idiot Woman was away. When she returned, she was unable to get her dog back from the shelter because the shelter had deemed the dog unsafe. An excellent decision because that woman already had a couple of kids, and I think she went on to have a third. They likely saved those kids from that dog.

-4

u/KEW95 Aug 25 '26

You said it yourself, “ultimately it’s owners who are the problem”. It isn’t an animal’s fault if they act instinctively when we have f*cked up. If we allow a child to piss one off, it’s our fault, not the dog’s/cat’s. If we leave them unsupervised with a crying newborn, it’s our fault if they react, not theirs. If we don’t train them properly and their untrained behaviour gets someone hurt, that’s on us.

They’re animals. They deal with frustration caused by humans the way they’d deal with frustration caused by other animals. It’s up to us to ensure everyone is safe and supervised.

5

u/chiono_graphis Aug 25 '26

The thing is these kinds of owners never seem to get penalized with jail time for this negligence that results in injuries and deaths. So the tragedies continue. I guess these sorts of irresponsible dog owners think "that happens on the news sometimes but it will never happen to me"

2

u/Jessiphat Aug 26 '26

Yes, and their responses are very predictable afterwards. “Megabeast never acted aggressively before, we never thought this could happen.”

Then the chorus of dog worshippers in the comments will come up with all the reasons that it was the owner’s fault. They need the world to be safe and predictable to get through the day. Bad things will never happen to them because they would never make those mistakes. All the while ignoring the genetic timebomb lurking in their pit bull cross.

0

u/KEW95 Aug 27 '26

Or we recognise that owners are responsible for what happens, even if it happens to us? I am responsible for my dog. I am also responsible for my other animals. If my dog hurts someone unprovoked, that’s on me for not being responsible for her. Owners should face consequences for their failures.

1

u/Jessiphat Aug 27 '26

I agree completely that owners are also responsible. 100% with you on that. But since we have so many irresponsible owners around the world, what else can we do to protect the public? What purpose is there in keeping a powerfully built, reactive animal that is easily capable of killing someone? I mean is an animal like that even happy?

I can’t see any good reason for us to keep them around and let them breed, because that’s exactly what we’re doing. Does an owner have the right to own a dog like this one when they have a vulnerable young child in the home? It’s like leaving a loaded gun on the table. What about the child’s right to be safe? I’m not implying that you are chill about the video posted above, I’m just asking what value there is to society for badly tempered, powerful dogs?

I totally support stronger actions to hold dog owners accountable. I’ve had the odd chat here and there with owners of troubled pitbulls who take full responsibility for their dog. They fully acknowledge the risk that their animal poses and go to great lengths to predict and avoid any situation that would be dangerous to people or other animals. I respect that but they seem to be in the minority.

1

u/KEW95 Aug 28 '26

Genuinely, what do we do when they move on to German Shepherds, Dobermans, Huskies, etc. because we’ve banned bullies (the majority of whom never hurt anyone or anything)?

Personally, I think we should have mandatory dog licences and breeding them should be banned in almost all circumstances (eg. illegal to keep breeding in aggressive traits and significant legal consequences if caught). However, I don’t agree with banning breeds because a small minority may hurt someone due to provocation or owner negligence. I do believe in tiered licences, to determine what dogs you are capable of looking after appropriately (eg. no big dogs for a frail person, no dogs for someone who has been found reckless, no challenging dogs for new owners, etc.). I don’t think it can be implemented any time soon and it would be a frustrating authority reach, but banning breeds won’t work because the dogs aren’t the problem in the vast majority of cases.

1

u/KEW95 Aug 27 '26

Irresponsible people are irresponsible even when you warn them. They will get any dog breed they fancy and be irresponsible, even as we keep banning breeds.

0

u/twirlerina024 Aug 25 '26

That's how I see it too. Anything "bad" that my dogs do is a failure of management or training on my part. It's *my* responsibility to keep my dogs safe, and to keep others safe from my dogs.

1

u/Jessiphat Aug 26 '26

I agree with you to a point, but there needs to be acceptance that some dog breeds inherently hold more aggression or poor temperament than others. Not aiming this at you specifically, I’m just throwing it out there.

I just can’t see a point to some of these dogs existing, they don’t fit into a civilised, conscientious society. I’m not saying we go and kill them all, but bringing new ones into the world needs to stop. Education and fines need to increase.

Nobody ever questions how we’ve bred herding dogs to herd or any other features that we’ve bred into dogs. But suddenly this gets overlooked or completely denied when it comes to some of these powerful aggressive breeds. That’s before we even add irresponsible breeding into the mix. Chihuahuas have a reputation for being mean, neurotic and crazy; but it doesn’t matter because they are small. If we take undesirable traits and pair them with size, muscle, and jaw strength, then I don’t know how anyone can deny that there’s a problem. But that’s exactly what they do, and then people get ripped to shreds and eaten because of idiot owners. It’s just a combination of everything that can go wrong with dogs if all the negative factors line up. I feel like there used to be so much more common sense whereas now we just have social media backing up and spreading shitty ideas about dog ownership. It pisses me off. Sorry for my rant if you’re still reading!

1

u/Even_Lychee4954 Aug 25 '26

They should agree with you but they won’t.

67

u/Forsaken_Earth944 Aug 25 '26

It's been happening in the UK ever since XL bullies became the new 'designer dogs' - I actually don't agree with dangerous dog legislation because any dog can be dangerous if it's not been properly trained - or, conversely, it's been trained to be so. Some years ago, I was attacked by a black Lab, not a breed anyone would think gf as remotely dangerous; I was standing at an ATM when I dropped my card, I bent down to pick it up and the dog went for me, I've still got a small scar on my nose - her owner said I "challenged" her - I didn't even see her until she was on my face! No, the fact that YOUR dog attacked me is NOT my fault - if you can’t train your fucking dog so that it's socialised and safe to be around other people, give it to someone who will - YOUR dog, YOUR responsibility.

That said, we're talking about a dog which can weigh 60kg (132lb/9 stone 6 pounds - that's more than I weigh), it's 60kg of pure muscle - unless that dog is VERY well trained, nobody's going to be able to control it. The law states that an XL bully must be registered, desexed, chipped, muzzled and on a lead no longer than 2m (6ft) in public. The problem with the Dangerous Dogs Act is that it relies on what a dog looks like to determine whether it's a banned breed, this has led to dogs which aren't banned breeds being PTS, the most common being Staffies and standard English bull terriers.

People got XL bullies during lockdown, and most of the people who obtained them weren't living in accommodation suitable for the keeping of what is, very literally, a massive breed, they're most popular in the West Midlands, Manchester, Liverpool, Cheshire and South Yorkshire (particularly Doncaster and Sheffield), many parts of which are some of the most deprived areas of the country.

Over half of the deaths caused by dogs between 2021 and 2023 were caused by XL bullies which is what led to the breed being added to the DDA.

The breed isn’t recognised by the UKKC, so it's impossible to know how many there are in the UK.

99

u/Bulky-Bad-9153 Aug 25 '26

I actually don't agree with dangerous dog legislation because any dog can be dangerous if it's not been properly trained

The legislation is due to acceptable risk. A small, untrained dog will cause minor injuries and the victim can literally just throw it away to stop the attack. A large dog can kill someone and it's hard to get it to stop. A dog physically and mentally adapted to bite extremely hard and never, ever let go, that targets children and small animals (like other pets), is an insane risk.

69

u/Sonicpando Aug 25 '26

Yeah that argument has always seemed so strange to me. "Chihuahuas actually bite more people than pitbulls" but a chihuahua bite is an inconvenience, a pitbull bite is a hospital visit or worse.

17

u/NotThatValleyGirl Aug 25 '26

Yup. Show me the person who lost their nose, an ear, and eye, and who face is a mangle of skin grafts and scar tissue from a chihuahua bite.

But search for pitbull bite and you'll see some horrific shit.

10

u/Briebird44 Aug 25 '26

Yup. Bandaid vs ER. And I don’t even look at bites alone, I pay attention to fatalities caused by dog attacks. Only one type of dog tops the list for fatal attacks.

8

u/PhosphoFred8202 Aug 25 '26

Yeah it’s like “house cats bite more people than tigers. Why do you want to ban tigers?”

7

u/MeWant-SnuSnu Aug 25 '26

Yeah my friend's small dog bit my face when I leaned down to get the ball I was throwing. I now have a small scar on my nose. If it was a large dog like a pit bull i would be lucky to still have a nose.

51

u/ManbadFerrara Aug 25 '26

It's mind-numbing to me how people refuse to make the distinction between "chihuahua = small bite" and "pit bull = BIG bite." It has a weird parallel with Americans and gun control, like "well hell, they get stabbed by knives in London all the time, guess they oughta ban knives now!" You can't pull a Stephen Paddock with switchblades, you intentionally-obtuse fucking boobs.

10

u/ElProfeGuapo Aug 25 '26

As an American, in my defense, we’re fucking stupid.

1

u/HMCetc Aug 25 '26

That's the reason. Bully breeds have powerful jaws and they do not let go once they've got you! Yes, a lab can do damage, but you can force its mouth open if you need to, but not with a bully breed. They are literally bred to bite hard and ignore pain (meaning hitting the dog when it's locked on won't work). All dogs can potentially bite, but why take the highest risk with a powerful lockjaw dog who has the highest risk of killing a child?

25

u/blueberrycauzez Aug 25 '26

I actually don't agree with dangerous dog legislation because any dog can be dangerous if it's not been properly trained

Wouldn't a dog that was literally bred to be agressive by man over decades be more dangerous than one that was bred to be friendly?

11

u/Tossmelossme Aug 25 '26

Sounds like she’s an “owner not the breed” type. 🙄

7

u/nty Aug 25 '26

Yeah other dogs can be aggressive, but the thing about pit bulls is that when they attack, they don't stop. Even to their own peril. They'll be bleeding and injured and will still be trying to kill whatever they latched onto

There's also so many stories of pit bulls raised perfectly who just snap one day

26

u/feralfantastic Aug 25 '26

If an animal requires a lot of specialized training to not be a mutilation machine, society doesn’t need it extant. Dog owners are not inherently responsible, so the dogs available to them should be those that don’t frequently mutilate and kill people. Pit bull type dogs are a statistical salient best sheared off.

18

u/Shabbydesklamp Aug 25 '26

I'm not from the UK but iirc the specific problems with the XL bullies came from their massive inbreeding. Afaik, there was a specific line that resulted from a father-daughter pairing that showed pronounced human aggression, and since the father did exceptionally well in shows, those genes spread far and wide in the breed. There were attempts to contain that and exclude those problematic genes from further breeding but it only made them more sought after. And then you get the whole backyard breeding problem where you can't even control what's in there. Basically a harmful mutation that is specific to that breed now because it was propagated indiscriminately. But this is just from memory.

18

u/MeWant-SnuSnu Aug 25 '26

Pit bulls were initially bred for blood sports like bull baiting and dog fights.

-6

u/trashmoneyxyz Aug 25 '26

Human aggression is (or is supposed to be) undesirable and uncommon in these breeds. You needed them to be as easy to handle as possible to get them to and from fights. When baiting was banned, many illegal fights would crop up in random places and then people would grab the dogs and shove them under their coats to run if the police showed up, so these dogs were meant to be handler-focused, people-friendly and dog-aggressive

8

u/MeWant-SnuSnu Aug 25 '26

Yet they have been backyard bred so much that those wires have crossed to where they are now people aggressive also. I've seen several stories of good owners that one day the pits just turn on them. One killed 2 of her children.

1

u/trashmoneyxyz Aug 25 '26

Oh I wont deny that the dogs are aggressive now, I like pits but they're a tough breed to defend. Luckily I dont have kids or other pets so I have the option to get and train one without worrying about safety

6

u/gottabekittensme Aug 25 '26

Human aggression is baked into the breed. One of the founding dogs of the entire staff line, Colby's dogs, killed his nephew and was his prime stud even after. Look it up.

2

u/DarknMean Aug 25 '26

I remember the video during lockdown of the pit off leash attacking a policeman and his horse in the UK. The owner could not control the dog one iota.

9

u/EnvironmentCritical8 Aug 25 '26

I definitely agree with you that any dog can be agressive, as I've been nearly attacked by a great dane. Thing tried to launch itself through the fence at me when I was in the RV park dog lot I was at and it nearly took out a section of fence while he was at it. I've also been attacked by poodles, a very aggressive chow, one teacup schnauzer who was "very friendly" as the owner put it, a supposed service dog pomeranian, and then the collection of chihuahua cuz of course.

I now have an English Bull Terrier that's deaf, and when she was still a puppy I worked to train her on hand signs and leash work. And I'm amazed by how many people I talk to about how thos breed is their "dream dog" just because of their face, ignoring their health and hearing issues and stubbornness and so on. People need to research the breeds, and look into if they actually want to train an animal, and if not... get a hamster or something.

4

u/DrEzechiel Aug 25 '26

I once made the mistake of watching a video of a man being attacked by two XL bullies in the UK, and holy shot, so glad there has been legislation against them..the poor man died under very traumatic circumstances.

1

u/LadyProto Aug 25 '26

Yeah people don’t realize it’s not “a bit.” They rip limb from limb

5

u/fakenoooooz Aug 25 '26

So labs are statistically high on the list to attack, it’s a known thing about them. However, while many dogs attack, the issue with bullies is their lock jaw mechanism. They clamp down and their jaw locks so nobody can pull them off you when they attack. And while training definitely comes into it, dog breeds have natural instincts. Collies who have never been on a farm to learn herding have a natural herding instinct and can randomly do it at home with their families and other animals. Xl bullies can be treated and trained well and one day their instinct can randomly kick in and you have a dead baby. It’s the danger of the bite that gets dogs banned, which is why labs and chihuahuas etc aren’t banned but are known biters

3

u/MoodInternational481 Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

They have a strong bite force in PSI to but lock jaw in itself is a myth and needs to stop being perpetuated.

American xl bullies PSI 300-350

Cane Corso Mastiff PSI 700

Labrador retriever PSI 230-350

So in reality an XL bully while possibly having some inbred aggression issues has a bite force more closely related to a lab. Inbreeding and incorrect breeding are the larger issue here as well as being unclear what "bullies" even are.

5

u/slybeast24 Aug 25 '26

This isn’t an actual thing. They just have strong necks and jaws as well as a very strong drive. Their jaw doesn’t actually lock, they aren’t snakes

9

u/CenPhx Aug 25 '26

What I’ve read is that it is not a physical trait, it’s a behavioral trait selectively bred for in fighting dogs and for which pit bulls are especially known for. It’s called “gameness”. The unwillingness to let go after biting no matter what happens, no matter how much pain or danger the dog is in. Then combine this with pit bulls’ size and bite strength.

1

u/Padreteiro Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

Sadly these occurrences aren't uncommon at all here in Brazil. Just this month we had 3 fatal attacks, 2 elders victims and a 2 year old. One dog belonged to the neighbor while the other two belonged to those who were attacked, all pitbulls. And there were at least four other occurrences that fortunately weren't fatal. All in a single month.

It's about time for bullies breeding to be completely banned.