This is a disaster waiting to happen.

[u/GhostofTinky]

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?

[u/Jessiphat]

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.

[u/Yuugian → u/Jessiphat]

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

[u/Jessiphat → u/Yuugian]

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

[u/Yuugian → u/Jessiphat]

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

[u/Jessiphat → u/Yuugian]

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

[u/HelplessPenguinGod → u/Jessiphat]

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.

[u/Jessiphat → u/HelplessPenguinGod]

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.

[u/Jaded_Fuzzball → u/Jessiphat]

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.

[u/KEW95 → u/Jessiphat]

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.

[u/chiono_graphis → u/KEW95]

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"

[u/Jessiphat → u/chiono_graphis]

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.

[u/KEW95 → u/Jessiphat]

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.

[u/Jessiphat → u/KEW95]

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.

[u/KEW95 → u/Jessiphat]

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.

[u/KEW95 → u/chiono_graphis]

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.

[u/twirlerina024 → u/KEW95]

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.

[u/Jessiphat → u/twirlerina024]

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!

[u/Even_Lychee4954 → u/twirlerina024]

They should agree with you but they won’t.