It was with desperate sadness that I read about the ten year old boy, Jack Lis, who lost his life to a dog in a house he walked into, in an attack that breed specific legislation didn't protect him from.
I would love to live in a world in which dogs with the power, motivation and life circumstances to kill people, didn't have access to people. It is very similar to allowing lions free access to people. It's the sort of thing that's alright, until it's not alright, and then everyone's surprised when there's a fatality.
I would agree that breed specific legislation isn't 'fair' on all dogs of certain breeds - those that are powerful, but raised in an environment that meets all of their needs, who are educated within a human society to be confident, kind and very tolerant of touch everywhere on their bodies,even when confined, may well live out the entire of their lives in human society functionally and safely. I knew a couple of Staffordshire Bull Terriers when I was growing up and as a small kid I slept in their beds happily all night. They absolutely knew people, had plenty of space, no frustration, no confinement and could remove themselves from any situation without needing to progress into aggression to make themselves feel comfortable in a given situation.
On the flip side of the argument, I also am uniquely qualified on this topic in that I was involved in a sustained and frenzied dog attack that left me needing 24 hours of plastic surgery to my leg. The attack lasted probably about five minutes (which may as well have been five hours), the dog was a small breed, but very muscular and powerful, and committed to getting me out of her space or killing me if necessary. I was saved by tough leather boots to the knee (that were ripped apart and destroyed, but that saved the tendons and muscles in my lower legs because she had begun moving up my body by the time she had destroyed my boots), by remaining calm and quiet, most importantly by not losing my footing, and by managing to get something metal between me and the dog.
This dog was the reason I got into behavioural work - I needed to know how I had messed up so badly and subsequently learned which tiny mistakes I had made that could have cost me my life. I learned heaps obviously, and didn't die, but easily could have done. So easily. If I was smaller, lighter, or a child, or if I had panicked or squealed, I would have been dead.
I have learned that there are warning signs in the dog's life, (popularly called triggers) that can pile up to create a situation in which a dog is very likely to bite or kill.
Confinement is a huge one. Which goes hand in hand with frustration and fear.
Dogs can only really do three things to change interactions with other animals or people - leave, appease, aggress. If the dog is confined, chronically, they are only left with two options.
I often see people misunderstand what confinement means, to a dog.
It means:
Any unchanging environment from which there is no escape and over which the dog has no control.
A house and garden is confinement to a dog. It doesn't really matter how much enrichment there is within a house and garden, eventually a confined dog will feel frustration. It may take years, but the frustration is likely to be building. Dogs can become bored with a 30 acre farm. It will take longer, because there is stuff wandering through that is different, but they will still want to see other environments a lot.
A home base can be safety to a dog, but it can relatively quickly become a hellish prison.
Don't forget that being walked on leash is also confinement. Not all dogs should be allowed to be off leash where there are likely to be any people or animals (everywhere), but should be taken to these new, penned dog parks for some free exploration of a new environment. If the dog is dangerous, the fences should be checked before the dog is let loose. Confinement within a house and garden can absolutely extend to on leash walking (particularly if it's always the same place, and slow), or only ever visiting the same places or taking the same routes.
If you add to confinement, stress of any kind, frustration builds and the chances of a bite is increased.
Again, stress in dogs is misunderstood -
Stress for an individual dog is anything that dog doesn't like and can't control.
If the dog is confined with too many other dogs, or no dogs, depending on the individual - one of those scenarios is going to heighten the likelihood of a bite.
A lack of appropriate exercise/stimulation for an individual dog is a massive one. This is mainly because all the things the dog needs are met away from the confinement of the house/yard/garden, and without walls and fences he knows he can find those things. It is less about actual physical exercise, although it is definitely important, especially in young, able dogs. Although, fast, sprint, stop, turn exercise can heighten frustration and cause huge adrenaline spikes (and destroy joints). Soothing exercise is a rhythmic, efficient, travelling, easy trot that the dog can do for hours and hours. Hours, and hours and miles and miles. Within that trot, lies relaxation and confidence.
Dogs that are chronically afraid in the house/garden will be better out of the house. They don't have to be unloved for them to feel afraid in the house and garden - dogs that have nowhere to hide to escape from young kid chaos will be chronically afraid and stressed. Even those that enjoy mucking in with kids around the house and garden must be taught how to moderate their energy so they don't become overly aroused and start biting everything. This is why kids and young dogs particularly, should never be left unsupervised anywhere, but especially where the dog can't remove itself properly, or hasn't been taught to leave when the energy gets high.
Repetitive exercise can also heighten the likelihood a dog will be frustrated, or so focused and obsessed on a task that he will remove things that get in the way of the thing that gives him his freedom/interest/dopamine hit (a ball for example).
Then we have the enormous issue of guarding a thing, a person or an enclosed space, or learning they can push people out of an enclosed space via intimidation. Once a dog has learned that, if the above triggers are all in place, it won't be long before a kid walks into his space and is torn apart by the dog. If there are two dogs and they are big, the energy is more, the space smaller, the dogs more chronically frustrated, or afraid, or the environment has driven him mad with boredom, or stress, the dog may carry the kill with him so intently that he doesn't even need to be confined and will attack freely.
These are lions. Don't mess with a confined lion? Don't mess with a powerful, chronically confined dog. They don't have to be big to do enormous damage if they are very muscular. If they're big too, killing will be very easy for them if they're committed. Beast was allegedly an eight stone dog. That is an ENORMOUSLY powerful dog with a HUGE bite force and more importantly a very powerful shake force. They don't quietly bite and hold, they furiously shake and tear. In children it is quickly catastrophic. In babies and young children, Jack Russel's are big enough to kill. It's unusual, but Jack Russel's are on the list of dogs that have killed babies in the UK. They tend to be attracted to distress and fear noises babies make, or if left alone with a baby, a need to make the crying stop may be enough. They don't not kill because it's a human, they are bred to shake and kill stuff, if we don't teach them what is on the 'OK to kill' list, they make their own, moral free list, and 'anything that squeaks, is afraid or can be intimidated into fear' is on that list.
How do we keep the kids safe from dogs realistically? By not being all quiet, polite and English about it is for damn sure. By making sure dogs with all the environmental stressors in place (and especially the power to kill quickly and easily) to be killers are kept away from people, not rehomed on facebook to unwary people in small communities without six foot chain link fences. By taking absolute responsibility for the dogs we choose to live with and never making excuses about their shitty behaviour, especially when it's too late to do anything about it because they've been shot seven times after they've taken the life of a child. This is not a small thing. It is absolutely horrific and should not have happened.
Jack was failed by breed specific legislation, the person who raised the dog and then rehomed him, the government, the police and by the community he lived in.
Kudos to the guy who tried to save Jack during the attack, The Beast will not have been available for interruption by anything other than catastrophic injury whilst busy killing.
Dangerous dogs are fairly easy to spot, if you feel intimidated by a dog - that's an issue, ask an expert to assess the situation before the writing on the wall is written in a child's blood.
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