Never knew rotties are man eaters

Rottie Girl, I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a few minutes.

There once was a very responsible Rottweiler owner. She showed her dogs, had a very nice top winning male dog, who ended up being one of the top producers EVER in our breed.

Her mother also had Rottweilers. 3 Rottweilers belonging to the daughter were being kept by her mother (very experienced Rottie person) while the dau was out of state looking at real estate.

To make an awful very long story very short, a medical emergency occurred with the mother, who had to be rushed to the hospital. Somehow in all the hubbub, 2 people were left at the home.

A 12 YO girl, in charge of a 2 YO toddler.

There were 5 or 7 dogs present, I can't remember now, all downstairs in their individual runs.

Somehow, all the dogs were let out, and were playing in the backyard, with the 2 children. The dogs had a big tire that was a favorite toy that they would drag around and pull on all the time as dogs will.

Now you have multiple dogs out in a dog yard who do not live with each other, more than one intact male, more than one intact bitch, all adults.

Somehow, the toddler ended up being "played with" just like the tire. He was severely injured, suffered permanent brain damage, and the family was torn apart forever by the fall out from this incident.

No one will ever know exactly what happened. No one could ever prove which dogs participated in the attack. No animal behavior experts could elicit any dangerous or vicious behavior from any of the dog on an individual basis. This was tied up in the legal system and Animal Control for almost 2 years. The grey muzzles of the 2 older bitches appeared on a regular basis on the nightly news as this terrible event was hashed out over and over and over.

Long story not so short, under the right circumstances and stimuli, dogs behave as the canids they are. Your dog. My dog. Most any dog, with the right circumstances and stimuli, will "pack up" and do things as a group that a single dog would NEVER do alone.

It's not always as simple as "this only happens to irresponsible people". Dogs are dogs, and humans are humans. As long as they live together, accidents will happen.

Much of it can be eliminated with responsibility of ownership and breeding, about that you are certainly right, but let me tell you.....

That Butler County PA incident impressed upon MANY of us that "there, but for the grade of *od go I."

I love Rottweilers.

I respect them too.

We were visiting Zurich, Switzerland in 1983 and found in a second-hand bookstore a volume of old German picture sheets. These were originally single sheets, intended to be sold individually on the streets, at a low cost, and were usually humorous in content. The volume was quite expensive, so we didnít buy it, but we did see a picture story about a poodle who played with a baby who was supposed to be napping. On the air flight home we talked about making a childrenís picture story on the same idea, but using our Rottweiler in place of the poodle. The original had been farcical, cartoonish, and we decided that we wanted our book to be serious and lovely in approach. The Rottweiler was a deliberate, not circumstantial, choice. We owned two other breeds of dog. We liked the apparent fierceness of our hero to contrast with his gentle care. The Rottweiler, as a breed, does have considerable tenderness and sensitivity underneath his aggressive demeanor. In our story, entitled Good Dog, Carl, the dog hero helps the baby out of bed, and they enjoy together a series of household adventures. When the mother returns she finds the baby back in her crib, all the disorder having been put to rights, and she mistakenly imagines that Carl has been a silent and trusty guardian. She closes the book by praising him with the phrase which is the bookís title.

Much of it can be eliminated with responsibility of ownership and breeding, about that you are certainly right, but let me tell you.....

You would have to outcross with breeds with little or deselected motor patterns to make for a new breed with different motor patterns. When you breed a Rottie with another that has little enhanced drives you soon end up with genetic disease.

While not 100% guaranteed to clamp their powerful jaws onto the throats of young children, it's best not to chance it. Rather, Rottweilers should only be used for police work or as a guard dog. These dogs can be so mean, it's amazing that they're so high on the list.

because children are apt to say such cruel things