Dogs and Children

Rosefern

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#1
First off, not looking to start a fight here, just curious.

I've noticed a lot of posts around here concerning children and dogs. Many people here have said that if their dog attempted to bite their child (or any child) the dog would immedietely be put down.

Now I know many of you that are in the 25-and-older crowd on Chaz have children...I don't have children, and I never will, so maybe my views are a little biased...

But why, if the dog attempted to bite a child, would you not try to rehome the dog with a responsible rescue that would place the dog into a child-free home that will remain child-free for the remainder of the dog's life?

And why are so many of you against adopting out a dog that cannot be around children? I've seen this come up in numerous rescue-related threads, and numerous training threads.

Pepe (my CGC, TT, obedience and agility champ) hates small children. He was originally adopted out through a different rescue group (an incompetent one), he bit the small child, was surrendered to us, and I fostered and adopted him. He isn't a bad dog and I (nor my rescue) would ever dream of putting him down for that...

Again, not trying to start a fight here, but just curious...

-Rosefern
 

ravennr

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#2
I see where you are coming from. I do not find it to be a reason to put a dog down, since I have dealt with dogs who do not do well with children. Most of the dogs in our shelters here are said to not be good with small children because they can be snippy, and they find homes just as well as the others.
 

Bob4eva

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#3
Because people really care more about thier kids than thier animals.
I think shelters just label dogs that are a little snippy as "not good with children" But if you went to training classes with the dog,it'll cure the problem.

I don't get why people put down a dog for Nearly biting a kid.Maybe they just see red and protect thier kid and ask questions later.It could have been the kid was really annoying the dog,but the parent only saw the dog lash out.
Again,the answer is training,for both kid and dog.
 

Romy

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#4
Very interesting question Rosefern.

I think part of the answer is that there aren't enough homes out there that can guarantee an entirely child-free environment for a dog that has already bitten a person. A dog with a known bite history is a liability for it's owner and any rescue that rehomes it knowing that history. If the dog were to escape or something, and another bite occurred you can bet whoever owns it knowing that the dog had bitten before will have he!! to pay, legally speaking.

There are thousands of dogs in shelters all over the country who have zero bite history, and so my thinking is that if a dog bites people, why keep it around when there are a lot of other dogs with better temperaments who don't pose a danger to the people around them being put down simply because there are no homes for them?

I think the decision to put a dog down due to biting is a personal one that has to be made by the people involved with the bite incident and who are aware of it's severity and what triggered it. There are so many different triggers to biting, and so many levels of severity. Some dogs really are dangerous. Others, like my Seamus I am fostering, I would never dream of putting down even though he is a reactive fear biter. The reason in his case is that he has extremely good bite inhibition, so the two times he has bitten me he has not broken the skin (though he did leave huge bruises) Should he ever be adopted to a family with children? Certainly not, which is why we chose not to adopt him and put him in a situation where our children could be injured and he could be held liable for his fear biting-ness. I do believe his problem could be worked on, maybe even solved permanently, but someone without children will have to deal with that. I do not think he would be any danger to people if he were to escape and start running the streets. Some dogs though, are an entirely different case.
 
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#5
I am under 25 years old with 1 child and 2 dogs. For ME, if for some reason one of my dogs bit my daughter, training for both child and dog would be in the very near future. The children need to be taught how to behave around animals just as much as a dog needs to be trained of how to act with kids, in my opinion.

When we got our puppy, it was new for my daughter. This is the first puppy she was ever around. She needed to learn how to act and how to treat her since she's a little different than Bear. She nips and jumps sometimes. And on the flip side Dixie is learning that nipping and jumping are not ok around kids.
 

Red_ACD_for_me

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#6
I am the mother of a 5 and a half year old daughter who was raised to RESPECT the cats when she was born and just animals in general. I got Caiza when she was 3 years old and they have been raised together. I would never take on an animal that has a history of biting a human whether it be child or adult IMO. An aggressive dog is an unstable dog and with a history of biting that is just not acceptable. My daughter and Caiza are the best of friends. He is head over heels for my daughter BUT I still NEVER leave her alone with him unattended for reasons that are common sense to me not to.
Most dog bites happen because a child is left alone with the dog and does something to provoke an attack but it is not the case all of the time. A six year old little girl here in Boston two summers ago was attacked by a pitbull just playing out in front of her house for no reason. In that case I blame the dog. I think alot of overzealous dog owners like to point the finger at the child before they blame the dog and again, they aren't always to blame. If I owned a dog that attacked my daughter or any person for that matter he would be euthanized depending on what triggered the situation.
 

ravennr

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#7
Rosefern isn't talking about attacking though, I am pretty sure.


Bob4eva, here, it is large, medium, small, every size dog. They test the dogs before they are placed for adoption. It is not just little 'yip yap' dogs, by any means.

As for it being hard to find a home qualified...
I know more people that don't have kids than people that do. A small nip or warning from a child not respecting a dog, that doesn't mean the dog is child aggressive. That, to me, does not warrant putting the dog down. That is not an attack.
 

mrose_s

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#8
If my dog attemtped to bite my child when it was always fine around them previously, i would seriously be watching my childs behaviour and make sure they were aware what not to do to provoke a dog.

Me and my sister grew up with a bull terrier/boxer and 2 other dogs. the boxer mix bitch went through a faze of hating little boys, mum suspects some children in the neighbourhood had gievn her a hard time. She was never a danger around me or my sister, she was a darling thing and my mum resocialised her with little boys so problem solved.

I think ALL efforts need to be made with a dog before we go "well sorry, you didn't get socialised/trained or were taunted by children, your not good enough, we have to put you down"

you don't throw a whole life away just because its banged up a little
 

Dekka

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#9
Kaiden bit Darien once, earlier this year. Darien is almost 7. I wasn't watching as closely as I, apparently, should have. Daren starts crying that Kaiden bit him (and he was bleeding slightly on the hand) Turns out he tried to take the ball out of Kaiden's mouth, and Kaiden 'grabbed' it back.

Do I blame Kaiden..NO, Do I blame Darien, Maybe a little bit, he lied cause he knew he wasn't allowed to try to take things out of the dog's mouths, Do I blame me..Yep.

JRTRO is the only rescue I know of who will take in dogs that have bit. That could be because all JRTs will bite if pushed (well all dogs will, but JRTs have less patience with humans :D) So many get dumped because they snapped at a child. When you try to figure out more of the situation you find the parent didn't witness the whole thing. How can you blame the dog then?

10 years or so ago a young girl was killed by a mastiff in my area. Everyone was shocked as this dog had never shown any aggression to children ever. They put the dog down. In the post mortem they found a pencil up the dog's nose..! Very tragic, but where were the parents?
 

DanL

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#10
Years ago we had a dog that bit our daughter. She was about 4. The dog was in the garbage, she went up to him and he snapped at her, splitting her lip wide open. It took 600 plastic surgery stitches to close it up. We had the dog put down the next day. Why? We couldn't trust him around our kids anymore. We couldn't, with clear minds, allow him to be adopted to another family with children and have the same thing happen again, maybe with worse results. Even adopting him to a family with no kids didn't guarantee that he would not have contact with kids again and possibly, no matter how remote the chance, bite another kid. We were not very experienced dog owners and I'm sure that most of the fault was ours in not training the dog properly, but there are many other dog owners who are in the same boat we were.
 

Dekka

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#12
See DanL I see that has a training issue, maybe its my terrier experience. But pretty much all terriers that have come to me to foster, would have responded the same way. We train them that having people come up to them when eating is good.

Would you do the same thing now, that you know more?
 

DanL

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#13
I'd have to consider the dog and the situation. Our dog was a big dog, a dobe/rottie mix. His head was right at the height of my daughters face. A lot more damaging in it's bite than a small dog. Now, I know how to train the dog and how to train the kids and how to keep an eye on them both, so the situation we had would never happen these days. My main factor would be, can I ever trust this dog again. Maybe he goes a year with no problems, and then snaps out again one day.
 
T

tessa_s212

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#14
I'm more likely to blame a kid for getting bit than I am to blame the dog for biting.

EVERY dog is capable of biting. In Suzanne Clothier's Bones Would Rain From The Sky she says, "I've never met a dog incapable of growling, barking, snarling, snapping, or biting. These are all natural dog behaviors." Any dog, if not handled properly, may feel the need to defend itself.

Because there are so many ignorant owners out there that punish for growling and are the cause for the reason the dog bites, YES I would take a dog that has previously bitten. I would take it, rehabilitate, and treat it fairly.
 

Cessena

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#15
I got bit when I was a kid because I stepped on "Black Dog"'s paw. My sister still has a little scar on her face from a dog that bit her when we were at a bonfire.

We both caused it, we knew why it happend, and we are both fine. (Actually most dogs completely love my sister, My friend had a dog that would bark and sometimes me every time I walked through the front door she had guarding issues. My sister walked in the house and they were BFF, no barking, nada.)
 

sparks19

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#16
Good post DanL.

I am sorry.... but I could not in good conscience keep my dog after he bit my child (not just a nip even though that is not appropriate either.... but I mean a BITE) even if it were my fault that the dog was not trained properly. YES a child should be taught how to behave around dogs.... but a toddler walking up behind your dog and getting bit is not a "child training issue" IMO.... it may be a dog training issue and rest assured I would do what I could to correct the problem BUT if I can no longer trust my dog around my child when my child is just learning to walk and may fall or bump and startle the dog.... I cannot in good conscience keep that dog around my child. It may sound cruel to those that do not have children.... but to keep a dog around a toddler after it has caused serious injury to that child is really neglectful of the situation IMO. And while you may think that dogs have just as much a right as the child.... the law would not see it that way and I would not have my child be taken away from me because I have my child in a dangerous environment and am not doing my part to fix it.

And I am not sure that it is fair to another family to give them a dog that has a bite history and let them deal with the problem or in the case of adoption through a rescue, have them not be fully informed of the dogs history.
 

Romy

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#17
When I was 8 years old our neighbors had a lab. One day I just walked pasted him, about 4 feet away, I didn't even LOOK at the dog, and he lunged and bit my forearm. The family was upset, because he did break my skin and it was completely unprovoked. I mean, there was no food involved, no interaction, just kind of out of the blue. Well, they took him to a "trainer" (no idea what transpired) supposedly the problem was solved, and 6 months or so later he ended up put down because he ripped off his girl's face while the family was all outside playing baseball together (she was the same age as me).

Now, I kind of think that maybe, just maybe that lab was mentally unstable or something (he was from a byb) and it would have been better if they had just put him down the first time he bit someone out of the blue. I am glad she recovered. She was torn up pretty bad and if her parents weren't right there when it happened to see and pull the dog off, it's likely that she would have died.

Personally, I don't think a dog in his case (where he randomly bit my arm hard enough to break the skin) would be a very good candidate for rehoming to any kind of home. He would have been the type to dig under a fence or slip through a gate, and then attack some random jogger or child playing in their own yard. That vs. Seamus snapping when he's expecting someone to hurt him, which is a behavior that can be dealt with and his environment controlled to keep him and humans both safe.

:lol-sign: I am remembering my friend's GSD greyhound mix from the pound. She was "senior citizen" aggressive. She almost made it into the SAR group, but they never could get her to be 100% reliable and friendly around old people so my friends ended up rehoming her to a family in the country with a boatload of children....but no old people!
 

Fran27

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#18
I feel like Romy, Dan and Sparks... I wouldn't keep my dog around my children if he bit. I would think of rehoming but again, if the rescue isn't careful enough or the future owner lie about wanting children, I wouldn't trust it either.

People say that everything is easier with training, but for first time owners and with some dogs, it's not easy. We've been trying to train Boris to stop guarding stuff for over a year, and he still growls occasionally... I admit that I'm worried about what will happen when we have children, and we will have to watch closely all the time.

Something to keep in mind.
 

Dekka

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#19
Fran...a great book for dealing with resource guarding is MINE by Jean Donaldson. I don't think I would have a problem with a dog that bit, but not hard. (level 1-2 bite) Thats like saying I would never trust a person who yelled at me. (in the dogs world, its about the same) I would not trust the dog in Romy's post. I have worked with dogs that would bite if you got near their food dish. In a few months they would happily back away from the dish if asked, and let you (anyone) put their hands in the bowl as they ate. The dog just had to learn, you didn't want to steal its 'treasure' and that sometimes you added even better 'treasure' to the bowl. Now you have dog that get excited (in a happy way) when anyone approaches the bowl.
 

Gempress

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#20
Many people here have said that if their dog attempted to bite their child (or any child) the dog would immedietely be put down.
That depends on your definition of bite. For example, if the dog snarled or gave a snap (both of which are warning actions), I would not put the dog down. That can be worked on with training. But if the dog suddenly lashed out and tried to bite with the intent of doing bodily harm, then yes, I would put the dog down.

IMHO, a dog that will bite a child with no warning has no place in my lifestyle, even though I myself don't have children. I also would not feel comfortable rehoming a dog like that; if the dog injured a child in the future, I would feel responsible.
 

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