Sorry, but if it was one of my dogs in this particular scenario, they would be no more. Dogs can control and inhibit their bite. There is no reason that a loose dog who could move away at any time would have to cause stitches to a child's face. If he'd never been socialized with kids, he never should've been allowed around a kid like that. That was the owner's stupid mistake, but I certainly would not call the dog sound for doing it. The comparison to BSL is ironic, because I honestly feel that peoples' inability to make these kinds of hard choices are one of the reasons we have BSL. I love my dogs intensely, but safety has to come first. How many dogs don't administer facial bites to children just because nobody was watching that particular second and there may or may not have been some dirt thrown?
My strong feelings are rooted in the experience I had of witnessing two of my dogs attacking a child when I was 18 years old. From the dogs' standpoint, it was totally provoked. In their minds, they'd warned that kid plenty to stay away, and she launched an attack by screaming and running up in our garage. But no matter how much I justified it at the time, no matter that most of the damage to her was caused by her falling when she turned to run away, it shouldn't have happened. Not ever. We failed as dog owners by allowing it to happen. And I will never keep an inappropriately human-aggressive dog again. I wish others could bring themselves to make that same choice voluntarily.
My strong feelings are rooted in the experience I had of witnessing two of my dogs attacking a child when I was 18 years old. From the dogs' standpoint, it was totally provoked. In their minds, they'd warned that kid plenty to stay away, and she launched an attack by screaming and running up in our garage. But no matter how much I justified it at the time, no matter that most of the damage to her was caused by her falling when she turned to run away, it shouldn't have happened. Not ever. We failed as dog owners by allowing it to happen. And I will never keep an inappropriately human-aggressive dog again. I wish others could bring themselves to make that same choice voluntarily.