I have been following dog attacks/fatalities for quite some time now. I follow them because for one, I have a breed that tends to be number 1 in serious attacks and I've always wanted to know why. I use to think that dog attacks were mostly provoked, but in my time keeping up with them, I find that most of the time that is not the case.
When I saw this dog attack it made me feel sick because I knew that if the mom was not there, that dog would have drag him off and killed him. Fatal dog attacks usually follow a common formula and it is not usually a dog who is reacting to a negative situation, but a dog who is focus and wants that person(most of the time a young child or a baby) dead. Here are the common situations:
A child visiting a home with a dog who never meet the child before. This is one of the most common incidences where fatalities occur. From what I've read, it is usually a child/baby being babysat by their grandparents or a family friend. I assume these dogs probably weren't socialized with kids. Many times the dogs are not introduce to the visiting child and is put in a room or chained outside. For some reason, the dog or dogs(usually more than one) try their hardest to get to this unknown person to the point where some would break down doors to get to the victim. The dogs would even attack their owner just to get to the victim. I read a story where a babysitter was taking care of a baby. She went outside where the dogs were and the dogs became fixated on the baby. They tried to grab the baby off her hands and she tried to push them away. They actually began attacking to get the baby. When they finally grab the child, she tried her hardest to grab the baby from them but she ended up being serious bitten. Another case was a family going over to a family's friend place. The two dogs were in the yard and the friends of the family introduce the kids(a young boy and a girl) to their dogs, only to have one of the dogs jump and latch on to the boy's throat. No warning, just an attack from what the witnesses describe.
Two dogs, one dog is in heat. I read of a couple of instances where an male dog became very overprotective of a female in heat. The victims tend to be a child who is very familiar with dog, not some strange child. The most recent was this year involving american bullies. Now, there are pictures of the child with the male dog and she seemed very comfortable with the dog. One day, the female was in heat and apparently, the male dog went into a rage and attacked the girl. No matter what the owners did, they could not stop him. The police came and the dog was still in such a rage, it took nine bullets for the dog to stop its rampage. A similar story, an overprotective male dog around a female in heat who attacked a child, the dog was also in such a rage that it took several bullets to take it down.
Victim goes near a chained dog. Another very common story is either a visiting child or a child of the family wander into the chain space of a dog.
Dog( usually 2) escape yard or chain and target a random victim. This one puzzles me the most. It usually involves a bull breed and the targets can range from random kids to elderly. I have read of one case where an elderly woman was out walking and two dogs came upon her and just attacked her for no reason. The dogs were intent on attacking her and anyone intervening would be attacked too. Even more odd are the number of cases where two dogs have jumped fences to attack someone, usually someone elderly. Why these people are targeted, no one knows. It seems like the victims just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, like this young boy on the bicycle
Unintended baby. The baby is either left alone with the dog or is just alone. This is usually the family dog who carries out the attack. The family usually claims that the dog never showed aggression towards the baby before which gave them a false sense of security.
Dangerous dog-on-dog fight . Fights between dogs where the owner tries to stop it and one or both turn on the victim( not too common).
Than you have the unexplainable ones where the victim is the owner and the dogs allegedly just went on the attack. I remember the story where the owner, a woman, went out to the yard where two dogs were contained. Her son heard screaming and found the dogs attacking the mother.