FOR a child, a puppy can be the supreme gift. A companion and playmate who, in time, may become a loyal and devoted protector of family and property. But a puppy grows rapidly and the potential risk that an adult dog presents to children is significant and often overlooked when the puppy is purchased.
Society tells us that dogs are safe! Mans best friend, an age-old cliché that we hear regurgitated over and over again. Dog attacks are seldom reported and only those causing injuries requiring hospitalisation or death appear in our daily news. If you look hard enough you may come to the startling realisation that the reported cases are just the tip of the iceberg. On a global scale, attacks that cause serious injury or death occur almost every other day. It is estimated that dog attack victims number in the hundreds of thousands annually for the United States alone. Extrapolate that estimate to include the entire world and we have millions of victims every year and most are innocent children.
Josh Schulte of Panhandle City, Florida, was walking to a friend's place late January when a 125-pound bullmastiff jumped out of a ditch and clamped down on his arm. His friends drove off the dog by beating it with a pogo stick and golf club but not before the dog had broken the 14-year-old boy's arm and torn into his muscles.
The dog, Zeus, had bitten another teenager in the previous year but his owner believes he is not a vicious dog. Three-year-old Laigan Moke of Porirua, New Zealand, received three holes in his cheek and a puncture wound right through to the inside of his eye when attacked at his home by Sid, a bullmastiff belonging to his neighbour. Claiming to be acting on parental instinct Michael Moke, the boy's father, then killed the dog by slitting its throat.
A pack of four German shepherds and huskies killed seven-year-old Johannes Asheim while on his way home from school in Vest Torpa, Norway. The dogs belonged to a neighbour who had 23 dogs on her property. In a similar incident three years earlier her dogs attacked a nine-year-old boy. In that attack the boy was fortunate to escape without serious injury.
Four Great Danes mauled Michael Foley of Las Vegas, on January 23, when he was feeding them for a neighbour who had gone on vacation. His father leapt the fence to save the 11-year-old boy. Doctors attending to Michael couldn't determine how many bites he had received as it looked like someone had taken a spoon and dug his flesh out up and down his body.
The same dogs were reported to authorities earlier by local residents whose pets had been attacked. Michael is still recovering in hospital at the time of writing. In all these cases the dog or dogs were known to the victim and had belonged to a neighbour. They were not considered to be vicious or a threat by their owners, regardless of reported attacks earlier. A clear trend seen in the above attacks and those that follow is that the outcome of an attack involving more than one dog is usually fatal for the victim.
Dogs that attack toddlers or babies tend to be the family pet. In some cases territorial jealousy is suspected and is the motive suggested for the fatal mauling of a 25-day-old girl at her home in Rialto, California last November. Two Siberian huskies attacked the baby biting her head, chest and abdomen.
Jealousy may well be the motive for the attack on a 5-month-old Peruvian boy. It is difficult to attribute any other reason for the attack when the family dog jumped into the cot while he lay asleep, taking a bite at the boy's genitals thereby removing a part of the boy's penis.
In Deception Bay, Australia, a four-year-old girl ended up in hospital late January with wounds to her face and head. The family's pet rottweiler had attacked her. For all dog attack victims the chance of surviving is reduced if more than one dog is involved in the attack. This fact holds true regardless of the age of the victim. For obvious reasons, the larger breeds inflict greater injury during an attack and certainly get targeted for bad press by the local news.
Smaller dogs are prolific attackers. More often we laugh it off or can avoid any real hurt. Have you ever tried to pet a Chihuahua lying securely in the lap of its owner? If you are brave enough to try this then I suggest a quick finger count after prying your hand from the dog's jaws.
Dogs with an attack mentality are not selective when it comes to choosing a victim. Anyone will do whether young or old, man or animal. The only requirement is that you are in the vicinity at the time that it's senses trigger an attack response. Survival depends on your ability to find shelter during the attack or help from passers by.
Three people stopped to help an 18-year-old woman being attacked by three pit bull terriers on the streets of Taranaki, New Zealand early in the New Year. The dogs jumped over a fence and crossed the road to inflict serious bites and lacerations to her legs, arms and buttocks. One of the men who stopped to help was also bitten. Had there not been any assistance this attack may have been much more serious and possibly fatal considering the number of dogs involved in the attack.
Disturbing your pet while it sleeps may not result in a savage attack but could get your ear or nose bitten off. Les Woodward of Tunstall, Staffordshire (UK) went to stroke his aging Border collie as it slept but had part of his nose bitten off instead. The nose was recovered and sewn back on. Less fortunate is a Stockholm man who accidentally scared his neighbour's mongrel. He is to have plastic surgery after the dog reacted by snapping at him and latched onto his ear before completely tearing it off and swallowing it. The ear could not be restored, as it had been in the dog's stomach acids for too long.
Getting a vicious dog to settle down can prove to be a rather difficult task. A dog jumped up onto cars at the drive-in window of an Oregon restaurant, January 23rd, and snapped at diners until a customer distracted the animal with a taco.
Pepper spray that was used initially proved to be ineffectual. Wild dogs and strays are becoming a serious problem in every country. In Bucharest, Romania, an estimated 200,000 strays roam the streets. The remains of a man were found near the city last November with dogs sniffing around them. It is feared that the man was killed and eaten by a pack of dogs that live like wolves in the woods.
When New Yorker, Marlene Fils-Aime, 51, went for a stroll the day after Christmas, she was horrified to discover a pack of dogs attacking an elderly gentleman, Lev Liberman, next to the boardwalk. She gave assistance but the dogs suddenly turned on her, biting all over her body. In an instant Marlene had received deep wounds and could see bone in her leg where the flesh had been torn away. Luckily, two men heard her screams as she was knocked to the ground by the pack.
One man called the police while the other used a stick to fend off the dogs.
Lev Liberman's injuries were serious. The dogs chewed off his ears and scalp, and his face and arms were torn to shreds. He is not expected to survive. The pack - two pit bull terriers, two rottweilers and a German shepherd mix - had embarked on a killing rampage through the streets of New York.
Also in New York, dogs killed two wallabies, four deer and three peacocks at Staten Island Zoo just before Christmas. The dogs are believed to be a small terrier, a malamute, a German shepherd and a mutt.
Wild dogs at Stiglmeier Park and the Tifft Nature Preserve, Buffalo, have killed deer and others have been involved in automobile accidents. Vicious attacks on animals are common but it is likely that such attacks are seldom reported. Again, only high profile incidents are served up in our daily news. Two pit bull terriers killed 19 animals at Fantasy Farms, a small Florida zoo south of Jacksonville. The two dogs that killed a donkey, exotic birds, pygmy goats, cats, dogs and other animals did so for sport. Australian farmers are loosing stock to a plague of aggressive 'superdogs'. These superdogs are believed to be a cross between domestic rottweilers or Rhodesian ridgebacks and dingoes in the wild. They are larger than native dingoes.
Last December, an outback farmer's claims that packs of superdogs are so aggressive and out of control that they will kill humans fell on deaf ears. An 11-year-old boy has been killed and around 11,000 head of livestock die each year. There are also conflicting reports that a 9-year-old boy had been killed in recent months but these reports may refer to a boy that was killed by dingoes on Fraser Island last year.
Politicians feeling the bite of the superdog problem are finally calling for a cull. Northeast Victoria farmer, Mr Stockwell, sued the Government for failing to control wild dog numbers and was compensated for the loss of his farm. Wild dogs left hundreds of sheep dead and destroyed his business. Dog attacks should be avoidable providing we all act responsibly.
Dog control officers in the United Kingdom use traps and bait to capture problem animals. However, success has been limited due to attitudes amidst a strong dog culture. Often a captured animal is released from a trap before officers can retrieve it. The offender may believe that it is just the neighbour's friendly dog and be unaware that the trapped animal has just attacked a child or someone else's pet less than an hour ago.
A desire to save a vicious dog after an attack is a worldwide phenomenon. Owners may spirit away the perpetrator in a vain attempt to protect the animal from euthanasia. Neighbours will free a trapped animal without giving thought to why the animal has been trapped in the first place.
A New Zealand teacher was rescued by senior students after two dogs ran 50 metres to attack her in the school grounds. The owners of one dog immediately sent it out of town thus preventing its capture by council authorities. To make matters worse, her home was burgled while she was recovering in hospital.
Fanatical dog owners may hold their pet in such high regard that the dog becomes more important than family. A Japanese man, Nobuyuki Onuma, beat and kicked his three-year-old daughter to death after she ate dog food put out for his dog.
Obviously feeding the dog was more important than feeding his children.
Breeding fierce and vicious dogs has become commonplace in many countries. The desire by some to have a 'tough dog' is driving an illicit breeding industry run by underworld characters and prison inmates.
January 26 last year, Diane Whipple, 33, was returning home to her San Francisco apartment when set upon by her neighbour's dogs. She suffered a crushed larynx and deep bites to her neck. She died five hours later. Both dogs weighing more than 115 pounds each were of the massive presa canario breed and purpose bred for fighting by two inmates, Paul Schneider and his cell-mate, both serving life sentences at Pelican Bay State Prison. These inmates are part of an illegal dog-breeding ring operated from within the prison and use intermediaries to raise presa canarios to sell as attack dogs. Their lawyers, neighbours to Whipple, were custodians of the dogs and face charges of involuntary manslaughter and second-degree-murder.
As long as people continue to desire 'tough' dogs, criminals like Paul Schneider will continue their supply. For reasons unknown, our global dog culture tends to tolerate attacks and accepts them as normal canine behaviour. No one breed is to blame and only the larger breeds get media coverage due to the horrific nature of the injuries inflicted. The fact is that all dogs of all breeds and sizes do attack. Whether it be a small lapdog that will only let one person hold it, a medium sized dog that must keep the other pets in-line by snapping at them, or a large dog purpose bred for fighting.
Vicious attacks will continue for as long as society allows dogs to roam our streets. Education is a key! Inform people of the dangers their animals pose to children. Make parents aware that it is predominantly the good-natured dog next door that will attack you or your children. If your neighbour really must have more than one dog on the property, the risk increases in magnitude.
Dog owners need to confront their own attitudes. We need to remove the blinkers and realize that the animal we cherish so much can be dangerous. For many, dog ownership entails walking, feeding, grooming and play. Training or discipline play no part in the dog's life and it is free to make rules for itself and will do so based on instinct. It is not good enough to buy a dog and then toss it behind a fenced section hoping that it won't get out! Surely a responsible owner needs to incorporate discipline and training into the dog's daily routine. If you do not have the means to accomplish this then perhaps it is time to rethink your dog ownership.
With the exception of the Whipple case, all examples used in this article were selected from a collection of world news that spanned a period of three months. There were so many incidents reported in that time that a volume dedicated to the subject could be written. - Kris Scott
