Every time a child is attacked by a dog, the dog is automatically put down almost without exception. This saddens me greatly, but I fully understand the rationale behind it. Of course most times it hits the headlines with calls from the media and other interested parties, to legislate. What springs to mind in regards to legislation is when did murderers stop murdering, or street robbers stop robbing people because we legislated heavier penalties against these crimes. In short, very little changes.
So what are these attacks (I will explain in a moment) and why do they happen? What can be done to at least prevent the many that do happen?
Well I think it's safe to say that not all attacks are malicious (on the part of the dog) however even a defensive lunge can cause horrific injuries, as I can testify to. Many owners' even responsible and caring owners cannot actually tell the difference. This makes this subject particularly demanding and difficult to deal with. An example of this is when I assisted at a very well respected dog training establishment. I will not name it as the work they do is wonderful and this article in no way apportions any blame for the incident against a very well renowned dog trainer. A troubled German Shepherd dog was at the establishment for an extended period of assessment (I imagine and agree with, a way to prevent the animal being euthanized). On a winters evening the training puppy session had finished and we were locking up, when the German Shepherd appeared from around the corner along with another dog. Both were wagging their tails and although barking appeared to all intense and purposes to be friendly. The Shepherd approached me from a distance of about 5 yards. I remained still and when I thought the dog was ready, I extended my left arm at about 45 degrees slowly, for it to sniff the back of my hand. Instead of the natural response from a dog which I expected, whilst still wagging its tail it lunged at my left arm. It did not break the skin although the force was enough that it broke open within a day or so. The Shepherd ran away apparently out of fear. This comes into the category shown below.
Fear aggression, often occurs as a result of experienced learning on behalf of the dog. Although in more recent years with the help of many programs designed to train our dogs, human aggression towards our pets is very much on the decrease. This is quite obviously a good thing, as violence breeds violence. However this message is not universal and so this learned behaviour still happens.
Illness! A dog that is ill can become irritable and snappy with a result almost identical to that of fear aggression. The dog is not intending to cause injury but knows no other way of preventing the painful irritation of something as simple as a 'pat' on the affected area. One example of this was when one of my own dogs who had never had an ear infection before, took great exception to having ear drops put in his ear. He, fortunately for me has been trained not to bite or nip. However, of course the irritation was so great that administering the drops was a trial in itself and any dog not having been trained not to bite, would most certainly have done so. He was simply just in pain. Of course by the end of the medication he had learned that my actions were not going to hurt him and he accepted the treatment willingly.
Dogs trained to attack! Unfortunately this still goes on for various reasons. The unofficial guard dog at a local pub is trained in an aggressive way to prevent people from entering premises. This use of a dog should be made unlawful. I once met a young bar manager who owned two, Dog de Bordeauxs. He assured me that they were very well behaved, and on the surface appeared to be just that. I then heard him almost whispering to his youngest dog 'get him, get him.' Whilst at the same time kneeing the dog in the ribs until it launched a very swift and fortunately for my dog aborted attack when he called it off!
A very famous authority on the behaviour of dogs Bruce Fogle wrote in his book 'The Dogs Mind' something which is not only fascinating but also gives us an insight into why children appear to be attacked more often than adults. He states that children 'smell' differently to adults! I know. I had to think about this one for quite a bit, but then it makes perfect sense. We humans (dog lovers anyway) always comment on that lovely puppy smell. We often here Mothers mainly saying how they love the smell of their babies. Bearing this in mind, although to us both puppy and baby smells disappear relatively quickly. Of course a dog's sense of smell is so acute, unlike ours that they can distinguish varying ages based purely on smell. Where am I going with this? How do puppies learn from their mothers? Do they talk to each other? Well yes, but not in the way we traditionally understand. With whining and rubbing against each other, by smelling and posture. Of course if the pup does something that either mum or dad really does not like then they will get bitten (YES BITTEN) by the adult. No the pup does not like it, and yes on some occasions dependant on the dog administering the punishment a severe injury can and does sometimes occur. Our natural instinct as humans is that the adult administering the attack has a real problem and is potentially dangerous, when the truth is, it is just acting on it's natural instinct and admonishing it's child the only way it knows how to! We should never forget of course that all dogs are potentially dangerous! Should we interfere? I know this sounds harsh, but quite frankly no. Mother nature has for millennia found the best way to correct an unruly child who does not know his/her place, which is horrific to us in a modern civilised world! Although we believe we know best, the simple fact is that when we try and lay our values on a canine culture there will inevitably be a clash.
How do we try to reduce attacks? Well euthanizing of dogs is not the solution to this problem. The best way, using our ever increasing knowledge of dog behaviour is to educate, educate, educate, and I'm not talking about the dogs here! Both children and adults need to learn what they should and should not do when around dogs. No, you cannot and never will be able to train all adults and children, for varying reasons, the human just does not like dogs, OR they do not like the dog owner. I'm not entirely sure which category this example comes into, but I'll be kind to myself and say both.
Whilst at a village fete with my two 50Kg Bloodhounds that are generally very well behaved, I decided to leave early as my boy hound had obviously gotten out of the bed the wrong side that morning and as it was quite a warm day he really didn't want to be there. On leaving the fete I stopped to get a coffee. Infront of me a boy aged about 9-10 and his father. The boy turned around and hit my girl dog on the head with a balloon. Astounded I said 'don't do that'. As I was saying this, the father put his hand in the small of the boys back and as he was saying 'is it alright for my boy to stroke your dog' pushed the boy into the face of my girl dog. I said in a loud voice 'NO'. His response was 'don't shout at my son'. A verbal altercation took place and we all went our separate ways with the father shouting, 'If your dog is dangerous it should be muzzled'. When quite clearly it was he and his son that should have been!
Would you on buying a new car, allow a complete stranger on approaching you and asking for the keys to have a go? Of course not! Some people, who do not own dogs or may even dislike them, need to realise that a dog is not an object to be prodded and poked because they wish to. Current advice is to always ask the owner of a dog if it can be stroked. If the response comes back 'I would rather you didn't'. This does not make the dog a dangerous dog, but moreover the owner understands when their pet needs to be left alone. I realise this could lead to offence being taken by the non-dog owner, but is a necessary education for people who do not understand the responsibility of being a dog owner. Most mothers would be horrified if all and sundry came running over to the pram and started ruffling their babies head without permission, and when told 'no' by the mother, would probably not take offence!
The correct way to approach a dog if given permission should be taught as part of standard primary school education, if we wish to reduce the amount of attacks that take place. Be careful when legislating in favour of qualified trainers and behaviourists! The reasoning behind my hesitation is that there are many qualified trainers/behaviourists who quite frankly have no natural connection with dogs even though they love them very much and have the qualification to say they know what they are doing. To balance this, there are also many very good qualified trainers and behaviourists. My point is, that a paper qualification does not allow for all those people who have a natural understanding of dogs, and I know many, many people with this natural ability to train and understand dogs far in excess of the many that have a paper qualification.
Most basic rules for dog training have not changed in decades as they still hold good to this day. The age old saying of 'let sleeping dogs' lye' should not be ignored. There have been many new and fresh techniques such as clicker training and treat based reward training, all of which have their merits. However to say that one is a cure all would be incorrect, as each and every dog is as individual as each and every human. Currently we rely very much on the intelligence of the dogs, rather than our understanding of them to avoid unnecessary attacks. Those dogs that have been bred specifically for the purpose of defending, or fighting are where government resources should be spent, as by specifying a breed can in itself be very misleading. As I know for certain there are many wonderful Staffordshire Bull Terriers and subsequent crosses that are loving and gentle with their owners. Nevertheless, of course once a breed gets the tag as a dangerous dog, this leads to the socially undesirables to keep and subsequently breed that kind of dog.