My last comment was in response to Legion’s post, btw.
So, Metacom, in Ohio, if I’m on somebody’s property and I’m busily, say, committing slander ("other criminal offense "), and his dog leaps onto me and tears my throat out, it’s my fault? Dang. So much for moving to Ohio. :rolleyes:
Cute, but slander isn’t a criminal offense (it’s a tort, something persued in civil court).
Also, hopefully your on the property with the owner’s permission, so you’re not trespassing.
Lots of states have similiar statutes. The list of states to which you may want to move may turn out to be quite small.
Okay, so knowledge of the law isn’t my strong suit, but do you see my point? If I’m invited onto somebody’s property by the owner, and then his dog rips me apart, if he can prove I was committing a crime, he and his dog get off scot-free.
Ya know something. I have been thinking about this and all of your responses…I’m sitting here looking down, out my window at our dog outside. I have a yearling Rhodesian Ridgeback. Known for tracking and hunting Lions in Africa, it is one of the most obedient dogs I have ever known. Courageous, loyal, and rugged. He would never think of attacking anyone. You know why? Because my wife and I took a lot of time off work when we first got him and trained him extensively. He listens to our every command, and would never hurt a fly…unless of course the fly was hurting us. 
My point is, even with minimal training, you can make a dog people friendly, and unless you are owning a dog specifically to be a mean guard dog there is no reason in my mind to keep such an animal. Especially in a neighbor hood like mine, with children running around everywhere. I live in a very family oriented place…with lots of people. The guy that owns the dogs from my OP is known to be a jerk, I just hope hishounds don’t ever get out…
No, you cannot shoot someone’s dogs on their property without a lot more cause than them barking at you. The worst you can do about a dog who is sitting on its owner’s property and barking is to have the owner cited for violating a noise ordinance. If the dog were lunging for your throat, then you could shoot it and claim self-defense.
There are plenty of other reasons why the invisible fences are dangerous for your dogs (as well as disconcerting for passers-by - there’s a dog who hangs out in the front yard of the busy street near my house - I know there’s an IF but he still makes me nervous, always looks like he’s going to dart out in front of my car). An invisible fence offers no protection to your dog from hoodlums, tormenting children, tormenting cats… A traditional fence is a clear and obvious border that protects your dog, not just everybody else. While I can see some useful applications for IFs (your dog digs and you use it in addition to a regular fence, or the fence on one side of your yard belongs to your neighbor who refuses to keep it up, etc), but generally speaking, they present an unsafe situation for everybody involved.
Dogs in cities and suburbs are back yard animals. Most invisible fences I see either allow the dogs in the front yard or allow free run of the front and back yards. I imagine this is the case because people want the dogs to use the front yard but understandably don’t want to build a fence in front of their house. However, this exposes the dog to a lot more passers-by (alarming to dog and human alike), may make it hard for the mailman and your mother to get to your door, puts the dog right out in traffic if the fence does fail… it just seems to me that if you can’t afford a traditional fence or you can’t put one up because of neighborhood associations or something, then you really should think twice about owning an ourdoor or indoor/outdoor dog.
I don’t worry about leaving my dog outside alot in good weather because he has a good, sturdy fence - even if kids would tease him through it, he could always retreat. People in the neighborhood don’t feel threatened by him, there’s a barrier between him and any obnoxious tail-pulling children, potential dog-nappers can’t readily see him - all kinds of reasons I wouldn’t get an invisible fence.
I got sued from a neighbor whose 7 year old son was roaming the neighborhood unsupervised, as he always did. We were outside waiting for my husband to come home so we could go on a picnic and the dog was on a leash. The kid, who was jumping rope up and down the street, decided to come into the yard and chase my kids around while whipping the jump rope around and making monster noises. My dog lunged at him as he passed and nipped him on the ankle. My dog had never done anything like this before and I can only chalk it up to him thinking that this kid was trying to harm my kids. I don’t know. In any event, despite the fact that the nip didn’t even break skin (it made a welt much like it would if you got your finger caught in a 3 ring binder), we went up to his house and told his mom that our dog nipped him in the ankle, partly because she had a right to know and partly to let her know that crappy things can happen to kids who wander around unsupervised, and this was just a minor example.
Anyway, had this been me, I would have been MORTIFIED that my child was out running the neighborhood without my supervision. I would have reiterated the lecture I always give them about approaching dogs. (Never, NEVER approach a dog without asking the owner first and even then look for signs (tail wagging) that the dog is friendly.) And then I would have apologized to HER for my child trespassing onto her property and thanked her for bringing my child home. Instead, she called the cops and had my dog quarantined for 10 days. She eventually sued us for $50,000 for injuries because she claimed her son, who didn’t even cry after the incident and who was later outside playing basketball, was so traumatized by the incident that he started wetting the bed.
3 years later, we finally settled at abitration for $1200. My attorney explained to me that basically we had NO case re the actual injury. What was left up to judgment was pain and suffering. It didn’t matter that the kid was running around unsupervised and that we never invited him into our yard. It didn’t matter that the dog was on a leash. Had he walked into our house uninvited, it wouldn’t have mattered. He was 7 years old and thus trespassing laws did not apply. Kidsa aren’t expected to obey the law. It didn’t matter that the dog had been friendly around kids his entire life. We. were. liable. Luckily the arbitration panel didn’t buy into her story that my dog messed up the kid’s entire life so she only ended up with ~$800…for not watching her kid.
So I know what you’re saying about responsibility and who was really at fault. But I’m here saying that no matter what we might think, if you own a dog, you are liable for what it does. Given that, and given the fact that I would have a hard time forgiving myself if my dog ever really harmed a child, I would never own a dog who would do real damage to a person. Period.
Recently (last two weeks) I saw a news broadcast where a toddler had wondered off into a neighbours yard, the neighbour had a dog on an extension chain. Long story short, dog bites child after being tormented, mother held responsible for not watching child. Dog and owner, not charged.
Now if I could only find the news story. (I’m looking)
I’m not a lawyer, but could a (dangerous) dog visible to kids in a yard with no fence be an attractive nuisance?
Marley, I’m not a lawyer but the answer is yes. As are swimming pools and trampolines, whether they are behind fences or not.
Gawn, I don’t doubt your story, but unless it happened in Ohio it has no relevance. Each state has its own laws re this. Here in Ohio, dog owners are held strictly liable. YMMV.
Just a quick note about the small dog versus big dog thing…
Most of the most severe aggression cases I have worked with in my time were small dogs - terriers, small “lap dogs” (toy breeds) and a whack of ill-tempered lhassas.
The difference is that small dogs don’t have the same power big dogs do - so they usually (usually) don’t make as much damage as, say, a Dobe could do.
This being said - I have seen the aftermath of a yorkie biting a toddler in the face - the child lost an eye… Some of the little terriers have incredible prey drive and could seriously hurt someone.
Hell, growing up, I had a Cairn who used to try to attack any and all salesmen/repairmen who would come to the door. Of all the dogs I have had, she was, by far, the most potentially dangerous. Ever seen a cairn terrier take on a groundhog? Yep. Killed it, too.
Sorry I hadn’t realised this was an Ohio based discussion rather than a general discussion.
Why is it necessarily always the dogs fault? Aren’t we responsible for our own action any more? Or in the case I refered to the mothers inaction not wanting to be a responsible parent? Let’s say it had been a moving van backing out a drive way and not a dog who is to blame then.
Why, because we can blame the dog and not feel guilty for not doing enough to protest our own. It’s an easy out.
Protect protect protect… :smack:
Right. I’m just wondering how that plays into the issue. A younger kid could see the dog and not consider that it may not be friendly, and if anything that’s made more hazardous since there’s no visible barrier. And here, like Philosphr pointed out, the neighbor doesn’t even have the flags and signs, which is just plain stupid.
GawnFishin, I don’t think it’s the dog’s fault at all, most of the time, and I hate dogs.
But that’s true of a wooden or chain link fence, too. They can break. Dogs can dig under them. Doors can hang loose. Dogs can climb over them. Doors can be left unlatched.
There is NO physical barrier that’s fail safe. Physical barriers serve only to help you control your dogs. They don’t control your dogs for you.
My parents have an invisible fence for their two little dogs, a spoodle and a Shih Tzu. It works great… but they still keep a very close eye on the dogs, because it’s not perfect, and lots of things can go wrong with dogs. If they were larger dogs, or less well behaved, they’d probably put up a real fence too.
Or if they still had my old dog, Deej; she was just a little spoodle, but remarkably fast, and very territorial and alpha-dog-like, prone to chasing other animals. I loved her with all my heart and she really was a total suck, but I know damned well she might have bitten someone and certainly would have bitten another dog, and with her speed might well have blown right through an invisible fence before she knew she was being zapped. So we didn’t let her roam free. You have to take appropriate precautions no matter what.
Ethilrist, it’s NEVER the dog’s fault. Dogs are animals, and fairly stupid ones at that. Blaming the dog for a biting incident is like blaming the car for a traffic mishap. It’s always a human’s fault, and 99% of the time, it’s the owner. Either the dog was left unattended or loose, or it wasn’t trained, or it was just a dangerous dog that should have been destroyed.
I would characterize the OP’s demon spawn as being like dogs who are kept tied to a tree in the front yard but can still reach almost to the sidewalk. How does a passerby know the leash is short enough to protect them? Or that it won’t break? Or how do you stop a child from going within the range of the leash? No physical barrier is a guarantee. The owners need to remedy the situation. Invisible fences are wonderful tools but not appropriate for some dogs and in some situations.
Well, yeah, but if I see a dog trailing a chain as it runs towards me, I’m reasonably confident the dog’s about to do that Looney Tunes bit where he gets to the end of his chain and yanks to a stop. If there’s no chain, no fence, no little “Invisible Fence” signs…
Even if they have an Invisible Fence, all it takes is a power failure and the fence is meaningless, unless prolonged use of it has trained the dog to stop before it gets to the edge of the property completely on its own. That’s assuming the fence is broadcasting something the collar picks up, by the way, and that the broadcaster is not battery-operated. If I’m wrong on that, then, whoops.
[QUOTE=the raindog]
A freind of mine who owns a medium sized dog came home and found the dog wimpering and wedged between the furnace and adjoining wall. He attempted to extricate the dog and was promptly shocked. He realized immediately what was happening and turned off the electric fence. Apparently the unit went haywire and began shocking the dog while the owner was at work, and had been shocking the dog all day (or certainly a part of it). The dog wedged himself beside the furnace in attempt to flee the source of the pain.
QUOTE]
If your friend would have used the equipment properly he wouldn’t have had this problem. At no time should the collar be left on the dog if you leave the premises.
The training/owners manuals also state that the collars should not be left on for more than 3 hours at a time. They are used to keep the dogs in a confined area and are not meant to be used as a babysitting device.
It is. But you quoted me, then cited a case which seemed to dispute what I was claiming. I just wanted to clarify that citing a case from another state doesn’t really work because not all states have strict liability laws.
That’s not saying that what you have to say is irrelevant to the discussion.