Now how am I supposed to do that? We don’t HAVE a dog. We really don’t WANT a dog - we have no fence, nor the desire to take a dog for walks (and never mind cleaning up the poo). Plus we have two cats.
And my kids are 5 years old. Despite their sometimes amazing (to me anyway) verbal skills, they’re still mostly instinct in their reactions. It’s all or nothing, fear or love. You bet your ass I want them to fear that specific dog.
This has been really interesting, I’m glad I asked here.
I think I know now why Jennifer’s walking them at 6:30 a.m. I don’t think she’s had both dogs out for a walk during “family hour” in months. When she only had Onyx we’d see them occasionally, but now that I think of it, the kids have never seen Red close-up. I don’t think she even has them in their compound very often.
I will DEFINITELY go out of my way to avoid any chance that I (or my kids) will cross paths with those dogs. Jennifer’s a reclusive person who seems to really care about her pets - she comes home every day at lunchtime to tend to them.
I should probably add, fessie, that I wasn’t talking about having her dog impounded. I just meant that perhaps she could be required to keep Red confined to her property, where brute force on her part isn’t the only thing keeping him from harming someone.
Why should anyone feel compelled to “train” their children how to treat dogs? Dogs are property, not people, and the responsibility of controlling them and insuring that they aren’t a threat is on the dog owner.
What a crappy poll that was. It had exotic dogs nobody ever heard of. When I go to the park It had dogs with the same derivation,which may not be specifically a Stafford Terrier. I run into pitts, irish setters, labs ,and my dogs are beagles. Yes I can tell them apart.
The dogs do not have to outweigh her. They have terrific pulling force. When my 2 beagles see a rabbit or a squirrel, they pull with a force far beyond their weight.
I’ll skip the discussion on Pit Bulls, etc. and just add a data point.
When my neighbor’s large Rottie attacked my dog, pepper spray didn’t work very well. It bothered the dog, but not enough to make him stop. I don’t remember the specifics of the spray, but this was many years ago, and I hear you can get more powerful pepper spray nowadays. Hopefully someone knowledgeable can confirm this.
And the only thing worse than an attack by 2 pit bulls is an attack by 84 pit bulls. Or 4 cobras. Or 1 grizzly bear. Or 1,001 rabid squirrels. Or 2 drunk Irishmen.
Just like any decent parent would train/show/teach their children to deal with people who look and act differently than their immediate family members do. By your explanation, Jettboy, people shouldn’t learn how to respect another’s lawn, home, and any other property. I assume you’d want show a child how to treat and behave towards the rest of the world in different places that are “property” as well - the mall, the local park, school, etc.
You likely don’t have a pool do you? But you’ve taught or soon will teach your children to swim, presumably for their enjoyment and for their safety. The same principle applies to children and dogs. Your kids are bound to run into dogs at a friend’s house, the park, while on walks around the neighborhood as they grow older, and they should have a comfortable relationship with them. It’s in their best interest, and it’s clear that’s your prerogative.
Why not teach them how to treat dogs in general, and react to specific instances, rather than instilling fear? This strikes me as a very “teachable moment”, and instilling fear will translate into a young adult that can’t be around dogs at a friend’s house, at the park, or anywhere you’d run into one.
Ending the whole post with “I hope it doesn’t end in tragedy” shifts the entire responsibility to the owner and none to yourself as a parent.
There is a product called bear spray, that is 10 times more concentrated than pepper spray and with greater range. Supposedly it will take down a hungry and angry polar bear.
I once had a neighbor with a viscous dog which once jumped over the fence and blocked me from leaving my unattached garage. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door. The dog couldn’t read my land deed so it didn’t know where the property line is. The dog couldn’t read my mind because if it knew I was holding pruning sheers it would be looking for someplace else to be. Had I not been able to shut the door there would have been pieces and parts of something on the ground and I think most of it would have been the dog.
What would you train an unarmed child to do when attacked by a viscous dog?
ETA: I don’t think you can teach kids how to disarm an attacking dog. But there is still you can do to make sure they don’t get bitten–don’t pet strange dogs, don’t manhandle the dog, etc.
I have to say, it’s pretty hard to train people who are afraid of dogs not to fear dogs. I say this as a person who spent most of my youth afraid of dogs–even cocker spaniels. They can smell fear, they can SEE fear. And are prone to exploit it. They can also see and smell authority, but first you have to develop it.
We have two dogs. One weights 12 pounds the other is a Min-Pin and weights all of 6 pounds. If the minpin weighed 50 pounds she’d rip the throat out of pretty much anyone she met. She was mistreated for years before we got her and we’ve managed to socialize her quite a bit. But we keep little kids away from her because they think she is a toy and she will may nip at them. If she was 50 pounds we probably would have had her put down. But she is 6 pounds. Any person on the planet not a quadriplegic could scare her off or hold her down.
We were at the dog walking park a couple of months ago and a woman was walking what I thought, from a distance, was a pony. It was an exceptionally large dog with a woman who had to be no more than 5’ tall. Seriously, she could have ridden it like a horse. The dog wasn’t aggressive in any way. It was indifferent to everyone and all the other dogs around it. Yet, what if it decided to attack someone or just wander off in a direction that the owner didn’t want it to go in? There was no way she was going to physically control it. Unless she had a hidden gun there was no way for her to stop it other than through whatever controls she trained into it.
I am amazed that we allow people to have large animals as pets that they can’t easily physically control. Why does a person need an 80 pound animal in a city or suburb when a 30 pound one does essentially the same thing and is less of a danger to themselves and neighbours. Or is there something useful a large dog does that a smaller one doesn’t?
90% by relatives and non-custodial parents. “Stranger danger” is way overstated, and it’s not worse today that it was 50 years ago.
If I was getting a dog to protect my kids from a pit bull, it’d be a Alaskan Malamute. I have seen a mal vs pitbull fight, and it was not nice for the Pitbull at all- he grabbed the fur in the neck, and the Mal proceeded to rip him apart, taking no serious damage. Of course, the Mal outweighed the Pitbull 2-1.
That statement was with respect to Jennifer’s relationship with her dogs. She lives alone; there’s nobody with a baseball bat on standby in her house, should Red lose it there.
Of course I’m not teaching my children to cower in fear at all dogs, I’ve made it clear that my concern is not directed at the entire species. But your insistence that I teach them to “stand firm, be commanding and don’t show fear” is ridiculous. Five-yr-old human children are not wired that way.
One of those flawed studies stated that boys age 5-9 are particularly vulnerable. I definitely believe that. My 5-yr-old boy is just curious and clever enough to get himself in a HEAP of trouble.
I should probably be specific - teaching them to stand firm when Red’s around is ridiculous. Avoidance is what I’m teaching them.
Because, again, let me state this clearly: small children have a very difficult time with nuance, with degree, with going-so-far-but-no-further. Most things are black or white to them.