And it wasn’t technically a child–it was a ginger.
Remember, “attacked” is subjective. I’ve seen people scream and recoil from a poodle wagging his tail. I’ve seen children leap onto a sleeping dog which jumped up and fled, and adults claim the dog attacked. I don’t know what happened in the case being described, but often two witnesses will differ on a dog’s intent.
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Well, TrueCelt said there was a long red scar down her kid’s face and that the dog was only prevented from lunging by her holding it down.
Yeah, but I’ve seen a kid sneak up and jump on a sleeping dog, startling the dog awake. The kid got a long red scar on the face. before the dog collected her wits and fled in shame and fear, but certain sorts of observers would have believed that to be an attack by the dog. Some flavors of idiot or dramatist jumping up and throwing themselves on the dog could have easily been persuaded they’d stopped the dog from pressing the attack. Instead, the dog cowered in the other room, thoroughly sad that she’d raised her head suddenly when a child smashed into her.
Fortunately the adults present – including the child’s parents – were sensible. A little Bactine and a kind word to the child, a kind word to the dog, and all was well.
I’m just saying that some people (not necessarily TrueCelt) are drama hounds. We have a friend who called one evening in horror that a cat she was fostering had clawed her dauther in the eye, possibly blinding her. When we visited the next morning, the child had a small red mark about four inches away from the eye, near the hairline, and it may not have broken the skin.
Of such things are (some) animal mauling tales of terror told.
Is the dog’s intent an issue? Dogs picking up babies = damage to babies = bad
I don’t understand why this douche is being held up as a paragon of logic and cool-headed reason. It’s irresponsible not to kill the dog who has snatched a baby even if the dog’s intent was to take it outside and teach it long division.
Douche in question isn’t willing to have the dog back in his home. He doesn’t want the dog to be destroyed. This guy is a pansy who’s pushed a difficult chore onto someone else. He should man up and pay to have Baby-Snatcher euthanized.
Why? What if the dog can be rehomed to a family with no children?
I know this is callous but there are a crapton of dogs and cats out there with no homes. They languish in shelters. I’m going to go out on an un-cited limb and say that many if not all of those animals have never snatched a baby out of it’s crib.
Also, the OP wasn’t really asking about the dog’s situation, he was asking why Michael Smith didn’t destroy the dog and our opinion regarding that decision. In addition to leaving a baby alone in a crib low enough for the family dog to molest the baby, that family has also shirked their responsibility to destroy the dog. There’s a dog surplus for God’s sake, is there really a need to keep alive one that doesn’t understand that small humans are not chew toys?
If you look down the road at the worst case scenario, there is a possibility that rehomed Dakota IS in the proximity of a baby/child/midget and gets peckish or playful and does damage. How dumb would we all feel knowing that the dog already had a history of human chomping, however well intentioned.
It’s a risk management thing and in my opinion, it’s a stupid, irresponsible risk.
Underlines mine. A streak isn’t the same as a scar, ok? The Celtling got hurt but from TruCelt’s info she didn’t get a scar at all.
From hearing some people tell it, that time a “friend” thought it would be fun to divebomb on me and got five, not one but five, red streaks on his chest from my nails before I realized what had hit me wasn’t a practical joke gone bad: it was “crazed teenager attacks younger child and almost rips his ribs off!” (He’s 8 months younger than me and already was taller)
If there’s someone who’s willing to make sure that the dog stays away from small kids/babies, what’s wrong with them taking it in?
The harm to one of the Sacred Children can only be cleansed by a blood sacrifice to the gods.