Hey! There's a dog charging my little girl! I better go get my gun! Now, let's see, it's over here in my den. I'll just get it down, easy does it. Let's not panic. Where's my ammo? Right here. Okay. Breathe steady. Loading. Loading. Loading. Okay. I think I'm ready. Now, let's go back and assay the situation. Yup, that dog is still charging my daughter. Okay. Ready. Aim. Fire.
I kind of think that the guy may have been holding the gun, watching the dog and thinking "Go ahead. Make my day."
You are right. Same thing struck me. Any normal parent would grab the child in this case, not a gun.
Once the child is out of danger one might get the gun, but not before.
It sounds like he was out in the back yard with his gun, guarding his daughter. I also find it hard to believe he could have seen the “charge”, gone to get his gun and come back in time to kill the dog. If you’re right, he was using his daughter as bait! Horrible thought.
I agree.
A much more likely scenario. Aggressive dogs and small children are a deadly mix.
I’m another one who agrees with you. If it happened as the guy said, his daughter would have been mauled to death. Added to that, did they guy know the dog was dangerous? Has it bitten someone in the past? If he was that afraid of it, he would have put up a fence, or, in the least, called animal control prior to this incident, if it even was an incident, prior to the shooting.
“I kind of think that the guy may have been holding the gun, watching the dog and thinking “Go ahead. Make my day.”
I don’t think it’s fair to say that he was ‘make my day’ about this. He was prepared to protect a small child. He said he felt bad, maybe he did.
Plus, I don’t believe he ever said he went to get his gun. Maybe he keeps one on him at home. Maybe he was smart because he has seen this dog as a threat to the little girl in the past.
If I had a small child and a huge dog continuously came into my yard, I’d be prepared in one fashion or another. It would think it would be stupid or negligent of him to not be prepared to protect his family.
Excellent point.
Not knowing the local ordinances, it seems like he could have just said “I walk around my home with my gun all the time. What of it?”
I don't have a problem with that. Nor, I suspect, do you.
I thought that was odd too. I know a lot of mastiffs that grow up with children and are really good. That was a big bull mastiff. Usually the English are the biggest.
“Hey! There’s a dog charging my little girl! I better go get my gun! Now, let’s see, it’s over here in my den. I’ll just get it down, easy does it. Let’s not panic. Where’s my ammo? Right here. Okay. Breathe steady. Loading. Loading. Loading. Okay. I think I’m ready. Now, let’s go back and assay the situation. Yup, that dog is still charging my daughter. Okay. Ready. Aim. Fire”
Yup. That dog must have charged from about half a mile. I have no problem with shooting a dog attacking my kid, but his story sounds strange. Make my day is right.
I was thinking the same thing. If a dog charges my kid, my first priority would be to get my kid out of harm's way. Once the kid is safe there is no need to shoot the dog. It sounds to me like the dog got in his yard, he shot it and then made up the story about his kid.
I have big dogs, but they're either on a leash or locked in my fenced-in yard. If we have company over the dogs get locked up even though I'm 90% confident that they won't bite.
We have a gun by our door locked and loaded. With the safety on of course.
If I had a four foot dog next to me, I would have it there too.
Yeah, that’s how I read the article, but who knows. It also doesn’t sound like this was the first time so maybe he was fully prepared. Assuming this is legit, then I would have easily done the same to protect my kid.
Agreed. The dog is described as having "ventured into his yard several times" previously. Was the dog a positive danger then? Perhaps ... but you'd think the guy would have said so, and he didn't.
I suspect there's a whole lot more to the story -- bad blood between neighbors.
I’m with you...the sequence sounds odd.
Dog charges my kid....I run inside to get gun to kill it while dog charges kid...
maybe the reporter just wrote it up outtawhack
I kind of think that the guy may have been holding the gun, watching the dog and thinking "Go ahead. Make my day."
I'm with you. Unless they printed this wrong it goes like this: He sees the dog come into his yard, the dog charges the child, he "goes to get his gun and shoots the dog" according to the article. How big is his yard? How long does it take a dog to charge across the yard to a child? Unless this guy had the gun in his hand I call BS on his story. The kid would have been dead by the time he got the gun.
I say he killed the dog because he didn't like it coming into his yard, shot the dog, then made up the story about it charging his child.
Even if you had a gun at the ready you may not have the time to shoot the dog before it starts chewing on the kid. Once again, this story is BS.
I agree with your analysis of “he got his gun and shot the dog”; this doesn’t pass the smell test!
In addition, this Bullmastiff that “stands every bit of four feet tall on his back” is considerably larger than the worlds record Mastiff (Mastiff’s are larger than Bullmastiffs). The Guinness Book of World Records had listed Zorba as the largest Mastiff in the world until his death. Zorba was 37” (3 feet 1 inch) tall at the shoulder.
I suspect that the dog’s size is not the only fiction reported in this story.