... I know that look too!.. Yeah, I saw that look from the dog that killed my cat a few weeks before he did it. My nephew and his little 2yr old boy like to drive their gator down to our place on Sunday mornings and have breakfast with us and the dog follows him. He's a black Lab and he'd stand at our glass storm door looking in at the cats and his eyes would just get nearly solid black and he'd have his ears all pulled up on top of his head and he'd alternately pant really fast, then hold his breath and get real still, except for a barely detectable trembling, almost like a junkie needing a fix. My cats stay in at night and whenever we're home but get to go out during the day while I'm at work. He'd chased the cats before but had never managed to catch one of them because I'd always been there when he did it to head him off. But this time our nephew came down to fix our mailbox one day while I was at work and the cat didn't have a chance. My nephew tried to stop it but his little boy was trying to get in there to "help" and they both almost got bit in the process. I can't believe he's still got the dog because I'm afraid that one of these days he's gonna bite his little boy if push comes to shove. In the mean time, the dog better not show back up at my house coz he's a dead dog if he gets after one of my cats again.
Too bad... I wouldn't want to witness that and I'm sorry you did.
Really though, the dog's natural desire is to catch little prey, and I wouldn't expect a lab that might chase and kill a cat would be a danger to any people or kids, unless you've seen other signs that he is.
Sometimes we can fight nature, and sometimes we fail at it. Mine are pretty good... Gidget is almost acting more maternal than predatory, she looks at them very intently, but she licks them in the 'let mom inspect your ears and butts' kind of way when they let her. When the kittens suddenly appear and rip across the room though, that triggers a very primal response to chase! They'll be better the bigger the kittens get and I'm being as careful as can be.
This morning I let them play with the dogs in the room at first, which means the kittens feel a little intimidated and spend most of their time under the recliner and under the saddle rack.
Then I put the dogs out so the kittens could really rip for a while, and they did. :~D
Heh... These guys really crack me up.
They wore themselves out and I put them back in the crate to sleep it off. I'm supposed to be working :~D