[ravingnutter]

Wide brush there...in our case, it was bad children. The neighbor kids teased our dogs through the fence, throwing rocks at them and hitting the fence with a golf club and sticks. Now our year-old German Shepherd gets aggressive with everyone except our family, the older two dogs only with those kids. All my dogs were very sweet and well-behaved before that, the older two normally love kids, my grandkids crawled all over them as babies.

My husband has told their parents that we will call the police next time. As for me, I told the kids that if I catch them doing it again I am going to open the gate and let the dogs out so they can defend themselves. That seemed to scare them most of all. We are now in the process of re-socializing my German Shepherd, we have to keep him muzzled or in a pen when we have company. I hate punishing the dog for what the kids did to him.

[Tallguy]

As for me, I told the kids that if I catch them doing it again I am going to open the gate and let the dogs out so they can defend themselves.

I know how you feel being a dog owner myself, but I wouldn't make such a statement for fear that if the dogs did manage to get out that it would be taken as an intentional act on my part.