Nor worth taking a chance.
Children between the age of 1 day old and 12 years old are the victims in 79% of all fatal dog attacks. Children are particularly vulnerable to canine aggression for a number of reasons, the most obvious being their small size and inability to fend off a dog attack.2ibid. pg14-15Toddlers and young children are usually at or just below eye-level with a large-sized dog. It stands to reason that the first bite a dog delivers to a toddler will be in the face or head region. A child's screaming or flailing would more than likely incite an aggressive dog even more, with the child unable to escape the dog.
Another serious vulnerability children have is the inability to recognize or comprehend the significance of an aggressive display by a dog. The vast majority of children(besides infants) killed by dogs are males, aged 2 and 4 respectively (see Chart B). A probable scenario is; upon approaching a dog, particularly a chained dog, the child is given a warning, displayed as either a stiffened position, raised hackles, and/or growl. The toddler, not realizing the implications, continues his approach, and the dog may consider this a challenge or a threat. Chained dogs, having no option to retreat, may lash out at this perceived threat or encroachment.2
We would really would need to run double blind tests with live children, by each dog type and sex and then under different approaches, wouldn’t we? Other wise it’s all just junk for those susceptible to sloppy...’papers’. I wouldn’t ever call them studies. It’s all just slightly glorified bias, cargo culting as some sort of science. But then, any adult would know that.
Intersting article. Makes sense. However, I’d still much rather walk up to a chained black lab than a chained pitbull or chow. Some breeds are just meaner than others.
>Many dogs recognize youngsters across species lines
Nor worth taking a chance.<
Amen. Dogs must be socialized around children. Many dogs of differing breeds have high prey drive. This is an instinctive reaction of a dog to smaller animals. People want to treat dogs as though they are little people in fur coats. They are first and foremost predatory pack animals. They must be trained, socialized and guided by their human caretakers, not isolated and staked out on chains from puppyhood.
Does anyone here think for a moment this chained dog was raised according to the methods below?
Puppy socialization:
http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&A=1811
Dogs notice all sorts of differences in people. With good socialization, dogs learn to ignore the differences that are not important, such as beards, hats, skin color, and the like. If you react in such a way that your dog thinks there is reason to fear that type of person, though, you can inadvertently create fear, suspicion or defensiveness in your dog toward other people. That becomes inconvenient, and sometimes downright dangerous. So strive to treat people the same no matter what their differences when you are socializing your dog!
In socializing your dog, you want to create positive experiences with every variation on the human condition you possibly can. Here are some differences to use:
1. Accustom your dog to people of as many different appearances as possible. This includes people who are tall, short, narrow, wide, bearded, short-haired, long-haired, and with skin all the colors of the rainbow. Whatever differences you and your dog come across, your goal is to teach the dog that these things are not important.
2. Get your dog used to people who smell different ways. Being in my 20th year as a therapy dog handler, I’ve come to believe that dogs are not as put off by scents as people are. If you don’t like the way someone smells, you may notice it makes no difference to your dog. What you don’t want to do is react in such a way that your dog will be afraid of that scent.
3. Let your dog get used to people moving in all sorts of ways. That means walking, running, limping, riding a bicycle, skating, skipping, and anything else you can think of or find. Keep in mind the dog’s comfort and safety so your dog will have good experiences with these movements, not bad ones.
4. Accustom your dog to all sorts of sounds associated with people. That includes whispering, talking, laughing, coughing, singing, yelling, playing music electronically or with an instrument and all the other variations you can arrange.
5. Give your dog the experience of people appearing suddenly. This is startling to some dogs, so start at a distance and be prepared to distract the dog with an eye contact exercise (see Eye Contact.)
6. Expose your dog to people wearing a wide variety of clothing.
7. Get your dog used to people carrying all kinds of objects. A safe distance from a construction site is a convenient place to work on this.
8. When you can actively work with your dog when someone comes to your home, this is a great opportunity to get your dog used to people in a potentially delicate situation. If you’re not able to actively control the dog, though, put the dog into an area away from being able to see the visitors. You don’t want any bad habits or beliefs to get started.
Remedies
An eye contact or focused attention exercise is a good way to handle your dog around people the dog might find stressful. When in doubt, start with having the dog focus on you, and release the dog’s attention for brief moments at a time to see how the dog reacts to the person.
If the dog reacts badly to someone, increase your distance from the person and continue to work with the dog’s attention on you. In the early stages of focused attention it’s usually best to use treats to keep the dog’s eyes on yours. This has the added advantage of giving you a reading on the dog’s stress level. If the dog normally will eat a particular treat but will not eat it in that situation, that’s reason to think the situation may be too stressful.
Don’t let people corner your dog. A dog on a leash may feel cornered even with a lot of space around because the dog can’t get away. If someone is pushy about petting your dog and won’t listen to your instructions, walk on, keeping your dog’s focus on you. Yes, it’s a bit snobbish, but it’s good for the dog! It tells your dog that YOU will deal with the humans, and that you are a leader worthy of following.
Acting out aggression or fear tends to fix both the behavior habit and the feeling more strongly. If your dog reacts in this manner to a situation, you need to stop putting the dog in the situation. Change the situation to one the dog can handle, and work gradually up to the level your dog needs to be able to cope with.
For example, let’s say your dog is afraid of men encountered on walks. You need to take your dog out to eliminate, so you’ll need to work the dog around men. How can you approach this training?
First, if the dog is aggressive toward men, get the help of an expert in person to work on the problem. Aggression is not a do-it-yourself project. Ask your veterinarian to recommend a behavior specialist in your area. Aggression and shyness are two sides of the same coin, so be alert for a fearful dog to show signs of aggression. If that happens, don’t delay getting help.
In the case of a dog showing mild fear without aggression, it helps to “sideswipe” people—not by hitting them as you go by! But instead of walking up to someone and stopping and putting your dog in the position of having to deal with them, just walk by the person, keeping your dog’s eyes on your eyes. At first have the distance between your dog and the person fairly large—whatever it takes for the dog to feel relaxed, maybe 20 feet. The dog may also feel relaxed when your body is between the dog and the other person.
If the person is willing to help, you can walk by several times, getting closer. For the first session, that may be all you want to do. You might do just that for several sessions.
As the dog shows progress, you could make your passes closer, and slow down as you pass the person. Eventually you could stop near the person and keep your dog’s attention while perhaps talking to the person.
If the dog gets more comfortable, you might have the person just lightly scratch the dog with one hand reaching from the side behind one ear—not reaching over the head. You might also have the person give the dog a treat. Another possibility is to have the person drop a treat for the dog, if you’re willing to let your dog pick up food from the ground (that’s a training decision).
If your dog is not showing comfort with being petted by people, you could make the choice to just teach your dog to ignore everyone else when out with you. This might seem extreme, but when you think about it, it’s not so different from what some humans have to do in order to endure constant closeness to people living in neighborhoods and apartments.
In tight quarters, people give each other some “space” by simply not engaging every time they pass. Some dogs need more space than others, and if you can’t give the dog physical space at that moment, you can create emotional space. With practice and teaching your dog that you can be trusted to keep things safe, this kind of space can work for many dogs.
Children and Puppies
The combination of a preschool-age child and a puppy at a critical stage of socialization requires special handling. A typical result is a dog who is never good with kids because of things that happened during critical early weeks and months of the pup’s life.
If you have a young child and want to add a dog to the family, your best bet is a dog already positively socialized to young kids. If you have a young child and a puppy, be aware that a puppy may not show the effects of the child’s behavior until the pup is several months of age.
Be careful how any child is allowed to behave around any dog, and never leave a child under school age alone with any dog for even one second (See Children Need to Learn About Dogsand Choosing a Dog for Children).
Good contact with dogs in the early years can have lifelong benefits for children, so it’s worth a lot of effort to provide this contact for your child and the children of your acquaintance. Just make sure there is enough skilled adult supervision on every encounter. The ideal is one skilled adult handling the dog while another handles the child.
Absolutely not worth taking a chance. The youngster might pull ears or fur, or fall into the dog, increasing the likelihood of a bite. Negligent supervision was one of the issues. Even with my sheltie, I watch carefully when she is around children - I don’t want them, or her, injured.
My point was that pit bull attacks are the most common, that many breeds are far less likely to attack. When you talk about other breeds, you’re generally talking about a bite and plastic surgery - not a funeral.
Irresponsible parenting killed the kid, the dog was just the implement.
Prayers for innocents suffering.