Replies

1. Why do you consider my opinions, which are based on personal experience, to have “no bearing, no impact, and no relevance” on the topic at hand, when your stance on this issue is based on “Hundreds of books, classes, and hours spent with dogs and other animals”, in other words, your personal experience?

Flawed reasoning. Flawed question.

First, let me see if I can add the element missing. Since you did not state it, but implied it, I will state it.

You are assuming that I am putting my experience in a position greater than yours, when I state that your experience is of no relevance to my opinion.

That is your error.

In fact my experience has no bearing on my opinion either. None. Just because your dogs haven't bitten your children, yet, is no greater or no less of a predictor of the general situation in which some other family, such as the one in this story, may find themselves, than is my experience with my dogs.

That is what I said. I did not say anything else.

I did not imply anything else.

You did. You took it, personally, as if it was a personal comment to you and about you and with regards to your child raising skills.

You took it as "You are a bad mommy". I did not say that. I did not imply that.

I do not say it now. I refute it.

Your parenting skills, your choices, nothing about you, has any bearing on this article, or my suggestion that "unknown, and untrained adult dogs are unsuited for family with small children".

Your mistake, was assuming that I was discussing you and that I was claiming a moral superiority.

In short you became defensive and hyper sensitive and reacted poorly chasing more and more inane positions which I attempted to address seriously, until, some point later in the second DAY, in which I realized your error, and pointed it out to you then, by saying "now I understand why you have taken this offense" yada yada yada... THAT post was, hundreds of posts later and a day after we began.

You either missed it, ignored it, or were too committed to the, by then, "war" to address it and things deteriorated afterwords with the actions of others, coming to the thread late.

Now, to my point, see directly above and previous: That I would NEVER NEVER NEVER put my children or suggest anyone put their children into such a situation.... I stand by it.

And of course, I know now, that because you FEEL that such a situation applies to YOU and your family in that YOU have adopted adult dogs (more than one?) and have very young children, that you are sure that I am somehow making this personal.

Again, I am not. And as I stated, I assumed you to be an older single "dog lady" stereotype. So, there was by no means, any effort to malign your decision making or parenting skills. And I said so then and say so now.

What we have, is this and ONLY this: You have made decisions you FEEL best in making. You have experience with your dogs and family to which you are comfortable. So be it.

I said and I say again: So what? Your personal experience has no bearing, is irrelevant to what OTHERS may choose for the best of their children and their families. And that is a fact.

You are free to share your experiences and offer opinions. And so am I. The end. You read far too much into it. You became emotionally invested in the outcome of my opinion because it matched your situation too closely. Nothing else was said or is intended.

If having no children would have rendered my opinion on this matter irrelevant, why does being childless yourself have no effect on the relevance of yours?

I hope you can see by the above, that it does not. Neither set of experiences act as predictors to future events in and of themselves. You just assumed that because I ruled your experience out as a predictor, that I was exempting mine.

Please recall the events in order. I did not even OFFER any of my background or experiences until much later when the attacks against me became personal and was lumped in with the "Dog Killers". THEN, I posted my experiences. And I did so one at a time. Only when they were relevant to a particular personal attack and mischaracterization of myself.

3. Why did you state that “You might as well TRAIN you dog to attack and kill your children as at least then you won’t be shocked when it happens./s” if you are in fact open to debate on the subject? And yes, I know what the sarcasm off tag is.

If you understand sarcasm, then why ask this question?

I posted above, the context. Anyone who goes and reads it can see the "tag". That is why we tag things, so people do NOT take them wrong. And while it is (pardon the pun) Biting sarcasm, it obviously held a truth too close to your personal situation for which you felt unable to resist taking personally and over reacting.

So, in summary: Opinions are like... well you know, and everyone has one and is entitled to it. Personal experiences are NOT generic predictors or relevant as such for general proofs for or against an opinion. You can offer them, and people are free to accept, dismiss or refute with their own as they see fit, and to do so without engaging in bitter hostilities.

That is exactly what I did. No more. No less.

Life is 1% of WHAT happens and 99% HOW you react to it.