I love my dog but I would understand completely if I was held responsible to any damage he did to someone else's property. If I did not know this was Freerepublic I would think I was on a Democratic Underground thread. I though one of the main things people who post here have in common is their respect for individual responsibility.
You thought wrong, didn’t you?
What you are seeing is the responses from a bunch of dog owning, emotional women who can’t bear to think that anyone would be so cold as to sue them for damages when they have just lost the best friend they ever had.
I take the responsibility to have the necessary means to defend myself from both unleashed dogs and their irate owners. Every fool who walks their dog off a leash will tell you that they won't bite you. I usually reply that dead dogs don't bite.
My guess is that it would depend in part on what steps the owner took to control the dog’s movements. A dog allowed to run loose? Yes. A dog that escapes confinement? Maybe...but if the owner took reasonable precautions to prevent the dog running loose, then the dog might be considered like a deer - a wild animal.
I’m not a lawyer and haven’t researched this any, so I actually have no idea how a court would approach it.