They should have gotten rid of the dogs when it was clear that they were showing aggression around the baby. Some dogs don’t take well to kids coming in.
At a rescue I used to volunteer at, a couple brought in a dog because he didn’t like their little boy once he started crawling around. He wasn’t a pit bull, but he was a very large, strong dog. He was great with adults, but he was jealous of the little boy.
“...jealous of the little boy.”
Yes, and no. Dogs are pack animals. They fight among themselves for status in pack rankings. The young ones get nipped and back off. If they don’t back off, it can get bloody. I do agree that the dogs should have been gotten rid of as soon as they began showing aggression towards the baby.
Puppies that are taken from their mother too young, before ten weeks of age, never learn what it means to be a dog. (See Gun Dog Magazine, October 2008, page 40. Article is titled, The Dominant Male.) “They don’t know what they are or toward what species to direct their social behavior.” Author of article is Dr. Ed Bailey.
Add to the above the fact that Pit Bulls are bred to fight other dogs and generally don’t attack humans, then this particular case indicates that these dogs were never properly socialized. There are cases where fighting Pit Bulls have been rehabilitated and become househould pets. Remember Michael Vicks, and how he had all those Pit Bulls used for fighting? I saw a television program about some of those dogs, and how they had been rehabilitated and were now in homes. Didn’t watch the whole program, but I bet they weren’t placed in homes with toddlers!
That said, I would never, NEVER, allow them around very young children, even if they behaved like angels. But that also applies to many breeds of dogs.
I had a friend who owned a jumbo-sized Siberian Husky. She observed him stalking her 2-year old niece in the backyard one afternoon and immediately kenneled him. The Husky had a high prey drive, and that seemed to include toddlers!
They should have gotten rid of the dogs when it was clear that they were showing aggression around the baby. Some dogs don’t take well to kids coming in.
Exactly. And not just gotten rid of but euthanized.
This business about “pit bulls aren’t at fault, it’s the owners or “trainers” to use that term loosely is true but it doesn’t go far enough.
I keep hearing it’s 100% the human beings fault, which is true but what’s overlooked is breeders in the first place. Perhaps through no fault of their own, but the very first pit bulls being bred is when pandora’s box was opened.
We have a little fox terrier, and these dogs were bred, along with rat terriers, from the very beginning to hunt down vermin on farms and so forth. It’s in their blood. If they see something small and grey they go after it and shake it to death. Little vermin killing machines. The family we got him from had two litters and on their farm there were no mice, rats, etc. because they were routinely exterminated.
So as he grew and to this very day, he takes off after ANYTHING small and gray...squirrels and the little grey kitten my daughter rescued. I explained to her and my mother NEVER EVER EVER let the kitten loose upstairs where Rascal is or there will BE no kitten.
Incidentally, now that the cat is fully grown, they get along famously chasing each other around the house, etc.
But she would have been dead LONG ago had we not intervened.
Same for pit bulls...training can only do so much, they were BRED to destroy things smaller than them. BIG difference is they’ll use teeth to accomplish this and they don’t stop at small and gray! AND their jaws and size CLEARLY makes them lethal.
Terriers in general (fox terriers, pit bulls,...) have this innate destruction in their genes!
Sure it can be overcome, but I’ve also heard too many stories about their pit bull was fine and showed NO aggression ever, until they killed a kid! Like they just up and snapped one horrible day.
It’s simply not worth the risk.
The breed IF it is to survive at all, MUST be controlled, perhaps always kept away from kids or used only as working dogs on farms, I don’t know...and it’s humane for the dogs as well.
What we’re doing now is CLEAR failure with these dogs, not to mention our children.
The dog would be very jealous after the first time he showed his jealousy towards my child. I would establish the proper pecking order very quickly.