Santo66

I don't see that removing working drives from a breed is the answer either.......a well bred working Dobe was not a dangerous animal, neither is a well bred GSD, Rotty, Malinois or any other breed capable of protection training....when the Dobe and GSD alike had a bad rep some years ago was the result of aggression drives capped with weak nerve, in the lead up to killing off working drive altogther as they did with the Dobe and many of GSD bloodlines, these breeds of bad rep were again caused by breeding the wrong dogs creating an abundance of fear biters......more reason that the breeders of dogs need to be accountable for what they produce IMHO.

What do people honestly expect when the breeding of dogs is a free for all, breed what you like, when you like to whatever you like and the community suffers the consequences of poorly bred dogs with character deficiencies and flaws.......what do people think will be the result in a breeding system that has no accountability for what is being produced? A car manufacturer produces a car with a faulty brake system and authorities force a national recall where the manufacturer is responsible to rectify the problem and can be held accountable for public saftey. A breeder whether that be a BYB or registered breeder, can mismatch two dogs to produce fear biters or traits of uncapped aggression and that's ok..........IMHO it's not ok at all, these breeders of crap dogs need to be held accountable. The Rotty for example who attacked the child's face........what sort of a Rotty is this thing, who bred the damn dog with what in the parentage.....the dog was so short in nerve, so displaced in suspicion that it needed to attack a child assumed as a threat, or was the dog scared of the child and attacked out of fear......whatever the case........that dog was a crap Rotty at all levels......I doubt the Rotty had been trained to attack kids in a working role, the dog was clearly of poor breeding, but as we speak, the breeder of that dog could be preserving the poor trait quality in the next litter for the next accident to happen with the next unstable dog they produce excellent isn't it The sad thing is that people in the "tough breeds" actually do purposely breed these types of dangerous dogs.......even in working circles, they can often promote and breed dogs of unstable character and condemn dogs of stable character as not having enough "civil drive" because they don't know how to select or train a dog of balanced temperament and character for the working roles they breed for. The same applies with many of these Bull breed concoctions, purposely breeding powerful dogs with high levels of social aggression as pets come protection dogs......it's these dogs getting out when the owner drops the ball that ends up in scenarios like the recent jogger attack. It's time breeders of dangerous dogs are held accountable.....stopping at the owner isn't good enough to lessen the chance of further attacks.....breed crap dogs of unstable character and it's involved in an unprovoked attack look out is how IMHO it needs to be.

It's always the owners fault when a dog is mismanaged and put in a position to bite someone, however some dogs and some breeds need a higher level of management than others. There are plenty of absolute moron owners who allow good stable dogs to run around the street that cause no harm to anyone, but a moron owner of a mean dog let out onto the street is going to bite someone. What's the difference, both owners are moron irresponsibles, one dog bites the other doesn't why is that?

Ok, so they could have saved the dog by telling the hospital that the offending dog was unknown to them? The women does two stupid things in that case, lets a dog she probably isn't fully aware of the dogs character into a room with a toddler then serves the dog up on a plate to get PTS

Who reports it........the hospital?

Some follow up needs to address the breeders of dogs like this........where did such a dog come from in the first place?

How did the council get involved when it was basically their own dog.......must have dobbed in their own dog then

Yes, they did the same with GSD's and Rottweilers, selecting breeding pairs of dogs with weak nerve on the false impression that fear aggression meant protective instinct and sadly because they have no idea how to train a protection dog from quality stock, a spooky dog having a protective appearance to the untrained eye is how the wrong dogs are being bred and of course the yobbo can buy one and have a protection dog in the back yard with no further training. It's these dogs getting out into the street who will attack people for no reason. The GSD and Rotty were saved a bit from this type of breeding after unstable dogs were rejected by professional protection trainers, police, military etc, the breeders realised that producing dogs like that was to their own detriment.........the Bully breeds not used professionally is a bit of a free for all popular with the yobbo factor who want seriously aggressive dogs by nature. That's absolute rubbish......I have a Belgian Malinois here with more prey drive than any Bull breed dog could come close to matching......he wouldn't chase and attack a jogger, infact the jogger could stop and pat him as anyone could if he got out onto the street.......I totally disagree that dogs high in prey drive means they will instinctively attack people in prey drive?

The breed does matter in the eyes of the authorities in regard to community safety to determine what breeds are more likey to attack on a hair spring trigger........unfortunately whether we like it or not, the most severe attacks and maulings continually feature the same style of dog, not necessarily Pitbull's but dogs based on Bully type breeds. There are odd attacks from other breeds also of course, but not the amount that seem to be happening with these Bully type of dogs. Most are probably cross breeds and more than likely bred for the yobbo market from aggressive ancestory, big strong Bull breed type dog for protection/deterrent factor and the tough dog image?. I am sure that if German Shepherd's for example were continially featuring in savage maulings at the rate these Bull breeds are, they would be after GSD's in that case, but then again, a good GSD that is capable of being protection trained, by instinct are not living on a hair spring trigger to attack without provocation.......the genetics on these Bull breed mixtures which could be anything are not fit for the community when they can't instinctively determine threat.......they are by no means a well balanced animal IMHO.

That's absolutely right, the desire to bite and fight is trained from an extension of prey drive which takes a dog of extremely hard nerve to be successful and consequently, dogs with the correct nerve structure untrained are not aggressive dogs by default, they are so confident they don't care about their surroundings and don't fear anything or anyone to feel insecure and become reactive. Unfortunately the "right" dogs are often overlooked and considered no good because they don't display reactive aggression unprovoked so they opt for breeding reactive dogs because it's easier to train a reactive dog to greater heights of uncontrollable aggression to produce the sterotypical junkyard dog. A properly trained protection dog bites for the pleasure of beating their opponent in more like a serious game of tug which also provides the clear head to obey commands at the height of fighting drive over a dog reacting in an aggression frenzy which occures with nervy/reactive dogs fighting for their lives. It's a real worry the amount of guardian breed owners of reactive dogs who think their dog is a natural protector where they are infact merely nervy dogs of poor temperament and are poor examples of the respective breeds

A similar thing happened with the GSD, Rotty and Dobe years ago where dogs of unstable temperament were purposely bred from the misconception that active aggression was a sign of guarding instinct and protection quality where in actual fact it's quite the opposite where the dog reacts from thin nerve and fear aggression. Ideal protection/guard dogs are trained from stable dogs with high nerve strength and high prey drive and are taught to bite/attack under specific scenarios. The same dogs if raised as pets would be unlikely to show aggression at all, they would be environmentally stable, confdent dogs who are ball/toy crazy for play. However, the training of the right dogs who are otherwise community safe for guarding/protection is a very complex training regime beyond the breeders ability who produce fear biters misconstrude as protectors,sadly in more recent times, the breeding of unstable thin nerved dogs has extended into the Malinois breed as it did with the other iconic guarding breeds. The "best" protection rountine I have seen was from a Malinois who was bought in to meet the people watching the demonstration, a lethal dog on field greeting strangers in a passive environment with a wagging tail. Off the job, this dog could be patted, shook hands and returned sloppy kisses to anyone who cuddled him, kids included......amazing dog and sensational training.

People continally say this in regard to training dogs to be aggressive and bite which really couldn't be further from the truth. Unless an individual dog is genetically equipped to do so, at best you may get most dogs to bite if cornered and abused perhaps, but the ability to be actively aggressive is in the dogs genetics. Where professional training of biting/attacking dogs is active, police, security, armed forces etc, a large proportion of individual dogs of breeds renowned for successfully training in these disciplines will not attack/bite people and consequently fail in that role, even dogs who are trained to bite sleeves and suits worn by people, many are biting/attacking in prey drive for reward of the equipment (tug toy) and will not bite/attack people without the equipment being worn regardless of the training to do otherwise. The German Shepherd is the most commonly used breed globally for professional biting/attacking working roles which is said to be only aorund 1% of the breed in general is genetically capable of being trained in such a role? With that said in relation to Pit Bulls, yobbo's are often blamed for Pit Bull aggression by raising/training dogs to show aggression and ultimately bite, but the question is: Why are the yobbo's using Pit Bulls and not GSD and Rottweillers etc to create dangerous dogs? It's often said by anti BSL activists that the yobbos at breed ban will move onto something else on the basis that "any" dog can be trained to be dangerous?. The next question: How are the yobbos going to train just any dog or breed to fullfil a role that professional trainers can't achieve with the wrong dogs and breeds? Is the Pit Bull type of dog easier genetically for the yobbo to extract aggression from, than other breeds, are they an easier dog to make dangerous? I don't know the answer to that from a BSL perspective, but is it to do with genetic capability to attack/bite being greater than other breeds being a reason for restriction?

Sorry, that's crap when applied to a statutory defence and unless the act defines reasonable/unreasonable force in the case of a dog, the result of a DD order on a dog who reacted due to the provocation of an unleashed dog who's broken how many laws to provoke........dog at large, dog not under effective control, rushing attacking another animal or person, the satutory defence will overide all of this not withstanding that it's unreasonable to expect a mere dog to understand the limitations of force.........as I said previously, ACO's making up their own rules. I could however imagine an ACO trying to place a DD order on a dog defending it's self and owner from a dog at large attack, some ACO's are pretty stupid and often don't know the rules themselves.

Yes, there was another a couple of years ago with a working line GSD. It was alleged that a hip and elbow score sheet from a healthy dog had been photoshopped/copied with a change of dog's name to verify the dog had been hip and elbow scored and had passed health requirements prior to sale. The new owner had the dog re-xrayed and scored after discovering lameness to find the dog had HD a hip score in the 80's

So what is stopping someone photoshopping a copy changing the dogs name to a dog who hasn't been scored and sending that into the club......does the club check that the copy they receive is a valid copy? Could the documents be falsified and therefore breeder doesn't want copies out there, dates, vets etc in case someone checks up on them?

You are not responsible for your dog's actions if rushed at by an off leash dog and yours in on leash in a public place. The person at fault is the one who allowed their dog to be at large and do the rushing and the consequences are irrelevent. You don't have to muzzle reactive dogs or keep reactive dogs away from public places where there may be dogs at large rushing at leashed dogs. It's up to the owners of all dogs to keep them on leash in a public place and not allow them to rush at other dogs and respect the personal space of others. In NSW, this is correct to a degree, as there is a defense of provocation. However a dog can be declared dangerous for 'displaying unreasonable aggression'. That is of course subjective but if a dog rushes your leashed dog and your dog then absolutely tears them to pieces, killing them, it's conceivable that depending on the attitude of the Council investigating your dog could still be declared dangerous because the level of response was unreasonable. Something to bear in mind in NSW. Is there a degree of reasonable force written into the NSW legislation, or are we talking ACO's making up their own rules? Wouldn't the law require that to complement responsible ownership/managment, but the law doesn't require that and also provides at statutory defence of provocation in the event of a reaction towards a rushing dog. Irresponsible choice of equipment, or using worn out or damaged equipment, incorrect fitment. I don't think equipment failure is a defence for a dog not being under effective control?

You are not responsible for your dog's actions if rushed at by an off leash dog and yours in on leash in a public place. The person at fault is the one who allowed their dog to be at large and do the rushing and the consequences are irrelevent. You don't have to muzzle reactive dogs or keep reactive dogs away from public places where there may be dogs at large rushing at leashed dogs. It's up to the owners of all dogs to keep them on leash in a public place and not allow them to rush at other dogs and respect the personal space of others.

So after doing the right thing, the owners of the offending dog were dobbed in to council......wonderful

The report said that the little dog was standing there waiting for "action" meaning what exactly is the unknown?. Was it a victim of a predatory attack or did the little dog display some threating "action" towards the bigger dog triggering a lethal response? Dogs can't be expected to respond in defence or challenge to varing degrees of force in accordance with their opponents size and strength. We can't expect dogs to honour our laws of reasonable force to diffuse a situation, if fixing the problem to a dog means a nip or a maulling could be simply a size differential thing. Because the dog was small makes the attacking dog a killer through certain eyes, now if the poor little Schnauzer was a Rottweiller then the incident could have merely been a bit of a scrap that everyone would take in their stride as a non event. Little dogs don't always see consequence if at all that a bigger dog could easily kill them, if a little dog picks a fight they can't handle due to size difference, loosing the fight to death doesn't necessarily make the winning dog a bad dog, a killer or predator. Of course on the other hand we are aware of larger dogs who do act in a predatory manner with small dogs and will attack because they can......so there is really not enough information to go on here as to what happened.......of course the victim will say that their little dog was innocently maulled which is human nature, but I guess, was that really the case in this situation?. As far as the law goes, it's a statuatory defence across all states of Australia that dog can attack if provoked. There is absolutely no laws that prevent a dog defending it's self on leash when attacked by an off leash dog regardless of size or outcome. There is no requirement for any dog owner to muzzle or prevent their dog from defence of attack from another dog, even if the owner knows that their dog will attack an off leash dog approaching......in law, the approaching dog be it friendly or aggressive shouldn't be off leash in the first instance in a public place, the leashed dog has rights of law.........off leash areas are a different story obviously.

Owners of the offending dog must have provided contact details at the scene for the ranger to catch up with them?. If your dog is genuinely in the right, tell them nothing as the owners of the injured dog will quite possibly try to stitch you up with council even when their dog was the cause.

A mini wouldn't be much more than 8kg if that, still no match for 25/30kg dog.....a GSD is considered a medium sized dog so a mini Schnauzer is still quite a small dog I would think?

I would agree to say that there are many little dogs who act aggressively and because they are little and easy to handle they are perceived by their owners as too small to do much damage, and sometimes they even like the behaviour in the form of humour or cuteness how their little dog wants to fight big dogs in admiration of the little dog's bravado and they don't work at correcting the behaviour as one would with a big dog of the same behaviour that is hard to handle and will cause damage if the behaviour is allowed to manifest?. I have had countless situations walking my big dogs where little dogs on retractor leads are driven so hard to attack my dogs they are running on their sides pulling on the leash so hard in an aggressive frenzy and the owners are giggling and smiling. At the same time, my dog is ready to explode into defense as it's plain obvious that the little dog is trying to mount an attack..........size doesn't matter in the dog's mind, if a little dog is DA he/she will take on a big dog given the opportunity, only we see the consequence and understand it, the dogs don't see things the way we do, the big dog see an aggressor a threat and reacts, but the problem is the same level of defence from the big dog on a dog it's own size may cause a small flesh wound, where applied to a small dog can mean death at the same level of defence. We don't really know what dogs communicate to each other to trigger an attack, what the little dog is saying to the big dog, we only see yapping and lunging as harmless dog behaviour that doesn't deserve death as the consequence of the behaviour........owners of little dogs need to understand this at a greater depth whether a dog is big or small, if it displays threatening, challenging, aggressive, body language towards other dogs or towards people for that matter regardless of size, the behaviour uncorrected will get worse with time......my point is that aggression control applies to "all" dog owners, not just those who's dogs are big enough to cause significant damage if an attack should occur. On a side note just before Christmas, I had a DD order placed on a little dog of around 4-5kgs by council who for the 3rd time ran out of it's front yard to attack my big dogs. I tried to kick the little dog off biting my big dog's front legs and the dog grabbed my pants leg puncturing the skin on my ankle which in the process of all this, my big dog wanted to kill it in defence..........what a horrible encounter trying to stop my dog defending which he had the rights to do in the circumstances and stop the little dog attacking me in the matter of seconds......I felt sick at the thought of my dog getting hold of this little dog who wouldn't back off.....at least the DD order has kept the little dog inside it's yard now where it should have been in the first place. I think MyMateJack has a valid point in the sense that owners of aggressive small dogs are the least likely to work at correcting the behaviour from my experiences anyway. They often believe that aggression control is reserved for owners of larger dogs and breeds known for damage if aggression escalates out of control. Getting attacked by a Pitbull, GSD or Rottweiler has much more impact than an attack from a Silky Terrier or the like is the metality and is less likely to be reported to council.

Providing the big dog is on leash and the little dog was off leash in a public place and gets chomped, bad luck. An owner of a leashed dog is not held responsible for the consequence of an attack by a dog at large not under effective control. Cleary that should be the case, but if there were no witnesses do you really think that would be the likely outcome? Yes..........off leash dogs have no rights over leashed dogs in a public place. If there were no witnesses, there are no stories in contradiction to be considered.

Providing the big dog is on leash and the little dog was off leash in a public place and gets chomped, bad luck. An owner of a leashed dog is not held responsible for the consequence of an attack by a dog at large not under effective control.

I don't disagree.......I just try and set the record straight from my opinion and educate them towards other considerations I feel are better for the dog's progress.