doggleworth

thanks for the comments. We have been working through the best action to take and I've spoken to a couple of dog rescue organisations as well as grovelling to family to see if anyone could take him, even for a few weeks, but haven't had any luck. If I thought we could keep the two of them separate longterm then I would do it, but realistically I'm not the stay at home parent anymore, and I'd have to rely on someone else to ensure the dog was crated or in a dog run, and I don't want to point fingers but the two of them crossing paths has already happened when I was at work. I don't think it is fair for me to push that level of responsibility onto someone else. When I was at home they were kept separate but one little slip up has led to my son being bitten, and I can't guarantee it won't happen again.

thanks for the comments everyone. My son is okay-he was seen by a nurse and our doctor, wounds cleaned and put on antibiotics. We are hopeful that it won't leave a scar. Our dog's behaviour has been off for the last year or so-I am wondering if there is something else that has caused the behaviour shift as he has been distant towards everyone when he used to be my little shadow. He has never shown aggression to any other child, just my son, and it is just so upsetting for us but I can't spend the next 5-6 years wondering when someone will stuff up, leave a gate or door open and my child will be mauled. I'm finding this very difficult-he was my <3 dog

We have 2 dogs. The other dog has not displayed any signs of aggression. Before we had our baby (7-8 months before) we modified the access the dogs had to the loungeroom on the advice of a vet behaviourist about minimising the impact on our dogs and getting them to accept the new member of our household. The plan they put in place with us removed the dogs access to the loungeroom but they were still allowed inside and had access to other parts of the house. We walked them with the baby every day as advised, introduced them to him, let them get used to his smell before we brought him home. I made a huge fuss of them when I came home, and have always made sure they were patted, well taken care of, and got plenty of play time and attention. The baby was not allowed in "their space" on advice so he didn't go near their softbeds or crates. One dog responded really well to this, the other dog just didn't. We were told to limit his interactions with the baby and give him plenty of one on one time with one of us which we did. We have really tried hard. We didn't want to be the people who got rid of their dogs when they had a baby. It is devastating to us that despite working at this our dog took the opportunity to bite.

Our dog has been wary of the baby since he came home from hospital. We've kept them completely separate since he growled at the baby. They are all taken for walks together etc but never left alone or even in the same room usually. This morning he was walking through to go outside from a part of the house he isn't normally in as it is gated off. The attack was unprovoked. Our dog lunged at him and bit him more than once on the face in the time it took my husband to pull him away. It was bad enough to draw blood, narrowly missed his eye. Our child has never gotten in this dogs face and always smiles and coos when he sees any of our dogs. Our dog has been curling his lip up at the baby for months now. This would be the first time they've crossed paths as we keep them apart. I thought separation would be enough but I'm not sure I can ever trust my dog again after this.

One of our dogs bit my 9 month old son on the face this morning. He was supervised at the time, they both were. It was one of those fraction of a second things. Our dog is 10 years old and fear aggressive towards most other dogs. He isn't suited to being on his own, and I don't think I could in good conscience rehome a dog who had bitten a child. I know the only thing to do is take him to our vet and give him his wings, but he has been my "baby" for 10 years since he was a tiny puppy. My heart is breaking right now, but giving him his wings is the right thing to do isn't it?

That is just horrific. I think euthanising the dogs immediately was the right call. Personally I'd support a change in the legislation so owners of dogs who caused serious injury or death when on public property were charged with manslaughter or similar level charges. A maximum of 2 years in jail in this case doesn't cut it.

Reading some of the stupid comments in this thread seems to really show how bsl & dangerous dog legislation has come into being-when you have morons trying to justify dogs killing other dogs and setting up a clear delineation between large dogs and "little yappers" all you are doing is giving councils and governments more reasons to try to discourage people from owning large dog breeds. If your dog can't be trusted either muzzle it, or keep it away from other dogs regardless of the breed. If your large dog is going to kill a small dog if it gets into a spat with it then it is up to you as a responsible dog owner to take reasonable steps to stop your dog doing that.

It's pretty clear that you have a real problem with little dogs. As someone who has owned everything from a german shepherd down to a aussie terrier maybe you should stop trying because all you are doing is showing how biased and ignorant your attitudes are. The little dog is not always to blame. It's a nonsensical argument similar to blaming a rape victim for what she wore. I've seen a larger dog be let off leash at one side of an oval, race across and knock my small dog to the ground grabbing it by the throat, and trying to shake it. If by provocation by dog existing, breathing oxygen and being in the park is "provocation" then I guess he "deserved" to be attacked. The larger dogs stupid owner didn't come over to help, his dog latched onto me and tore my arm open down to the bone-and still didn't come over. I was holding my arm to hold the wound together, my husband had our little dog over his head and the other dog was still attacking. Sometimes it is entirely the fault of the larger aggressive dog. The fact that my little dog is now very fear aggressive is entirely due to his being attacked.

And now you make me see RED, here you go suggesting the small dog was to blame. Read the article again. The black dog was offleash. It was a much bigger dog. This was an unprovoked attack - it sounds like it was so sudden that noone had time to do much, they didn't see it coming! It RIPPED THE INNARDS out of the smaller dog. What does it take to make you and people like you realise that this is abnormal? It is completely unacceptable and this owner should go to jail and pay an enormous fine, his dog should be euthanased. The owner did nothing at all to prevent this attack and I'd like to know how many other dogs and animals have been killed already by this large dog - you can put money on it that it's done it before. wow, so many posters suggesting i'm excusing an unprovoked attack. Read what i actually said and try again. I did not place blame on either dog, I simply stated I'd really like to know the full story, not just what the media has told us. Did this occur in an offleash dog area? Did the larger dog approach the smaller dog and the larger dog ended up reacting to the smaller dog acting aggressively? Was the small dog really on leash? Lots of questions which we probably will never know the answer to. What does it take to make people like me reaslie that this is abnormal? What does it take to make morons who own little yappy fluffballs to realise that it's not ok for their dog to aggressively approach other dogs? I didn't intend for my comment to suggest that a dog getting barked at was reason enough for the other dog to react in such a manner, however anyone who lives in the real world will see stupid owners of all sized dogs allow their uncontrolled dogs to act dominant or aggressively toward other dogs, the majority of those are little fluffy yap yaps. It doesn't take much for a large dog to rip a small dog apart! BTW, I'm absolutely sick of stupid owners(mostly owning little fluffball yap yaps) who allow their dogs to charge and carry on toward my dog. It may well be the case that this little dog was completely innocent and the larger dog(well it's owner at least) was completely at fault but I'd like to know the full story, not just what we're told by the media! there is nothing the small dog could have done that possibly could explain or justify the actions of the larger aggressive dog. Only appropriate way of managing that aggressive dog is the green dream. One dog walked away, the other was disembowelled-the one most at fault was the irresponsible owner who allowed his dog to do that without a word.

it is always hard when we lose a pet no matter the path of their departure. When our older male border collie was really not well we made the decision to take him to the 24 hour emergency vet near our home. They could not have been more considerate and compassionate, and when we made the difficult decision to put him down that evening all the staff there were so lovely. We recently had to take our little boy to a vet after hours and we immediately thought to go back to that emergency vet because we knew they would do everything they could to help. Our little one hates vets and is normally very unsettled when taken to one but he came out being smooched by the staff there after he had been treated and they came out repeatedly to tell us what was wrong, how he was being treated, and that he would be okay. OP I'm sorry you are still bitter about the care your pet was given, but it's time to move on. If you are unhappy with the level of care then go elsewhere next time and make different choices, but in all reality watching your dog slowly die at home without treatment would probably have been much worse than giving him his wings at a vet.

Well just resurrecting this old thread. The neighbours went to council. I came home today to a note from council to call them regarding complaints about our dogs barking. Since my last update we got a tiny rescue dog as a companion for our other small dog. We have installed a babygate at the end of the hall so the dogs cannot go to the side of the house where the complaining neighbours live and they have no line of sight to the property at all. Dh has been coming home in the middle of the day for 4 hours 2 days a week, and I have been coming home early (by about 4.15pm). The neighbour on the other side has confirmed that they don't make noise, and we asked her homebody son but he said he hasn't heard them either. The dogs honestly never bark when we are at home. In the 15 minutes it takes me to walk home from the station i can hear many dogs barking in my street, but complete silence when i approach our home as the dogs are asleep. I really am at my wits end trying to work out how else to manage the dogs since they have really limited access to anything when we are out, we have them crated at night and the neighbours have admitted to the barking being only a couple of minutes at a time. We have lived here for just over a year, and really can't afford to sell up and move, but i can't stand living next door to such horrible people. When they heard that Seven had died from a neighbour they said "well at least she won't be barking anymore".

thanks for your advice everyone. The neighbours did definitely trespass as the only way to film the dog barking in the house would be to walk all the way onto our front deck which is elevated and some 25 metres from the street. You can't see in our house from the street or any other vantage point as our yard is fully fenced with hedging over the top making it very private. I have tried the treats but my little dog is not food motivated at the moment and it is a struggle to get him to eat anything at all. I tried giving him his squeaky ball this morning but he wasn't playful. I will go and talk to them this afternoon, and hopefully they will be reasonable as our dog really doesn't bark much at all. We asked our neighbour on the other side and she said she has never really heard them bark. The neighbour in his letter has told us to equip a citronella collar on our dog-i don't really think that is reasonable for a dog barking for less than 5 minutes once a day. I do everything i can to avoid my dogs being nuisances-i have lived next door to a dog who barked 24/7 and so i understand how annoying that can be. Our dog is 7 and he has never had anyone complain about his barking before these neighbours. I think that tomorrow i may send dh off to work and wait at the bottom of our property to listen for him barking so i can get an idea of when he is doing it and for how long. He won't be able to see me if i am on the street. It will also give me an idea of if the neighbours are responding/filming him again so i can address that.

My dh got home from work at lunch to find a letter from our neighbours. It is complaining that our little dog barks for 3-4 minutes in the morning when we leave for work. They are complaining that he has been doing it over the last week. They went onto our property this morning and filmed him barking, which i am sure encouraged him to bark more as they would have had to be very close to do that as our house is elevated at the front. Our border collie died last Tuesday so for the last week he has been alone for a few hours in the morning. I understand that he is suffering separation anxiety, and we are taking steps to look at adopting a rescue dog shortly (we were planning on doing this anyway and had been looking last year but are looking at dogs this weekend). He only barks for a couple of minutes though, never barks at night, is always in at night, and isn't a nuisance barker. Our neighbour on the other side has said she never even hears him, and that there is no problem. We suspect that the complaining neighbours just don't like dogs. In the past year since moving in there we have made sure the dogs were in at night, and have installed screening on their side of the fence so our border collie couldn't "look through" the small gaps in the fence at the children because they complained that she looked at them. We have also had to stop allowing our dogs on the front deck because their children bark at our dogs to goad them to bark back. Our dogs can't see the street from our house so don't bark at anything happening down there as they can't see or hear it. What more can we do? I am at my wits end right now, i am so upset at having to leave Ranger on his own to go to work and have been leaving early, dh is coming home at lunch as often as possible, we are walkign him and playing with him. He is on his own for a few hours in the morning and a couple in the afternoon. We know he is missing our other dog as much as we are, but we can't bring her back. Does anyone have any suggestions on anything else we can do that is reasonable?

It was just over a year ago that we lost Merlin, and now we have lost our other border collie Seven. She had been going downhill for a while, but passed away today despite our best efforts to keep her going. Seven was Merlin's daughter and the loveliest sweetest dog that just wanted pats. There were never enough pats for her. I will miss my Little Flowerdog. This was a photo of her on the happiest day of her life, when we got married but she thought the party was all for her in her special outfit with her red rose corsage. I will remember her like that.

thank you very much for the recommendations ;) It's always hard knowing which vet to go to when you move to a new area.