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Another person killed by their own dog


Redsonic
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Yes what happened that the dog did this instead of a growl or a quick bite and go find their own space. It’s not normal for dogs to do this and is extremely rare yet there seems to be more and more attacks lately. What is going on? 

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Is there an increase, or is it media reporting? There are over 6 million dogs in this country, so even a very very rare event can look frequent if every dog bite is heavily reported on. If 1 or 2 people die of dog bites every year in this country, one extra can look like an outbreak. Compare this to over 1000 deaths per year from car accidents.

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I don't think it is media reporting - death by dog has been news for as long as I can recall. 

It's not really 'bites' that I am interested in either, it's this sustained mauling of adult owners that leads to death or multiple serious injuries. 

I can get my head around single bites, however serious, and prolonged attacks on strangers. I can even see why serious injuries leading to death happen to children.

But dogs that maul their primary caregivers really make me wonder what is going on. What is it about with their temperaments, life experiences or relationship with their owners that make this possible? 

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A bit more information (speculation) than the ABC was prepared to publish. The dog appeared to be "of Rottweiler Type", was not registered, and there were 2 other dogs on the property that were not involved in the attack (and weren't registered either).

 

7 News

 

 

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16 hours ago, Diva said:

I don't think it is media reporting - death by dog has been news for as long as I can recall. 

It's not really 'bites' that I am interested in either, it's this sustained mauling of adult owners that leads to death or multiple serious injuries. 

I can get my head around single bites, however serious, and prolonged attacks on strangers. I can even see why serious injuries leading to death happen to children.

But dogs that maul their primary caregivers really make me wonder what is going on. What is it about with their temperaments, life experiences or relationship with their owners that make this possible? 


This popped up in my FaceBook feed a few days ago.

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1122075   “Forensics & Understanding Severe Dog Aggression: Jim Crosby”

 

I can’t attend, but I was interested enough to google the presenter, Jim Crosby, and found a few long podcast-style interviews with him. They were well worth listening to.

 

He didn’t answer your question directly but did talk about developing a comprehensive dog attack assessment scale to evaluate, among other things, suitability for rehabilitation. This will be built around the Dunbar scale plus other factors including “persistence “ and “perseverance “… how hard the dog had to work to get to the victim and how long the dog persisted with the attack. He also said (paraphrasing) that aggression is a natural survival response in most species but the appropriateness of the scale  of the aggression needs to be considered.

Also of interest…

The most frequent group of fatal attacks in the US are on women in their 30s in their own homes by dogs they own or are caring for. The next most frequent are on toddler boys.

He said “big dogs cause big holes and little dogs cause little holes” but went on to say that dogs as small as papillons have killed people in the US.

He was scathing about breed specific legislation, about the systems used by many shelters to assess suitability for rehoming (especially those using artificial hands in food dishes or child dolls) and about “trainers” who display their bite scars as badges of honour.

Edited by DogsAndTheMob
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I’ve read it was a Rottweiler and there were two other Rottweilers they own who weren’t involved, that the one who attacked had been having aggression issues for a while. I wonder if it was a possessive behaviour and the dog went far too far. Also, I read he had injuries only to his legs so that tells me the dog must have bitten an artery pretty bad. 

 

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Thanks DogsAndTheMob, I’ll have a look for the interviews. It’s the appropriateness of the response stuff that interests me, why they target who they do and why they escalate.  I’ve owned very large dogs all my life, but their social conflict resolution has always been more like a ballet than a fight. Actual harm done within a household is just beyond my experience and understanding. 

Edited by Diva
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I wonder how many of these dogs have been exposed to drugs during their development- in womb and as neonates. Pregnant bitches and puppies absorbing the likes of P or whatever toxic drugs are within their environment from surfaces and from the air. 
It’s noted in schools that children effected by P during gestation and no doubt continued expo After birth are more difficult and aggressive than children effected by alcohol. 
it would be good if dogs involved in these terrible incidents undergo testing to look at levels of toxins in their systems and possible brain abnormalities. 
 

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22 hours ago, Sue said:

I wonder how many of these dogs have been exposed to drugs during their development- in womb and as neonates. Pregnant bitches and puppies absorbing the likes of P or whatever toxic drugs are within their environment from surfaces and from the air. 
It’s noted in schools that children effected by P during gestation and no doubt continued expo After birth are more difficult and aggressive than children effected by alcohol. 
it would be good if dogs involved in these terrible incidents undergo testing to look at levels of toxins in their systems and possible brain abnormalities. 
 

What is P

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20 minutes ago, Diva said:

I’ve been waiting for this information to be made public since the day after it happened.  I was given the information and promised to keep it to myself.
 

I have had to sit on my hands and bite my tongue.  Some of the comments and speculation in various places has been nothing short of disgusting.

 

What has happened is tragic and pouring criticism and venomous comments inferring that the dog was mistreated or “misunderstood” is absolutely ridiculous and completely and utterly untrue!  
 

The victims were well known and very popular members of the Australian dog scene. Many people will be greatly impacted by this incident and I wish Maree the very, very best for her recovery.

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I have a friend who lives locally and told me some of it the day after it happened. It’s partly why I am so confounded by the incident. No obvious answers. 

Edited by Diva
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Any inquiry into the circumstances of this attack should include a necropsy of the dog (Ruben), to rule in or out any possibility that an underlying health issue may have contributed. Well bred dogs don't simply just "snap" and turn on their owners for no reason... especially to this level of aggression when none has ever been shown in the past.

 

The one and only incident of a dog (Rottweiler) "snapping" and randomly attacking that I'm personally aware of and knew the dog in question very well, a necropsy showed that it had had a brain tumour and bleed at the time the attack happened. Luckily in that incident, there were 4 large men (owners sons) in the vicinity who managed to contain the dog and stop it from doing any real harm to anyone. After it was put down, they had a necropsy done to find out what could have caused the dog to suddenly have such a massive temperament change, and the tumour/bleed was found.

 

T.

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In this case I wouldn’t go too far down the path of assuming the dog had no prior history of aggression.  Still a lot to be learnt. There is a public document that says the dog was so reactive that the female owner needed a prong collar to walk it in public. I don’t know what that means for human aggression - most dog reactive dogs, as far as I know, are only that way to other dogs, but there is a trainer somewhere who may have insight. 
Absolutely agree that necropsies need to be part of the investigation tho’. 
 

Edited by Diva
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It would be important if they can do that to find out if that is the reason or rule it out so that there isn’t some hysteria around this particular dog breed. But how do you prevent a dog from just snapping due to a brain tumour? Are there subtle signs beforehand? How does a person protect themselves from the very unlikely event of that happening? 

 

I don’t understand the injuries in this case. How did that cause a fatality? This dog was a show dog? Did he sire anyone? Are there any other aggressive cases in his lines? 

 

I remember years ago reading about a dog breed (not Rottweiler) where they had a male dog in their breeding lines who they decided not to breed from and put him to sleep as he was showing aggression which is very off for the breed it was. I remember thinking how awful that would be but how strong they were to not breed from him and to keep everyone safe. 

 

I don’t think we know yet if there was any prior aggression in this case or whether any of the lines are overly aggressive etc. It sounds more like some particular obscure circumstance. 

 

Hopefully more comes to light so that we can know what happened and how to prevent it in future. What a terrible situation. 

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