Dogs killing people

[Mercworx]

Ive given that some thought. This is of course all speculation. I do hope we find out.
Those kids are both really young. Its pretty easy for a kid in playing around to stress a dog out, maybe the dog took it as something other than play.
My other thought is perhaps one of the dogs was stressed and the other dog picked up on it and it affected both dogs. Maybe the dogs were driving each other to higher levels. Its pretty easy to overlook signals a dog is giving off if youve never been trained to recognize them. Or if you are so busy with two kids and everything else a Mom does to even notice something is amiss.
Maybe the little one was in some sort of swing and the constant motion and noise prey drive then pack mentality kicked in.
The thing is no matter what I imagine its really hard to reconcile that with 8 years as a family pet and then they just suddenly, in unison, attack and kill their own family.
Thats the total opposite of protect and fight for.
Im at a loss, the only thing Im coming up with is…pit bull. Or to be fair maybe its just because of the work the dog was bred to do. Maybe its as simple as there are certain breeds that need to be doing what they are bred for and not integrated into a family.

Agreed. Very well said. Could have been a fight between the dogs that spilled over onto the family

From my personal experience pitbulls are socially/handler sensitive. This was to keep them complaint on hunts and during matches. Depending on how you train them this could be bad or good. They also have low thresholds for social arousal and quickly get spun up. Due to drive and gameness it is harder to bring them back down to a calm state. Pain and rapid prey like movements can trigger responses from the dogs. The running around and fidgeting of children is a big one.

I think one of the biggest issues of dog ownership is people lying to themselves about what kind of dog they own. These breeds have jobs some are more congruent to being pets than others. Hell the AKC even has a “companion” breed category for dogs that have no real job other than to be family pets.

It’s like people who claim “it’s not the breed it’s how you raise them” no sorry you aren’t going to change the genetic makeup of the dog. I have a buddy who just purchased a Jagdterrier. For those who don’t know these are awesome little game terriers with a sky high prey drive. They want to hunt not sit at the house. He told me he got it because it was small but spirited. I told him they already make a small dog for families and it’s called a Yorkie. Give the dog to a hunter before it rips a groundhog to pieces in-front of the kids.

Having grown up around true game bred APBTs that were used for hog hunting I know that many lines are extremely inbred. Outcrossing to other APBT lines was rarely done. Outcrossing is CRUCIAL to developing mentally and emotionally stable dogs. You go to other working line breeds and see lots of outcrossing. You can breed to type and still have strong genetic variation. The APBT community does not “get” this fact because dog legacy is tied to fighting performance.

The men I grew up around kept their dogs in large kennels and dog runs and only took them out to hunt. They used to refer to them as livestock. My uncles house dog was a German Shepherd. He kept his pitbulls outside because according to him they were “working dogs not pets”. He often let one have run of the backyard to ward of Javelinas but that was about it.

[UNK]

Stop getting dogs purpose bred for catching hogs and dog fighting as family pets.

Thats not exactly what they were bred for. They were bred for blood sport. That is where you put a bull on a 30 foot chain and the dogs attack the bull until its incapacitated. Of course the bull was fighting back too. Once that was outlawed then they mixed the bull dog with smaller faster terriers and used them in rat killing contest or against other dogs. This was all done in a pit thus pit bull.

[Mercworx]

Thats not what they were bred for. They were bred for blood sport. That is where you put a bull on a 30 foot chain and the dogs attack the bull until its incapacitated. Once that was outlawed then they mixed the bull dog with smaller faster terriers and used them in rat killing contest or against other dogs. This was all done in a pit thus pit bull.

Yes back in the UK they were originally used as a catch dog for local livestock. This is the original bulldog. For sport and to demonstrate who had the “best” bulldog they used them in bull baiting. Those that remained and were bred for smaller type and may have had terrier included in them became the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Many made it over to the states as early as the civil war who had little to no terrier in them. It’s possible this original group included the “Old Southern White Bulldog” though it’s unclear.

They have always been a catch dog, though since around the 1850s have been focused primarily on dog fighting. The people I saw as a kid always referred to them as “bulldogs”. Their history and possible origins is actually quite interesting and may even date as far back as the Alaunt Gentile.

[UNK]

Agreed. Very well said. Could have been a fight between the dogs that spilled over onto the family

From my personal experience pitbulls are socially/handler sensitive. This was to keep them complaint on hunts and during matches. Depending on how you train them this could be bad or good. They also have low thresholds for social arousal and quickly get spun up. Due to drive and gameness it is harder to bring them back down to a calm state. Pain and rapid prey like movements can trigger responses from the dogs. The running around and fidgeting of children is a big one.

I think one of the biggest issues of dog ownership is people lying to themselves about what kind of dog they own. These breeds have jobs some are more congruent to being pets than others. Hell the AKC even has a “companion” breed category for dogs that have no real job other than to be family pets.

It’s like people who claim “it’s not the breed it’s how you raise them” no sorry you aren’t going to change the genetic makeup of the dog. I have a buddy who just purchased a Jagdterrier. For those who don’t know these are awesome little game terriers with a sky high prey drive. They want to hunt not sit at the house. He told me he got it because it was small but spirited. I told him they already make a small dog for families and it’s called a Yorkie. Give the dog to a hunter before it rips a groundhog to pieces in-front of the kids.

Having grown up around true game bred APBTs that were used for hog hunting I know that many lines are extremely inbred. Outcrossing to other APBT lines was rarely done. Outcrossing is CRUCIAL to developing mentally and emotionally stable dogs. You go to other working line breeds and see lots of outcrossing. You can breed to type and still have strong genetic variation. The APBT community does not “get” this fact because dog legacy is tied to fighting performance.

The men I grew up around kept their dogs in large kennels and dog runs and only took them out to hunt. They used to refer to them as livestock. My uncles house dog was a German Shepherd. He kept his pitbulls outside because according to him they were “working dogs not pets”. He often let one have run of the backyard to ward of Javelinas but that was about it.

Breeding is crucial is what I have boiled all of this down to. Dogs can be bred for whatever traits the breeder deems most important. Id like to know out of all the bull type dog attacks on humans how many are coming from knowledgable responsible breeders vs rescue dogs. Id venture that most pit types are of the rescue variety. That could explain why some people absolutely love them and they are babies vs the bad results. The problem is when you rescue a dog of this type, and Im talking all the bull varieties, you never know what you are getting. In todays world people arent liable to cull a dog just because it shows an undesirable characteristic, especially aggression towards humans, as they would have in the past.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Wife and I went for an evening walk and came across a guy walking what look like a large pit bull. He had chains to its substantial collar and he had heavy gloves on both hands to hold the chains.

Crossed the street and glad for Glock 19 (yeah, right, virtue signaling). If you have a dog like that, that needs chains - you are a bad person.

[JRB]

So I guess I'm a bad person because my old beloved long-passed Plott hounds my family had when I was a teenager wouldn't respond to anything but a choke chain for heel training on walks. I guess I'll add that to the list of breeds to be exterminated, and duly note that regardless of anything else I've done in my life, I'm a bad person. A Doctor said so!

I guess that adds up, though, because a rescue Pitbull I owned after those hounds was an anchor of love and affection that probably saved my life years ago during a bout of incredibly deep depression while I was working through a bunch of bad stuff. Since Pitbulls are all *OBVIOUSLY* evil, *OBVIOUSLY* it only would have saved my life if I'm a bad person.

But keep those guns holstered, guys - that sweetheart of a Pitbull is already dead. Cancer did ya'll a solid there.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I don't think a dog that needs chains and heavy gloves to control is a nice dog to walk about a neighborhood. Sorry.

[blues]

So I guess I'm a bad person because my old beloved long-passed Plott hounds my family had when I was a teenager wouldn't respond to anything but a choke chain for heel training on walks. I guess I'll add that to the list of breeds to be exterminated, and duly note that regardless of anything else I've done in my life, I'm a bad person. A Doctor said so!

I guess that adds up, though, because a rescue Pitbull I owned after those hounds was an anchor of love and affection that probably saved my life years ago during a bout of incredibly deep depression while I was working through a bunch of bad stuff. Since Pitbulls are all *OBVIOUSLY* evil, *OBVIOUSLY* it only would have saved my life if I'm a bad person.

But keep those guns holstered, guys - that sweetheart of a Pitbull is already dead. Cancer did ya'll a solid there.

@JRB

Here you go...you bad, bad man. This should cheer you up.

(We took her home with us several years ago, but unfortunately she didn't take well to the crate and being left alone. She was a fun loving dog, we really liked her. Mischief was her middle name.)

[JRB]

@JRB

Here you go...you bad, bad man. This should cheer you up.

(We took her home with us several years ago, but unfortunately she didn't take well to the crate and being left alone. She was a fun loving dog, we really liked her. Mischief was her middle name.)

Put a streak of white on her snout and a splotch of white just under her neck on the front of her torso, and that pic might as well have been my dog Cindy!

They must have been related, mischief was absolutely Cindy's middle name as well.
She'd find her way to good human food no matter what it took - she figured out how to open the pocket door to the kitchen of the house we lived in and used that to great effect one afternoon, eating two whole batches of chocolate chip cookies that were cooling on top of the stove. My Mom and Dad yelled at her and she tucked her tail between her legs but the look on her face was absolutely a smug "Do what you must, but I've already won" kind of look. We got her as a pup in about '87 or '88 when I was just starting elementary school, she made it until the early 2000's.

[Clusterfrack]

Girl#2 is ok, after getting attacked by a stray dog (likely associated with homeless). Can't provide too many details for PERSEC reasons. But here are some take-homes:

• High heels are bad for staying on your feet.
• Oversized clothing is good for keeping a dog's teeth out of your flesh.