[gambler-girl]

Do you think charges of 'negligent homicide' is warrented in this case? A tragidy for sure.... I am unable to add links at this time but there are other sites reporting this story if you search. I don't know if they were trained attack dogs or not, or if this is a translation issue. Certanly any dog owners nightmare.

GG

Attack dogs kill German toddler


May 22, 2010

ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERLIN (AP) — Police in eastern Germany say four attack dogs have bitten a 3-year-old to death and badly injured the girl’s great-grandmother, who tried to rescue her.

Police spokeswoman Jeanette Schwahn-Witzenhausen said on Saturday that prosecutors opened an investigation for negligent homicide against the dogs’ owner, the girl’s aunt.
The great-grandmother, 70, and the girl were visiting the aunt in her house in Oldisleben-Sachsenburg in Thuringia state on Friday evening when the dogs, Staffordshire bull terriers, attacked the girl.

Police said only the aunt, who rushed to the scene moments later, was able to stop the dogs. They were later killed by the authorities.

All rescue attempts failed and the girl died on the scene.

[Lara's mom]

I believe that dog parents are 100% liable for what their dogs do. A child died here. If you have a dog with the propensity to be vicious, you MUST take responsibility for the behaviour of your dog. Even if you have the most mellow dog that the Goddess ever created, you are STILL responsible for the behaviour and bad acts of that dog.

I can't even begin to imagine what those parents are going through...

I'm not surprised at the breed responsible for that childs death. I've heard it too many times before.

[Todd]

Originally Posted by Lara's mom

I believe that dog parents are 100% liable for what their dogs do. A child died here. If you have a dog with the propensity to be vicious, you MUST take responsibility for the behaviour of your dog. Even if you have the most mellow dog that the Goddess ever created, you are STILL responsible for the behaviour and bad acts of that dog.

I can't even begin to imagine what those parents are going through...

I'm not surprised at the breed responsible for that childs death. I've heard it too many times before.

Again, the breed itself is not genetically breed to be vicious, in my opinion. many people that choose these breeds though neglect them and may prompt them to be vicious. They are breed to be more capable of damage becaue of certain features. Many bad dog owners take advantage of this characteristic and are responceable for the vicious behavior. So in this case, I believe it's the owners fault from the info provided.

[gambler-girl]

Originally Posted by Todd

So in this case, I believe it's the owners fault from the info provided.

That would be hard to agrue, they are her animals. But how responsible is she? Should she go to jail? Be sued for all of her money? Be banned from owning dogs? She did not encourage the dogs to attack. The charge is criminal negligence. Is this the same as leaving a loaded gun around and some kid using it inappropreately? But in this case the gun is a live animal or animals, with minds of their own. I don't know?

As for the breed, PB's from the ones I have meet are very sweet. To my memory alot of these incidents are with more then one dog so when they pack up they turn into something else.

The big question, how do we stop this from happening again?

GG

[DoggieVogue]

Wow, that is a horrible story. I feel it's really tough to place blame in cases like these because I see both Todd's perspective, as well as gamblergirls. If she knew her dog had tendencies to be aggressive and vicious proper precautions should have been taken to prevent this. However, they do have minds of their own and what if they just snaped out of nowhere? It's really hard to judge the case here with so little information.

[Todd]

Originally Posted by gambler-girl

That would be hard to agrue, they are her animals. But how responsible is she? Should she go to jail? Be sued for all of her money? Be banned from owning dogs? She did not encourage the dogs to attack. The charge is criminal negligence. Is this the same as leaving a loaded gun around and some kid using it inappropreately? But in this case the gun is a live animal or animals, with minds of their own. I don't know?

As for the breed, PB's from the ones I have meet are very sweet. To my memory alot of these incidents are with more then one dog so when they pack up they turn into something else.

The big question, how do we stop this from happening again?

GG

Again, I'd probably have to have more info like how the owners treats the dogs, their history, etc in order to make a decision. I'm assuming this case will be taken up in court so both sides will have their chance to provide detail in order for the judge to make a ruling.

[gambler-girl]

Originally Posted by Todd

Again, I'd probably have to have more info like how the owners treats the dogs, their history, etc in order to make a decision. I'm assuming this case will be taken up in court so both sides will have their chance to provide detail in order for the judge to make a ruling.

True that the story is very vauge....

GG

[cherylmartin]

This is a sad and horrible story. But it can occur with almost any breed. I believe it depends on how they are raised and not just the breed. We just hear those stories about pit bulls since Michael Vick.
ALL dogs must be watched when they are around children.
I read where a weimaraner mauled a small child as she walked by in her own home.
My Jasmine bit (twice) our then 4 yo grandson for he had her cornered and she felt threatened.
Without details, we cannot always condemn the breed.

[Lunareclipse]

I had a chi named Boomer. He absolutly hated little kids. If a little got near him, he would try to bite. I knew this, so I always stuck him in his little cat carrier when any kids came to the house. Any dog is capable of biting. Not just pibbles. I do wish they would report other stories too besides just the pittbull ones. We never hear stories about people getting attacked by chis or anything like that because they for the most part, they are too small to kill anyone.

[Todd]

Exactly. I agree with both of you guys.

[lil mutt]

That's too horrible. I'm so sorry for what the victims suffered.

The report didn't say if the aunt have intentions to hurt somebody with her dogs, nor told that the dogs were involved before in such related incidents. Of course the owner is 100% liable to the case..

[Black Mamba]

I used to have a Dogo ( Dogue Argentin in French) and he hated children, otherwise he was ok, we made sure my nephews or any kid stay away from him until he was 3 and started behaving normally near them.

[goticketsnow]

My hobby is to read horrible stories .. i love this post

[chiclet]

Originally Posted by gambler-girl

As for the breed, PB's from the ones I have meet are very sweet. To my memory alot of these incidents are with more then one dog so when they pack up they turn into something else.

The big question, how do we stop this from happening again?

GG

Is that a clue in there? Should some breeds only be kept as a single dog?

[harley_quinn]

That is a terrible thing to have happened . More details need to be known about the incident before I can make a real opinion about the whole thing. I heard that bullies don't show too many warning signs when they are about to attack, so the child may not have known what they were getting into. I can speak from a recent (about a month ago) experience that this has some truth to it. Someone my boyfriend and I know owns pit bulls. He was sitting in the front yard with a dog on a chain lead, just lounging about. My boyfriend had usually approached the dog without any problems in the past, but this time for some reason, the dog growled,bounded towards him and snapped at his feet with what seemed like no warning. I would have understood if he was coming from a car or from some distance into the yard, but he walked past the dog and turned to speak to the owner of the dog. The dog then ran with urgency and was snapped back by the chain. I was surprised, because I hadn't known the dog to be aggressive. Also, their capacity for destruction should never be underestimated. My mom went to a friend's home recently and was rough housed by a young bully. She said that it was "just playing" but it left her with some nasty bruises.

[Josh Smith]

Hello,

Dogs are legally viewed as property, and thus the owner is responsible for murder.

Same as if I were negligent with one of my firearms and someone ended up dead because of it.

The courts view this as the same thing.

I'm sure it's very similar in Germany.

Josh

[lange]

Originally Posted by gambler-girl

As for the breed, PB's from the ones I have meet are very sweet. To my memory alot of these incidents are with more then one dog so when they pack up they turn into something else. GG

Originally Posted by chiclet

Is that a clue in there? Should some breeds only be kept as a single dog?

This is such an interesting observation! I wonder what the ratio of solo dogs verse pack dogs aggressing towards people is.

[harley_quinn]

That is very interesting, some other pit bull attacks I've heard of have involved more than one bully. My opinion regarding the entire breed is that I think it's not fair to the breed itself that some irresponsible people gravitate towards them due to their "tough guy" reputation. A pit bull put into the right environment is an awesome dog, I've met some big babies that even let kittens swarm on them. Then there are others I've seen that are treated poorly or don't have a place within a family but rather as an asset to the owner's reputation or financial gain (thumbs down to irresponsible backyard breeding!!! ). Then when the dog shows signs of aggression, it's all blamed on the dog.