Idiot owners? Poor training? Breeding?

Over the years I've been the guardian to five German Shepherd dogs and have never had a problem with any of them attacking...even when children were around. That's not to say it couldn't happen, but it would seem out of character as the dogs have all been well trained and socialized.

http://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2014.php

Quote from: MAC Man on June 17, 2014, 01:13:30 PM
Idiot owners? Poor training? Breeding?

Over the years I've been the guardian to five German Shepherd dogs and have never had a problem with any of them attacking...even when children were around. That's not to say it couldn't happen, but it would seem out of character as the dogs have all been well trained and socialized.

http://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2014.php

Most pit bulls and German shepherds are nice, gentle, loyal pets. Everybody should know that.

But breeding certainly has a role. Pit bulls, for example, were specifically and purposely bred to fight other animals -- dogs, cocks, bulls, whatever. "Pit" refers to a fighting arena. They are naturally (through breeding) strong and aggressive. German shepherds are also large, physically strong, and fierce when called upon. They were bred specifically to guard flocks of sheep and cattle against predation, mainly by wolves.

I've read all the "mailman surveys" that usually say beagles and poodles are the ones that bite the most. That's just fluff. I've been bitten by both a poodle (Oh, ouch.) and a beagle (SHIT, that hurt!), but neither one had the potential to defeat me or even disable me, much less kill me. Shepherds and pit bulls were bred to kill, and even now can be easily and effectively trained to do so.

My wife volunteers at a Humane Society, and she's never had any trouble with any pit bull. She's found that they are playful and eager to please their owner, even the ones taken from the rings in Shitgaco.

But few of the people there trust ANY German Shepard. Our neighbor's shepard brook loose from him and attacked our Chihuahua/Dachshund mix (a "crewenee) and almost killed him. It cost our neighbors over $2000 to fix our dog.

Quote from: CG6468 on June 18, 2014, 09:13:22 AM
My wife volunteers at a Humane Society, and she's never had any trouble with any pit bull. She's found that they are playful and eager to please their owner, even the ones taken from the rings in Shitgaco.

But few of the people there trust ANY German Shepard. Our neighbor's shepard brook loose from him and attacked our Chihuahua/Dachshund mix (a "crewenee) and almost killed him. It cost our neighbors over $2000 to fix our dog.

Sometimes circumstances can change a dog's behavior.

35 years ago, I lived in a small town in southern Ohio. My neighbor across the road, a widow with an 11-year-old son, purchased a breeding pair of jet-black Chows. She refused to pen them or otherwise restrain them from running the neighborhood. Once a litter of Chow pups was born, both adults -- especially the male -- became extremely aggressive. More than once, they chased my own dog (a harmless and utterly clueless Cocker Spaniel) and my wife and children out of my own yard into the house. My wife took to carrying Carrie (the cocker) out the back door and loading her in the car, taking her to a local park for her daily poop. The lovely elderly gentleman on the next block who used to walk his Yorkie on a leash down the sidewalk on our side of the street every evening encountered an aggressive male Chow who damn near tore his little dog to pieces. The poor guy took up a large stick and beat the big dog until it left, but his dog was severely mauled. He's probably lucky he wasn't himself attacked.

I called the sheriff's department more than once, and I know for a fact that all her other neighbors called too. The county animal control agency sent some kid out in a little car to talk to the woman. She told the same story every time -- "I keep them penned up 23 1/2 hours a day, and I just let them out for a half hour to pee." She was lying. In fact, the dogs were almost always visible in the front or side yards of her house, completely free.

The woman had the opportunity to restrict what the Chows saw as their "territory," but she failed to use that opportunity, instead allowing the dogs to expand their territory as they saw fit. They attacked the old gentleman and his dog, and my kids and my dog, because they saw even the other side of the road as being "theirs" in order to protect their brood. And of course, they wandered the neighborhood at night raiding garbage cans in search of food -- the woman who owned them would forget to feed them.

I told one sheriff's deputy as well as the woman who owned the dogs herself, after numerous invasions of my property, that I would shoot the dogs if I caught them in my yard again. She promised to me and the deputy that she would keep them confined. Within a week, the female chow was dead because I put a hollow-point slug through her lungs after the dog chased me into my own workshop, which was clear back on the alley behind the house. A week after that, I went out in the middle of the night to investigate loud noises in the back yard and found the male spreading my garbage all over my back yard. He turned toward me and growled once and I could see his teeth in the streetlight. A .41 Magnum slug destroyed his left front shoulder, broke some ribs, and tore a huge swath of flesh off his flank. He was seen stumping around in the woman's yard a week later -- STILL loose -- on a splinted leg, and another leg had been removed. "Tripod" disappeared soon after.

I'm not proud of what I did to those dogs, but I didn't do it for pride. I did it in defense of myself both times. I will always and forever blame that stupid woman for what happened to those dogs. The circumstances that allowed and promoted their behavior were completely under her control, but she just opted out, and let them do their natural thing.

I did my natural thing too.