Oh lord, aussie attacks.....

This thread is making me look back on my own dog's behaviour (he's an Aussie mix, half Aussie, half Border Collie), and I'm realizing that's it's rare to see Jake do the grab-and-shake thing. He never bites people, but once in a blue moon, he'll grab-and-shake a pillow or a blanket, in play, and only in that one moment. Before, and after, he'll continue playing with it the "normal" way, which is basically to hump it and play tug-o-war when he manages to entice someone to grab one end of the pillow or blanket. Oh, and of course, he loves to suck holes in the blankets. Take it to a corner and suck to his heart's content. It makes sense, though, that Aussies and Border Collies (and other herding breeds) do the nip and duck thing. It sounds like such an obvious observation, but I've never heard that theory before, and I frequent an Aussie board and a Border Collie board.

but once in a blue moon, he'll grab-and-shake a pillow or a blanket

 
i am now curious if this is a bad thing? my dog (mostly brittany, little beagel and gordon) recently started doing this with his humpy/nursing stuffed animal. should i be concerned, or does it mean anything?

Nah. We're just saying there's a difference in the prey/play style among different breeds.

Collie types tend way to one end of the scale where they withdraw after a bite or slash (but follow up instantly with another bite, and another, and another, if the the intent is to do damage). Other dogs tend to grab and pull, or shake (terriers come to mind). And, that doesn't mean you'll never see a collie dog latch on or a terrier do a drive-by bite. All these dogs were derived at some point from protodogs that exhibited the fulll range of these behaviors in the context of hunting and fighting.

None of these dogs have any more or less potential to turn aggressive, simply because of how the bite behaviors have been specialized in this regard. That part is all in breeding in (selecting for) responsiveness to humans, calm and adaptable temperaments, and strong impulse control.

How sad! What was that woman thinking to let a dog loose around strange kids? My dog LOVES kids, but I'd NEVER do that. At the very least, she'd knock them over trying to play with them. At worst, she'd be protective of my kids if she thought kids she didn't know were "attacking" them.

What struck me about this article was the head line:
"Dog euthanized after mauling 5-year-old Palo Alto boy"

We ALL know darn well that if that dog looked remotely like a bully, the headline would heve been:
"Pit Bull euthanized after mauling 5-year-old Palo Alto boy"

I work at a newspaper, and that is they way things work here. When a coworker was severely mauled by his dog (one arm was amputated, the other dislocated and needed 11 hours of plastic surgury on his face) EVERYBODY assumed that dog "must have had some pit in him." Like anyone has ever seen a shaggy 120 pound pit. That dog looked like a mastiff/St Bernard/Lab type mix to me. I didn't see a drop of bully in him, but all the idiots here at work who couldn't pick a pittie out of a lineup of poodles were all convinced it was a pit, since we all know only a pit would ever do anything like that [:@]

ORIGINAL: gaylemarie

but once in a blue moon, he'll grab-and-shake a pillow or a blanket

i am now curious if this is a bad thing? my dog (mostly brittany, little beagel and gordon) recently started doing this with his humpy/nursing stuffed animal. should i be concerned, or does it mean anything?

As long as he confines himself to stufficide on stuffed animals and not real ones, it's fine. []

the neck seize and shake is a serious attempt to kill a prey animal-- something that has been bred out of most herding breed dogs. I'm suspecting the dog mistook the kid for a prey animal?  maybe he was crawling on all fours, or running erratically?
owners fault 100%- for letting the dog loose, for not training the dog to come when called, for not fully socializing to children.
Most bites to kids are to the face and can be loosely classified as "dog trying to discipline unruly child".

I don't believe ANY of the stories written on dog attacks. Was the journalist sitting down calmly watching the dog shake the child? No, but when the kid got stiches from being slashed twice pretty deep, the parents get andgry and blow things out of porportion. I know everybody does that sometimes, but if you need to write a story on a dog attack, even if it was only a couple stitches, you need to embellis a little.