Oh lord, aussie attacks.....

Wow, weird. What is strange is the grabbing and shaking?

I wonder whether they got the breed wrong - I've seen Australian Cattle Dogs turn on people and really do some damage like this - a friend had her arm flayed almost down to the bone when one jumped at her and she flung her arm up to protect her face. The dog grabbed and just hung on in spite of the efforts of several people to distract it rather violently (beating, kicking, etc). ACDs have gamedogs way back in their heritage and while it helps their persistence on rough stock, it can get them in trouble in a fight.

Aussies and BCs tend to prefer the hit-and-run approach. They have an instinct to duck after a bite - a wise thing in a stockdog! Even in dog fights they tend to slash and roll - similiar to BCs. So that's why I wonder what made this dog hang on, if it wasn't insanely aggressive, and it really was a purebred Aussie?

Well it was defintly a aussie, my mom saw it on the news and they showed the dog at the kennel or wherever they took him. She said he looked sweet as pie, makes you wonder about the owner huh?
 

Wow intresting dtory, and I  would also hope that he wouldn't let the dog off leash if it was vicious. Sad  and I hope the kid get better, but I can't help but feel bad for the dog. =(

I just wish they would punish the owners more, its ridiculous.
The only positive thing that could ever coem from this would be to show that any breed can be mistreated and have mental problems.....not just pit bulls.
I'm sad this happened but unfortunatly I deal with this everyday with my favorite breed. Please dont take offense to this but my jadedness cant help but point out the fact that the replies or concerns (not so much this board but others) are much different then that of a pit bull attack. So many peopel have been quick to assume "oh they had the breed wrong" where in reality at least half of the "pit bull" attacks ARE not pit bulls but the general public is not so quick to assume so. Its really sad. This just goes to show, its not about the dogs.....its the owners and how our goverment punishes these peole for their wrong doing!

Hmm. I've certainly known Aussies with terrible temperaments. BCs, too, of course (I owned one, in fact). I knew a girl with two Aussies that would sooner bite you than look at you (unrelated, she really won the lottery on that one I guess). The owner was in serious la-la land when it came to those dogs. She was constantly making excuses for them. So the potential for aggression is certainly there. The temperaments on BCs are really going downhill too with people breeding for go-go-go with no desire to balance it with impulse control. The next story will be about a severe mauling by a BC, I'm afraid. []

Something is still kind of weird about that story. I really hate modern journalism - all hype and they only give you half the facts.

Sheprano, my statement that I thought the breed might be wrong had nothing to do with pitties. I'll be the first to say that I think even a well-bred BC has much more potential to be a dangerous dog than a well bred pit bull.

It was the way the attack was described that puzzled me. It makes me wonder whether the parent of the child (and I can understand this), said stuff to make it sound way worse than it was, or to cover up what he thought might sound like attenuating circumstances (like the child attempting to defend itself, hitting the dog, etc). That sure does happen. It doesn't excuse the dog's owner, or even the dog. I'd hold that dog's head while they were injecting it and tell it that it was going somewhere where what was wrong in its head would be whole again, but I wouldn't lift a finger to save it from that fate, very sorry.

The way the dog was described as taking hold just doesn't really happen in Aussies, to my knowlege. They can and do cause a lot of damage in their own way (lightening fast bites and slashes multiple times in different places - BCs do this too), but it looks a lot different than taking a kid by the neck and clamping down. I wonder whether the guy's perception of what he was dealing with was colored by tales spread by our wonderful press, mostly about "pit bulls".

ETA - when I say, make the attack sound way worse than it was, I mean the level of perceived "visciousness". An attack by a dog like a collie type breed can be particularly baffling as they don't tend to make a lot of noise, and they move so fast. I suspect he was just trying to sort out something completely alien looking and feeling, to him, and put it in the context of his idea of what a "dog attack" is like.

If it sounds like I've got way more experience with aggressive collie-types than is quite normal, you're right. I specialized in the aggressives in our rescue for three years, until my kids came along and I had to stop for their safety. I handled BCs (of course), Aussies, collies, English shepherds, shelties, one very memorable Kelpie who came within a heartbeat of losing her life, and mixes of all of the above. But I also had a severely fear aggressive dog of my own for five years. Aggressive collie-types are no joke - they are VERY hard to read and have lightning reflexes. They may not have the persistence of cur dogs and bullies, but they are reactive and get notions, ones that can be really hard to unravel before they have triggered an attack.

Oh no, I wasnt insinuating you were implying "it couldnt be a aussie", thats why I put in parenthesis, (not this forum). I've been around long enough to know your comapssion for all breeds, soory if it came off that way.
I'm alternating with this issue on this forum and two others [sm=santa.gif]

it did say aussie mix, the other breed/s in it may be more prone to agression. however i did note that the articale said the boy was 5 years old and on the playground with some other children, presumably of the same age and i am guessing unsupervised. i would not be shocked if the boy/s had been doing something to the dog that may have set it off. it is too bad that happened, now a dog is dead and a boy is going to have an ugly scar and probably major fear of dogs. i think both the owner and parent are at fault, the dad should have been watching his child, or at least made sure another responsible adult was present, and the owner of the dog should not have unleashed his dog on a school playground.

While we're comparing notes here, is it true or false that pit bulls don't tend to give warning before an outright attack? I am woefully ignorant on the subject. The problem with the herding breeds is that they do give warning but it happens so fast it's easy to miss. Sometimes even other dogs - less reactive breeds - miss it. [8|]

I missed the "mix"! OK, that was the missing piece. Not really a "more aggressive breed" but a somewhat different style of attack. *shudders* Poor kid. I wish the irresponsible owner could get locked up for a million years. You know in Leviticus (the Bible) there's very severe punishment for someone who lets their ox loose and it gores someone? They knew better back then, even.

i would not be shocked if the boy/s had been doing something to the dog that may have set it off.
 
In some breeds or individuals with a herding bent....running and yelling completely apart from the dog would have been enough to warrant at the least...a chasing. The dog shouldn't have been offlead at a layground in any case.

ORIGINAL: brookcove

While we're comparing notes here, is it true or false that pit bulls don't tend to give warning before an outright attack?

Techincally no, they dont. Its because they dont fight out of emotion or territory issues. They fight out of loyalty to the command its owner is giving them. As far as "outright attacks" I guess I'm not sure what that means, they dont attack for no reason regardless of wehter it makes sense to us humans.....just like how this attack occcured, we may never know but something triggered this dog to go off. again, my assumption is that the dog pressumed the behavior this child was displaying to be a threat and we cant assume the kid was harrasing the dog either

By outright attack I mean deliberately breaking the "space" of a dog or person, usually with intent to bite. Sorry, sometimes I have my own vocabulary and forget to explain. Outright attack as opposed to a warning snap, a "BACK OFF" step or bounce forward, or even a warning lunge, during all of which a dog is still prepared to back down if you use calming signals or distract them. You can see when the dog is committed as there is no tension in the cheeks or shoulders, the eyes are bright not narrow and shifting, ears are pricked forward or to the side (fight mode), not slicked back. In this case I don't mess around, I get the heck out of the way and act to immobilize such a dog quickly until the adrenaline rush is over.

When I'm dealing with an aggressive BC, sometimes if I get slack and don't watch, the first sign of attack is that shift from a calculating to a bright eyed look and it usually happens FAST. I've only been bitten once, thank goodness, so far anyway. And thank God I've only had to put down two dogs because of severe aggression. Both were mixes.

One was a collie mix and one was a cocker mix - he was the worst one I ever had, and the reason I stopped taking aggression cases until very recently. I let him out of the crate one day with my infant son on my hip and he came out of the crate with a weird look in his eye, then rose up slashing and snapping and (weird) screaming. I threw a chair at him, then used that moment to drop PJ in his crib - the dog came at me again but this time Ben and a couple other of our dogs (and fosters) had come through the open door and bowled him over. Ben dragged him outside, giving me time to get a big blanket, which I dropped over the whole heap of dogs - Ben, Trim, Maggie, and two fosters - that were trying to kill the crazy dog. The fight broke up and I rolled up the crazy dog (still screaming and biting) and put him in the isolation kennel.

This had not been the first attack, either - my vet and I were already discussing the possibility of a type of seizure disorder since the previous ones were often preceded by a glassy look quite unlike the usual calculating glance of an aggressive collie.

There are so many "if onlys" with a dog like this. He probably could have been treated with a seizure med, but we couldn't risk the liability to the rescue group by placing such a dog. There was no where for long term (life time) fostering - not even that place in Utah could take him. He was dropped off in a shelter by his previous owner with no explanation - probably he was showing early signs of this and they didn't want to deal with it. So instead of being treated, or at the very least ending his life with the people who raised him, he had to experience the shelter trauma, was shuffled around for two months, put up with the stress of my trying to rehab him, and it ended the same way but more tragically as the one holding him when he went was practically a stranger.

It all comes back to responsible owners.

Well, when I read Aussie mix, this makes more sense to me than if it were a full Aussie.  Aussies tend to come in sideways and grab but let go quick, or give a few sharp quick bites in a row.  They do this if their intent is to stop motion or move something.  The ducking low is to keep from having a cowkick land on their heads.
But, a hold and shake is predatory behavior, and can occur in dogs that have no outlet for their predatory drives, have not been trained against herding or nipping humans, are extremely reactive (sometimes, it doesn't take much to tip a really reactive dog over the edge into aggression) or are unsocialized to kids and take their shrieks and screams as if they were a prey animal (ever hear a rabbit scream?).
If a mixed breed dog is part Aussie (herdy, guardy, prey drivey, untrained, unsocialized) and part something else (ACD, Shepherd, Pit, Rott, who knows?), a constellation of behaviors common to both or particular to one or the other can occur. 
Dogs don't belong off leash anywhere within reach of a bunch of squealing kids.