Caretaker mauled to death at actor Ving Rhames home

One of the people I work with at the kennel was attacked by a mastiff last year. He was the friendliest dog ever up until that moment. She still had bruises and wounds weeks later. I'm one of the last people to be prejudice against a breed, but I'll tell you, those mastiffs terrify me.

Wow, that's really sad.  Ving Rhames is such a great actor and person. 
 
I bet you there were warning signs though.  In most cases, there are. 

Sad.  But I have to wonder why someone would feel the need to have dogs that are trained to run down and capture run-away slaves.  And surely the dogs knew the caretaker.
 
Joyce

How horrible. I heard about that.

The dogs in question appear to be Fila Brasileiro's. It is a brazilian mastiff .The news story stated that the man killed was the dogs caretaker. One of the dogs being carried out was a bulldog and 2 others were the mastifs. I only saw 3 on the news although the story says four were taken into custody.

hmm.. smells fishy to me.
why were all the dogs loose? why would they attack a caretaker they have known for two years? i wonder if there was a kennel fight, he tried to break it up, but was attacked, which shifted the aggression on him.... unless there was video survelance, not likely, then we will never know for sure.
i can understand an actor wanting a big bad guard dog.... what with paparazi harrassing people all the time... but maybe a different breed was in order....

This is a scary story.  I'm sure over the next couple of days, we'll be hearing more details about what happened.  The info in these articles are pretty sketchy.  I thought it was very interesting that Mr. Rhames himself mentioned that even if the dogs knew you and you ran away from them, you were in trouble.  Not so sure I would want that kind of dog around my house.  Honestly, I don't know anything about the Fila Brasileiro, but this sounds like a breed that requires a great deal of experience in massively dominant dogs.   I wonder what kind of background the caretaker had.

One of the members here has a Fila.  They are big powerful dogs and were actually bred to be guardians.  They can be fierce, but are only meant to be fierce to strangers.  Something smells fishy to me about this.

Good Lord.  Now the BSL will be trying to ban Mastiffs.

^^^My thoughts exactly.Sadly this happened but I do believe there is still more truth to be uncovered.Who knows if the caretaker was doing something to the dogs or not, but we'll probably never know.Hopefully the mastiff doesn't become the next "killer" breed.

they're already trying to ban mastiffs of this type.
the fila is a prison guard dog yes. they are bred to watch the prisoners and leave them alone despite the prisoner being around the dog for its whole life.... but the dog has no emotions towards the prisoner... he isnt supposed to. to the dog the prisoner is just the property of the master. just like live stock. remember, the fila is also partly a bull breed.
when bulls step out of line the bulldog is set on the bull to muscle it back into submission..... but there is .. so many hundreds of pounds difference between a bull and a man, right?

an interesting book to read on the perspective of a prison guard dog is Faithful Ruslan.... interesting insight, but a sad ending.
i only recently finished reading that book myself.. which helps me to understand how a guard dog might view the things/creatures that it is told to guard.
this makes perfect sense to me....

ORIGINAL: Xerxes

One of the members here has a Fila.  They are big powerful dogs and were actually bred to be guardians.  They can be fierce, but are only meant to be fierce to strangers.  Something smells fishy to me about this.

I agree.  Something did not seem right about this story to me from the first time I heard it on the radio.  Hopefully our Fila member is able to chime in on this--I'd like to hear his take.

For those members who are not familiar with the breed, here is some info on the Filahttp://www.dogbreedinfo.com/filabrasileiro.htm

Wait though--this is a quote from one of the stories "animal control officers took three huge bull mastiffs and an English bulldog into custody.

So it would seem to me that there are not any Filas involved, whouldn't it?

Also, from what I've read in some stories, it is possible that the caretaker could have died of a heart attack.....

There was a Filia mentioned that he had and it weighed 170lbs but the are also in the Mastiff family. I didn't think there was enough info in the article to make any judgment, all I do know is dealing with large type breeds you always have to be careful. I had one that turned aggressive and weighed 125lb, he turned on my husband for no apparent reason and a month later we found out he was full of cancer.