Saw a dog attack my grandchild!

[Bazzer]

The police had to get involved and they were at pains to point out there was absolutely no blame on our part whatsoever once they'd seen the damage and heard from us what had occurred.

Ref your earlier post, my understanding is the RSPCA are concerned with animals in distress, which would not seem to be the case. The police, who would be the intial applicators of relevant legislation having been informed and seemingly decided to take no further action, my suspicion would be that there is nothing further you can do.
Personally I'd tell the dog's owners precisely what happened and not spare the gory detail of the outcome. If they decide to keep the dog and have other children in their house, that would be a matter for their own conciences.

 

[MarquisMatsugae]

The dog needs to go. And frankly, I'd be raising safeguarding concerns with social services...

Beat me to it Reg.
Some owners think these things are "out of character " and carry on regardless.

 

[keithmac]

A few people have already said this but surely any dog that has mauled a baby should be destroyed, and this proves why really.

Carrying on regardless now and risking another incident is just madness.

Obviously the OP has his work cut out now.

 

[Milkfloat]

Surely if the owner of the dog won't take action, then a logical step would be that the OPs grandson does not go to the house where the dog lives.

 

[PaulB]

A few people have already said this but surely any dog that has mauled a baby should be destroyed, and this proves why really.

Carrying on regardless now and risking another incident is just madness.

Obviously the OP has his work cut out now.

No, I don't agree I have my work cut out, the answer is simple; we won't go there again regardless of any requests from them. My son's already told them they won't be seeing him while the beast is still alive.

I feel totally insulted by what they've decided to do. You have faith that humans can be rehabilitated and accept their punishment but basically, what my B-i-L is saying is that WE can't control a dog but HE can! The baby was left in the house with the dog on NYE! The baby can't crawl or walk yet but when he can, the dog will see what he saw in my living room with my grandson and they are taking an unnecessary risk due to the owner's ego. The dog is now known to have a destructive instinct and has acted on it. To believe this will never happen again is stupidity. How many cases do you read or hear about this happening and the owner going, 'we never thought it was capable off doing that'?

 

[Electric_Andy]

Right everyone who's responded - and those who haven't are welcome for an input

Social services. Sod the arguments - it's happened once and they sound like exactly the sort of people who would conveniently forget to enforce any safety measures once the cooling off period has expired. Next time it could be worse.

 

[ColinJ]

No, I don't agree I have my work cut out, the answer is simple; we won't go there again regardless of any requests from them. My son's already told them they won't be seeing him while the beast is still alive.

I feel totally insulted by what they've decided to do. You have faith that humans can be rehabilitated and accept their punishment but basically, what my B-i-L is saying is that WE can't control a dog but HE can! The baby was left in the house with the dog on NYE! The baby can't crawl or walk yet but when he can, the dog will see what he saw in my living room with my grandson and they are taking an unnecessary risk due to the owner's ego. The dog is now known to have a destructive instinct and has acted on it. To believe this will never happen again is stupidity. How many cases do you read or hear about this happening and the owner going, 'we never thought it was capable off doing that'?

I had somehow missed the fact that your sister is exposing her own grandchild to the risk posed by that dog. I thought you meant that Liam was still taking your grandchild there, which didn't make any sense!

Having said that, as you have pointed out - having ANY small child in a room with that dog is a risk that should never be taken.

If your B-i-L actually stopped to think about what he said then he would see that a translation is "Yes, I know that the dog is dangerous so I never take my eyes off him for a moment. If I got distracted for even a second or was too far away to grab him when he attacked, then the baby would be in danger, but I never relax my guard so the child is safe. I am infallible!"

 

[PaulB]

I had somehow missed the fact that your sister is exposing her own grandchild to the risk posed by that dog. I thought you meant that Liam was still taking your grandchild there, which didn't make any sense!

Having said that, as you have pointed out - having ANY small child in a room with that dog is a risk that should never be taken.

If your B-i-L actually stopped to think about what he said then he would see that a translation is "Yes, I know that the dog is dangerous so I never take my eyes off him for a moment. If I got distracted for even a second or was too far away to grab him when he attacked, then the baby would be in danger, but I never relax my guard so the child is safe. I am infallible!"

No, my sister is still exposing her own grandchild to this unnecessary danger!

And what you wrote above is basically EXACTLY what he's saying in all this! His dog's interests come before all other considerations which is just bloody stupid of him.

 

[Reynard]

Gawd, that's just nuts.

I know it's hard to have a much-loved pet put to sleep / rehomed etc (I volunteer for a cat rescue, so do see this side of things), but to carry on and pretend nothing happened after an incident like this is just asking for trouble. OK, it may never happen again (goodness knows what triggered the dog in the first place) but no person of good conscience would take that chance.

It would be a very painful "I told you so" to your relatives otherwise. Can entirely understand your POV on the matter.

Just a thought with my rescue / welfare hat on - is the dog neutered? If not, then at least suggest they get him castrated as it *will* make him less likely to fly off the handle. Unneutered pets can show frustration through aggression. It's still not ideal, but it's better than nothing if they won't rehome the dog or have him PTS.

 

[PaulB]

Gawd, that's just nuts.

I know it's hard to have a much-loved pet put to sleep / rehomed etc (I volunteer for a cat rescue, so do see this side of things), but to carry on and pretend nothing happened after an incident like this is just asking for trouble. OK, it may never happen again (goodness knows what triggered the dog in the first place) but no person of good conscience would take that chance.

It would be a very painful "I told you so" to your relatives otherwise. Can entirely understand your POV on the matter.

Just a thought with my rescue / welfare hat on - is the dog neutered? If not, then at least suggest they get him castrated as it *will* make him less likely to fly off the handle. Unneutered pets can show frustration through aggression. It's still not ideal, but it's better than nothing if they won't rehome the dog or have him PTS.

Yes, it has been neutered. It was also rehomed previously which leads me to think it may have baby-attacking form.

My sister and B-i-L had a Scotty dog previously and it was a lovely animal but succumbed to a disease which does affect this breed and died at two years old. They wanted to replace him with a similar one and found the same breed which was 18 months-2 years old and took him in. The story was that he'd lived with a family in Scotland but the family's mother died and the husband couldn't look after the dog and his two children. The actions of this dog make me suspicious of this story now.

 

[oldfatfool]

Sorry to hear that your BIL is being a muppett, I know how easy it is to become very emotionally attached to a hound but even on the one occaision one of mine did growl aggressively at our grand-daughter we offered to send her back to the rescue for re-homing in a child free environment, rather than have the potential of family upset, as it happened the g-d said it was her fault and no harm was done, how your BIL can overlook this though is beyond me.

I thought in an earlier post you mentioned that the rozzers had stated that they would not let the dog return to the home with kids in?

 

[jefmcg]

This in a house that has my sister's 8 month-old grandson stay there every Wednesday!

I've just skimmed this thread, so apologies if I have missed it, but you need to speak directly to the parents of that child and describe the attack.

 

[mustang1]

Very sorry to hear this. Hope everything works out ok.

 

[PaulB]

Sorry to hear that your BIL is being a muppett, I know how easy it is to become very emotionally attached to a hound but even on the one occaision one of mine did growl aggressively at our grand-daughter we offered to send her back to the rescue for re-homing in a child free environment, rather than have the potential of family upset, as it happened the g-d said it was her fault and no harm was done, how your BIL can overlook this though is beyond me.

I thought in an earlier post you mentioned that the rozzers had stated that they would not let the dog return to the home with kids in?

They did but as ever, they've proved to be more useless than Everton's trophy cabinet. Firstly, they didn't ask for the address of the owners (!) and then offered me some amateur dog psychology because he's a dog handler so obviously knows more than I'll ever know. And so far, they haven't got back in touch so my B-i-L looks like he's got away with it but I consider this to be a total insult to us who were the witnesses of the actual attack and saw just how savage it was. I know all stories have two sides but I have not exaggerated one iota on the severity of the dog's malicious leap on to a defenceless baby and my wife, a senior nurse who works with extremely disabled children so has seen some heart-rending sights in her time, still wakes up crying and has nightmares about the incident, particularly as the dog leapt over her to get at the poor baby's face.

 

[PaulB]

I've just skimmed this thread, so apologies if I have missed it, but you need to speak directly to the parents of that child and describe the attack.

Oh believe me, we've done this repeatedly but all to no avail!