Some People!!!

[Carrie]

Sure...some of the smaller breeds can be nasty little ****s because of scanty socialization and training and many terriers were bred to kill vermin so they have that feisty, tenacity about them. But like Red Hot Dobe just said, the damage would be less than a great big dog in the usual types of attacks or strikes. Of course, an infant who can't move to defend himself doesn't stand a chance either way.

[RedHotDobe]

That's exactly what I was going to put in my post but didn't- the smaller dogs that bite usually do so because of their severe lack of socialization. (i.e. my cousin's Min Pin) Combine the poor socialization with bad breeding (newspaper ads, pet store pups, puppy mills in general) and you have a problem.

Rereading what I've posted it seems like I hate little dogs, but I really don't! I have a secret love of Shih Tzus and Chinese Cresteds.

[Susan]

I feel really sorry for that lady. She is missing out on one of life's greatest joys! Sounds like she looks for the "bad" side of things. Wow! I really do feel sorry for her. Glad she's not one of my neighbors!!

[Carrie]

I feel really sorry for that lady. She is missing out on one of life's greatest joys! Sounds like she looks for the "bad" side of things. Wow! I really do feel sorry for her.

Yup....an unhappy person.

[firetips_09]

sad..sad.sad

[kab819]

Just an echo of what's already been said... it's not the breed that attacks, it's the individual dog. A lot of factors come into play. My son, at 2 years old, was attacked (in the face) by a full grown rottie. Thankfully, a wonderful plastic surgeon later, he was fine. Should rotties be banned? No way!! We now have a rottie mix. Should that dog have been put down? Yes. The dog had not been properly trained or socialized, and attacked when my son walked past the doorway where his foodbowl was. In general, I think larger breeds can do more damage. This rottie held my son down with a paw on his face while he mauled him, and his owner (my fil) tried to pull him off. Could a yorkie have done as much damage? Probably not. I've personally been attacked by a... (drawing a blank on the breed, a Toto type dog). I love my big dogs. Living out in the middle of nowhere, it's nice to know that when hubby's not home, no unwanted visitors will come by... they're too afraid of my dogs!!!

[kab819]

Just curious- I saw BSL mentioned a few times in this thread. What does that mean?
Kelly

[Sayuri]

BSL stands for Breed Specific Legislation - in other words, laws that discriminate against specific breeds due to the belief that they are inherently aggressive/dangerous/more likely to attack. They are knee-jerk reactions by lawmakers to pacify an uninformed/misinformed public - a dog-attack occurs, and instead of addressing what is usually the REAL issue - ignorance regarding dogs and the responsibility of the owner (whether it's poor breeding, lack of training and/or bad training, provocation, etc) - they ban the breed the attacking dog supposedly belongs to. Of course the laws are largely ineffective - because the people that are most likely to abide by it are also the most likely to have well-trained and well-socialized dogs while often the people that own poorly-trained, poorly-socialized (you get the drift) dogs ignore the law or switch breeds and do the same thing with the new one.

Edit - oops - just read your previous post and see I needn't have gone into so much detail - I'm glad to hear your son is fine.

[oc_spirit]

Kab, "toto type dog", do you mean a Cairne Terrier?

I believe that BSL is a waste of time and government money. Not only do they not work (the breeds banned can be replaced by another breed, then they'll get banned so then another breed will be picked and they get banned etc before you know it we'll have no large breeds left...) but there are a lot of breeds that look very similar to eachother especially to people who don't know much about dogs at all, so who's to say that for example, someone who owns a dogo argentino won't get prosecuted for having a "pit-bull".

Cheers!