so sad

That's appalling, poor lady. I don't understand though why the dogs have been sedated and removed to determine what breed they are, what on earth does it matter? Even if they were labradors surely it should be immediate pts, they could never be trusted after that.
 
millikins said:
That's appalling, poor lady. I don't understand though why the dogs have been sedated and removed to determine what breed they are, what on earth does it matter? Even if they were labradors surely it should be immediate pts, they could never be trusted after that.
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Agree, I suppose it’s to do with charges the owner will face? If they are an illegal breed I guess he will be in even more serious trouble. That said surely pts and find out after

x posted!
 
re. cause of death if it turned out she had had a catastrophic incident in the garden and the dogs pushed through after and mauled her body for instance.
They presumably had fairly quick access to a vet who could use a tranq gun/the dogs were contained in the 2 gardens anyway?
 
It is very sad.

Perhaps I am naive but it is a bit odd for dogs to go out looking for a person/animal to maim is it not? I can understand why they may have killed another dog they came across, but an 80 year old woman who isn't in 'their' territory wouldn't come across as prey animal to a dog would it? And it wouldn't have been a territorial thing if it wasn't their house?
 
I agree the breed is irrelevant, a poodle that mauled someone to death should be instantly PTS as much as anything else. Also can't see why they can't decide afterwards.
When I was in Australia a pack of rottweilers savaged an elderly woman to death and they lived at the pound for two years while the case went through. Why? They needed to die, did it matter which dog actually killed the woman. And they were so stressed, one ate it's own forelegs to the bone.
My heart goes out to that woman and her family.
 
AShetlandBitMeOnce said:
It is very sad.

Perhaps I am naive but it is a bit odd for dogs to go out looking for a person/animal to maim is it not? I can understand why they may have killed another dog they came across, but an 80 year old woman who isn't in 'their' territory wouldn't come across as prey animal to a dog would it? And it wouldn't have been a territorial thing if it wasn't their house?
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It is very easy to elicit an aggressive reaction when trying to shoo some dogs away for instance. I can easily imagine the dogs getting into the garden and the woman trying to get them out, unwittingly triggering the aggression if the dogs are temperamentally easily provoked. If I was remotely worried about the dogs' body language I would retreat indoors slowly never turning my back and ask for help but many people would not realise the potential danger. As to looking for an animal to maim, I have experience of a dog rushing at one of ours from several hundred yards and inflicting deep bites out of his flanks and back needing a patchwork of stitches. Only my husbands walking boots got him off eventually.
 
We dont really know yet do we if she did die by being mauled or if she had a heart attack and was dead before etc. Unless of course someone was watching the whole thing unfold which of course begs the question why they didnt intervene, but from the crappy reporting from DM it seems all reports are heresay so lets see what happened first.

Whatever way she died, RIP.
 
Terrible.

The dogs broke in through a hole in the fence between the deceased woman's house and a neighbour's house, and had returned to their own side by the time police got there. Neighbours and family were calling for help and trying to assist from the off.

According to a senior police officer "This presented no wider threat to the public. It was a hole in adjacent premises so they weren't running in the streets."
 
I agree they need to ascertain the breed as it will relate to potential charges...they may need them alive to gauge things like bite pressure/reaction to certain stimuli etc which is how some types are identified. You can't properly assess a dog if it is dead.

It is not unexpected for certain types of dogs to make distance/engage with any sort of moving target/anything making a prey movement/noise, particularly if they are stressed or frustrated/running in a pack. Territory doesn't come into it. It's applying human thinking to an animal.

An absolute tragedy. We really need to have a fundamental rethink about who can own what types of dog, and where.
 
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