Woman killed, seven dogs seized

TBF having witnessed the inability of a fair section of the general public to follow basic instructions on post op care & similar which have much lower stakes than failing to keep a dog that may have caused the death of a person under close control I do support the police keeping hold of the dogs until they can satisfy themselves which of them were involved (& sadly the answer may turn out to be all of them). If they've been seized they're the responsibility of the police until they decide otherwise no matter what the owners may want. Is it the best thing for the dogs? Probably not but it likely is the best thing for wider public safety as imagine if they DID release them with investigations ongoing and one of them was involved in another incident?
 
CorvusCorax said:
If a small dog bites someone through fear or accident, not badly, and they get blood poisoning and die (IE they do not die of trauma or blood loss) should that dog be PTS? I know we're going off on a tangent here but there are myriad ways for a human to die because of a dog.
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Look, you are trying to argue me down a path I have no interest in. I was specifically referring to cases where a dog has attacked someone and that attack has been the cause of that person's death. I thought this was obvious, but clearly not. I am not referring to, nor am I interested in, hypothetical cases where something a dog has done has indirectly caused someone's death. Anyway, I was just observing that in cases where a dog has mauled and killed someone, the dog(s) responsible always seem to be put to sleep. I wasn't giving my opinion about whether they should or shouldn't be, just saying, that seems to be what happens in the UK whenever I read about these horrible cases. Therefore, in this case it isn't as simple as just letting the owners have their dog back, because at least one of these dogs has directly killed someone, but more than one is likely to have been involved. I presume they will be trying to determine the degree of involvement of each dog, but how they then decide whether all the dogs are put to sleep, or some, or none, I have no idea.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Indeed! As far as the law is concerned the dogs are the property of their owners. The owners have been deemed to have committed no crime, so what is the reason that they are being deprived of their property?
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I have no idea what part of the law they are using, but as it is a work related death the HSE could be involved, and the dogs are an essential part of that death, even if it is found to be an accident.
Personally without knowing the circumstances that lead up to it, I would probably want my dog PTS, its may be not their fault, but animals are always unpredictable, and if they caused another injury I would never forgive myself.
We have had a recent addition to our family pack, an adult dog, and it's been interesting to see how the dynamics have changed. A small reactive dog, has made an established couple, squabble more, to the point of aggression I have never seen before between them. They are domesticated animals, but instincts can quickly overrule training.
In the US the reporting of dog attacks is very graphic, once the victim is on the floor they attack the head and neck, the human is just another animal.
I have found an academic paper on this but it contains graphic images, so I will not post it, if anyone wants the link DM
 
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HashRouge said:
Look, you are trying to argue me down a path I have no interest in. I was specifically referring to cases where a dog has attacked someone and that attack has been the cause of that person's death. I thought this was obvious, but clearly not. I am not referring to, nor am I interested in, hypothetical cases where something a dog has done has indirectly caused someone's death. Anyway, I was just observing that in cases where a dog has mauled and killed someone, the dog(s) responsible always seem to be put to sleep. I wasn't giving my opinion about whether they should or shouldn't be, just saying, that seems to be what happens in the UK whenever I read about these horrible cases. Therefore, in this case it isn't as simple as just letting the owners have their dog back, because at least one of these dogs has directly killed someone, but more than one is likely to have been involved. I presume they will be trying to determine the degree of involvement of each dog, but how they then decide whether all the dogs are put to sleep, or some, or none, I have no idea.
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I'm not arguing anything, I was just saying that not all deaths caused by dogs are 'mauling'.
I agree there's rarely anything simple about any of these cases.
 
If a small dog bites someone through fear or accident, not badly, and they get blood poisoning and die (IE they do not die of trauma or blood loss) should that dog be PTS? I know we're going off on a tangent here but there are myriad ways for a human to die because of a dog.

I couldn't find your post to quote but this.
Humans do die or get badly injured because of animals but that does not mean the animal gets out of bed in the morning and thinks I'm going to try to kill a human today.

On the blood poisoning issue my friend did a lot for the CPL. One of the cats clawed her. She ended up in hospital and it was touch and go with blood poisoning. Kill that cat anyone?
A horse is in a stable. He is difficult for some reason, intense underlying pain or a very feral horse. Someone goes in, doesn't think enough about the situation and read t he horse, gets trapped in the corner, kicked and is on the ground and the horse boots seven bells out of them. They die. Kill the horse? Human made the mistake not the horse or the cat or even the dog if they are taken out in a pack and something sparks an aspect of their behaviour.

If you put any group of 8 dogs together and given them the stimulus there will be trouble as a pack.
I used to ride through a farm with half a dozen dogs running loose on the road. They jumped down off a wall straight at the horse, if I was leading the horse or on my bike they would bite me. I got bitten twice.
They bit because they got confidence in the pack. If one was on it's own and I had walked towards it then the dog would have run a mile. These were the usual nervy, packing farm sheepdogs.

Every animal is unpredictable if you don't understand that particular species. Lots of horse accidents from people getting kicked, bitten, walked over because they don't take the appropriate care and are ignorant. Dogs are no different. I once got badly bitten by a gerbil which hung on but it was my fault because I didn't understand their behaviour.


I'm afraid it really pisses me off that we PTS because of human error.

honetpot said:
its may be not their fault, but animals are always unpredictable, and if they caused another injury I would never forgive myself.


. They are domesticated animals, but instincts can quickly overrule training.
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and it's time we started to realise this. I don't know why the little girl was killed yesterday but could it have been lack of human care ie letting a dog of any breed out with a child or lack of care with having a breed (bully type or similar if it was) in a household with a child?
 
As a member of the public, I for one am glad that all these dogs have been detained, at least for now, while the facts and timeline are ascertained as best they can be.

I would not be impressed to hear that owners with deep pockets were trying to get their own dog(s) released because they are worried that the dog(s) might be finding kennels stressful.
 
Tiddlypom said:
As a member of the public, I for one am glad that all these dogs have been detained, at least for now, while the facts and timeline are ascertained as best they can be.

I would not be impressed to hear that owners with deep pockets were trying to get their own dog(s) released because they are worried that the dog(s) might be finding kennels stressful.
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how on earth can you ascertain the facts? One of them, you have no idea which, severely provoked one of the others who then bit. Which one is to blame. Is it OK if one bit the lady slightly on say the leg which was not fatal but another on her throat? do you kill the latter as it was really the murderer but not the leg biter? Was it an accident the one who delivered the fatal bite as it was really trying to bite another dog and she got in the way?
Any dog can bite and many dogs put in this situation may well have done exactly the same thing,

If one of these was my dog then my pockets would have become extremely deep and I would be fighting every inch of the way for it. Isn't that we do for our animals? If I had had any reason to think the dog was "iffy" it wouldn't have gone in the first place.

Of course the dogs should be assessed in all conditions before being returned.
 
Tiddlypom said:
As a member of the public, I for one am glad that all these dogs have been detained, at least for now, while the facts and timeline are ascertained as best they can be.

I would not be impressed to hear that owners with deep pockets were trying to get their own dog(s) released because they are worried that the dog(s) might be finding kennels stressful.
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It won't matter how deep anyone's pockets are, it is highly unlikely that any of these dogs will be returned to their owners and if any are, they will have been in police kennels for a several months ( the coroner has adjourned the case until June) and traumatised by that experience, they will not be the same dogs, whether they were part of the attack or not.

I am incredibly sad for this lady's family, it's an awful situation. I also have huge sympathy for the dogs owners, who thought their beloved pet was going for a nice walk and now they may never see them again, many through absolutely no fault of their own.
 
There is a witness to at least the start of the melee - the other woman whose own dog interacted in some way with the dead dog walker's dogs, and who was then bitten herself.

Other witnesses saw the woman still alive but on the ground and being attacked, and she was shouting at them to go away.

All depending on how much they saw and on how accurate their recall of the events are, it may be possible to determine who the prime canine aggressors were, or at least if any of the dogs took no part in it.

Sod deep pockets, no dog which has taken an active part in the death of a human should be going home.
 
Tiddlypom said:
Sod deep pockets, no dog which has taken an active part in the death of a human should be going home.
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This.
I have just seen that a 4 year old has been killed by a dog in Milton Keynes. :(

You can't trust any dog fully - just as all horses can be, to quote the BHS 'unpredictable'.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
I guess that she fell over fairly early on, I doubt that any of the dogs jumped up to bite her neck. The reason most bites are to the extremities is that that is where the dog can reach.
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We don't know any of the facts or even the likelyhoods, it's all hearsay and guessing at the moment, if I am on the ground playing qoth one of my dogs I don't expect my dog to bite my throat though, it's a part of our body we naturally defend so its unlikely it was offered up for a dog bite.

Teaselmeg said:
It won't matter how deep anyone's pockets are, it is highly unlikely that any of these dogs will be returned to their owners and if any are, they will have been in police kennels for a several months ( the coroner has adjourned the case until June) and traumatised by that experience, they will not be the same dogs, whether they were part of the attack or not.

I am incredibly sad for this lady's family, it's an awful situation. I also have huge sympathy for the dogs owners, who thought their beloved pet was going for a nice walk and now they may never see them again, many through absolutely no fault of their own.
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Many reports are stating the dogs are in private kennels not police kennels, the police in my limited experience don't hold what are classed as dangerous dogs they are placed in privately run kennels qoth the facilities to house them.
For those of you wanting all the dogs returned to their owners you are
1 assuming the owners would present the dogs for further examination when asked
2 keep the dogs on lead and muzzled
3 the dogs wont get loose
4 that non of the dogs has had an episode that means they are in a state that means an attack may happen again.
The poor lady was mauled badly enough that she had to be recognised by her dental records, that is a serious and sustained attack regardless of what bite killed her.
I couldn't imagine my guilt if I fought for the dog or dogs to be released into their owners care to then fond that a dog or dogs had killed another person or child.
A dog being in the private kennels is no different a risk to the dogs than being in kennels whilst owners go in holiday, dogs have no sense of time and live in the moment, I don't use kennels and wouldn't put my dogs through it but as working collies in the middle of nowhere I am not convinced they qould have the social skills and exposure to cope well with such an environment.
 
Regarding kennelling and quarantine, the experience we had with our family dog was different to a couple of people on here. Back in ’79 we returned from Germany and the dog had to quarantine. In Germany at the time all dogs had to have yearly rabies jabs and the dogs had tags put on their collar by the vet. The dog also had to have a top up rabies jab and vet checks before quarantine. My mother, who is not a dog person really, took him to the ferry port to hand him over to the quarantine people. They were collecting a number of dogs at the time. They wouldn’t look at the paper work from the vets and insisted on giving him another rabies jab there and then. They rammed it in from a height so hard that it made the dog scream and then grabbed him off mother and dragged him along choking on his choke chain. Mother was in tears apparently. People that were around said they couldn’t believe how rough they were with him. While in quarantine you were only allowed to visit once towards the end of their stay. He very nearly didn’t get out alive. At one point the vets wanted to pts as he stopped eating. They put another dog in with him to try and encourage him to eat. The dog that went into quarantine was not the dog that came out and he never returned to how he was before. All that to say it really depends on the dog and their handling during capture and after to how they will cope with being in kennels for so long. I hope the police kennels in Surrey have improved a lot as there was a big kerfuffle back in the late eighties or early nineties about how their police dogs were handled. It was in the local papers and a friend was dating someone high up in the police at the time too, so got all the stuff that didn’t make it in to the papers.
 
twiggy2 said:
For those of you wanting all the dogs returned to their owners you are
1 assuming the owners would present the dogs for further examination when asked
2 keep the dogs on lead and muzzled
3 the dogs wont get loose
4 that non of the dogs has had an episode that means they are in a state that means an attack may happen again.

I couldn't imagine my guilt if I fought for the dog or dogs to be released into their owners care to then fond that a dog or dogs had killed another person or child.
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for 1 and 2 yes. I would also make sure they understood not to let them get loose and had suitable precautions.
Humans are released on bail, prisoners on parole so I can see no reason why, if someone wants their dog back, they shouldn't comply with rules. If they fail then obviously the dog goes back.

before going then I would make sure it didn't have "form" but I expect that has already been done. Also that the owner demonstrated their competence with the dog say in the park on a lead, in a socialisation class and even loose. The kennel staff must have a lot of info now about how the various dogs behave.

There seem to be no rules on keeping dogs and I'm sure there are a lot more dangerous situations than this one if the dogs are back in their own individual homes under "probation" rules. Someone can keep 3 or 4 akitas, shepherds, bullies or any other large and potentially dangerous breed in their small garden and take them all for a walk together loose in a public area.
All of those are a considerable risk to the public.

To my mind if each of those 8 dogs had been walked separately on a lead would they have posed any great risk to the public. I doubt it. Put any dog in a pack situation with a stimulus, which may have been the other person who got bitten, and you have a potentially dangerous situation.
 
just as a matter of curiosity as only some of the breeds were named could she have only been dog walking 6 dogs and the other 2 unnamed breeds were her own and as she was not identified at the time and dogs couldn't be either.
 
paddy555 said:
just as a matter of curiosity as only some of the breeds were named could she have only been dog walking 6 dogs and the other 2 unnamed breeds were her own and as she was not identified at the time and dogs couldn't be either.
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The police picked all the dogs up though, so should have been able to identify the breeds/types.
 
For those suggesting the dogs should be returned pending results of investigations, I would say at least one has killed a human by mauling her throat. Presumably the dogs were with a walker because the owners were at work, unless they have the means to give up then they will want to use another dog walker. If you were that dog walker, would you risk it?
 
millikins said:
For those suggesting the dogs should be returned pending results of investigations, I would say at least one has killed a human by mauling her throat. Presumably the dogs were with a walker because the owners were at work, unless they have the means to give up then they will want to use another dog walker. If you were that dog walker, would you risk it?
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If it was my dog I would want it back, give it a week of normal life then get my vet to come home and PTS. I would rather that than leave it in kennels with an uncertain future and the dog wouldn’t understand why it wasn’t with its owner..
 
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