Dog savaged in Springfield Park dies

A tiny minority of dogs and their "owners" are a problem.

I am not, neither is my dog, who happens to be a small Jack Russell who drags me along whenever he takes me for a walk.

I did have a brother Hinch. Passed a way a few years ago but not my twin.

Was not bragging and the thought turned my stomach and still does even today Hinch. I suppose what I was really saying is the owner of the dog gave me no choice and and the dog was attacking me and was well known to attack people. Even when the owner was told on previous occasions about the dog.

I was frightened and had to defend myself. Dog owners cannot moan if someone is attacked by their dog and someone has to defend themselves.

It is like if a child is attacked by a dangerous dog and a parent has to hurt the dog in someway to defend the child. The owner of the dog then cannot cry saying someone has hurt their dog if the dog is dangerous and attacks people. What do you do if a dog is determined to sink its teeth into you intending to cause harm?

You are correct about the violence but owners cannot complain if they cannot keep their dog under control and then their dog gets hurt. Also cannot complain if their dog kills a child or anyone then the dog has to be put to sleep.

I do love animals and had a well kept dog in the past and taken in loads of stray cats over the years. I just wish the owners who cannot control their dogs just do not keep them.

I wasn't there and so don't know just how 'intent' this dog was at biting you TP but I would have thought that if the dog was so aggressive and out to 'bite' everyone passing that there would have been many complaints and that the owner would have been taken to task long before your encounter but, from what you describe, the dog was still allowed to roam, even after getting a good kicking from you.

The owners are the one's to blame of course but, are you sure this dog really was hell bent on biting you and everyone else that passed? or could his 'bark have been worse than his bite' as they say?

I must admit your colourful description of this event made me squirm and sounded more than a little 'gung ho'.

I think if I had to negotiate this scenario on a daily basis, my first step would be to ring the Police/RSPCA and report the owners long before it escalated into the situation you have described.

It can be difficult to distinguish between a dog which growls, snarls and rushes towards you with bared fangs to intimidate you, and one which is going to bite. You have half a second to decide which it is.

I totally agree Cyfrifia but it sounds from TP's description that this wasn't his first encounter with the dog and that he passed the house regularly before he decided to dole out his own form of punishment? Also, from what he describes, the owner was prevented from tackling TP by a neighbour of the owner who, presumably knew the dog well, lived alongside it and wasn't personally concerned by it's 'aggressive' behaviour because it continued to be allowed to roam around in front of the properties.

One encounter with a dog like that would have been enough for me to report the owners.

I'd like to know how the dog could tell if TP was wearing his boots or not, and what happened when he wasn't.

Only teamplayer will know the particular circumstances. His story does sound rather brutal. Would the police would be interested if the dog didn't bite?

I guess it depends whether the Police would have viewed the dog as a public threat depending on where the house was, for example, a busy thoroughfare close to a school? The RSPCA would probably have checked it out though and then there's the Environmental Health Department.

I see a young teenage girl died today because of out of control dogs YET AGAIN.

teamplayer2 wrote:I see a young teenage girl died today because of out of control dogs YET AGAIN.

I don't think anyone knows the full story yet, Teamplayer.