Sunday, April 4, 2010

She's Fine, Usually

"She's fine, usually." I don't know about you, but when I look at 18-mos-old Roxy, I can't say she looks "fine". She looks a bit angry and uncomfortable, and if you stepped any closer, I imagine Roxy would find it fine to do to you what she did to this kid.

Roxy mauled the face of a child as she was walked past him by another child. The victim happened to be at face level with Roxy and, best guess here, he made eye contact, that didn't go well with Roxy and she bit him. This was a hard, dedicated bite too. No restraint on the Husky's part.

New South Wales tallies all dog bites, as required by law. I wrote about their stats before.


Roxy may be fine, usually. But she exhibited a real behavioral flaw before the age of two. My guess is she isn't always fine, and she's showed signals of discomfort around certain people, at certain times. The picture alone shows that Roxy is a pretty defensive dog. I'm not saying she should be killed, but I don't think her current guardians can handle her. A dog who has a low bite threshold, no bite inhibition, and who bites hard over what should be a non-threatening gesture (sitting on the gutter, at face level) is a dog who needs some behavior modification.

1 comment:

SCD said...

Thank you for sharing this. And thank you for writing about the two Labs and Cattle Dog that mauled the young girl.

This is my favorite part of the article:
"Last year there were 460 injuries caused by dog attack requiring either medical or hospital treatment. There was one death. Huskies were in the top 20 breeds for dog attacks in NSW. "

HUSKY'S were in the TOP 20 breeds for dog attacks. I'm sure "Pit Bull" is in there somewhere, but I like that they posted these stats for the ignorant who will say "It shouldn't be put down because it's a Husky" or "I'm surprised it wasn't a "Pit Bull"" or something to that affect :)