Also I think Megan’s assertions about the kids have to be true on some level. Their actions, whatever they were, were inappropriate for the pack.

Regarding blame, you are essentially right about that. Related, I find it interesting that no one has mentioned (unless I missed it) that a three and six year old supervised by no one is the same as a three and six year old supervised by the neighbor’s dog: Not done.

I’m assuming that adults were in the vicinity but just not on the spot. And, under conditions of having two big dogs around, that should not have happened ideally, but things are not always ideal.

Regarding the dogs being part of the pack and all that: Sorry, I call bullshit on that one. Dogs that are either bred or trained in such a way that they are not kid safe should never, ever be around kids, especially alone with them, period. Other dogs that happen to bite kids are doing something that no amount of romanticizing about the woolfy nature of these animals excuses. The dog bites the kid, you kill the dog. It has always been that way, and THAT is the reason the dogs don’t routinely eat our children any more.

(They used to, of course, when they were still pure wolves instead of the broken wolves they are).

But today we live in a slightly different society where you can actually avoid killing the dog, and that would be nice to do, because we can separate out or living spaces. Also, we don’t know in this case, as has been mentioned, how severe this situation really was, but it does sound like it was going pretty badly when dad had to kick the dog to get its teeth off the toddler. (Frankly, had it been me, the dog my not have survived that stage of the story. I have a bionic knee. yes, I can imagine coming across a dog gnawing on huxley. Right through the goal posts, pooch!) So it’s a bit of a tossup without knowing more. (And, I hasten to add, this is exactly what the authorities are doing, getting more info, making a careful decision.)

Bottom line: In our society, these animals are pets. Pets are not to gnaw on the children, period, end of story. The vast, vast, vast majority of dogs will not gnaw on the children. Those that do are exceptions and must be treated as such. That is how domestication works.

I took the fact that the children’s (presumably) father – called ex-husband by their mother – was the one who got the dog off the daughter to imply that she was likely not even present. My guess, based on what was actually said, is that the kids were with their dad for the weekend (or whatever) and visiting one of his friends.

Sadie –

I find the notion that a fucking dog being stabbed leading the story about a little girl playing on her porch taking a bullet, absolutely obscene. Not that I don’t appreciate that a police dog was stabbed, but the little girl getting shot story getting buried beneath that and a hell of a lot of other shit is absolutely disgusting.

I really don’t care if that is anthropocentric of me. I have always and will continue to place a much higher value on human life, than I do non-human life – even when the non-human life is a rather heroic figure.

The dog was not murdered. The dog may be partly paralyzed for life.

I would personally do this dog in if it would give that child back her legs. I’m sure the police officer who is in charge of that dog would do the same. Knowing dogs, so would the dog. Well, this one is not a lab, so maybe not.

And the comparison isn’t pointless. The unspoken horrid reality is this: Had this been a blond blue eyed white girl from Plymouth (an upper middle class wealthy suburb) the story would be bigger than the dog story. But the girl is hispanic, poor, living in the inner city. Her mom doesn’t even speak English. So who the fuck cares about them?

The dog is just the yardstick in this comparison.

For those reasons I think putting the dogs down is unreasonable. Every dog is a danger and the mother should not have left them unsupervised in the dogs’ territory (implied by the video). It’s not like these dogs are good and others are bad…all are animals and sufficient caution should be taken around them all.

I think it was probably a misunderstanding and not necessarily even poor training by the owner. Children can not be expected to understand the signals from another species, even adults often have a hard time with that. Dogs cannot be expected to endure every possible provocation, that is unreasonable.

I don’t think blame is a pie of which there is a limited amount. Every single adult probably knew the children were unsupervised with the dogs. I don’t understand what could make the owner or mother more at fault. Apparently I am alone in this since everyone else is fighting over who is to blame?

Also I think Megan’s assertions about the kids have to be true on some level. Their actions, whatever they were, were inappropriate for the pack. That doesn’t mean they are at all to blame, it would be impossible for them to know Akita social mores. It is possible that their actions were ones that they should have known were inappropriate (pulling a tail hard, trying to ride it etc.), but there is no evidence either way. I’m not sure how people have such strong opinions about it…

The mother thought it would be OK to leave the children with the dogs because she is confident that the children wouldn’t do the standard things to provoke it. Guess what lady, dogs have their own interpretation of each action of your kids: from lying belly up on the floor, smiling widely and showing their teeth, etc.

The owner thought it would be OK to leave the dogs with the children because they were “good dogs”. Guess what mister, you’re the alpha dog and you’ve never been around them when you haven’t been around them. You don’t know shit about them.

The owner failed to give the dogs shots in addition to being one of the “adults” who left the children with the dogs…in that sense he is more to blame as he did an extra thing wrong.