January 16, 2004

"Doggone Crazy! says it's a "great new dog bite prevention child safety game that we believe can benefit every family with or without a dog!" But just in case teaching your child to "stand like a tree" doesn't do the trick, there's also a link to the book, FATAL DOG ATTACKS.
posted by SideDish 20 years ago
  • Jeebus. Culture of Fear. I can't find the exact link, but I remember hearing somewhere that Deer are responsible for many more fatalities than Dogs.
  • Culture of Fear + promotional marketing = Safety Ape. Also, When cats attack! [warning: last link is MPG] Seriously, I've hit many (too many) deer while driving, but I've never been mauled by one. Deer are just something that I expect when driving in those crepuscular deer-commuting hours. It's a hazard limited to a particular mode of my existence. Since it's a driving 80kph-on-ice mode, the encounters are potentially fatal; however, I know how to minimize the risk, and I accept it as the price of driving in deer country. Perhaps I subsume it into the other risks associated with highway travel. Dogs, on the other hand, can get out of control pretty much any time I go outside. I spend a lot of time running on trails and roads, and in the summer on roads, I will be challenged by dogs. (In the winter, the lazy curs don't seem to have the energy. On trails, the mountain lions keep the dogs in check.) I think we're reacting emotionally to the perceived pervasiveness of dogs -- in my life, a more prosaic, peacetime mode than the one in which you meet a deer at highway speeds -- as well as to the aggressive nature of the dog threat.
  • Good points, goetter. I was being a little flip about the deer thing (except for that episode of "The Simpsons" where Lisa is cross country skiing and the deer growl at her.) Children do need to be taught how to interact with dogs they don't know. Dog owners need to be alert to their dog's body language around kids. But for crying out loud, to link to "Fatal Dog Attacks" in order to sell a game just preys on the already over-fearful parent to freak out even more. (Full disclosure: I am regularly out and about with a big scary-looking dog. I see how people react when they see us coming along down the sidewalk. And I understand that while *I* know that Jack is a big marshmallow, others don't. The reality is that precisely because he is a big scary-looking dog, he has been trained to within an inch of his life and is held to a very high standard of behavior. I wish more people understood that an ill-tempered small dog can do a tragic amount of damage to a child, and adjust their perceptions accordingly.)
  • From Goetter's second link: "It is not known why Daigle was giving his parrot a shower." Ha! I'm glad they pointed that out.
  • Bizarre. The book Fatal Dog Attacks, unless I'm missing something in the blurb, wants to dispell the notion of dogs necessarily being dangerous, certain breeds being naturally more viscious and generally combat the sensationalism of coverage about dogs attacking humans...but the title of the book is Fatal Dog Attacks. I mean, even if I title a book SHARKS FEAST ON HUMANS, and other myths cheerfully debunked you're still going to mainly remember the Sharks Feast on Humans part. Hmm, speaking of which. I'm ready for lunch.
  • When Bears are Hungry they might not feed on humans
  • Life imitating art.The dogs name was Cujo. RIP.
  • Too bad. It's the fault of the idiot owners, and they'll never understand why.
  • Holding the raging dog by it's collar while it gnashed at me on the trail, I said thank you *Sir* to the dog's idiot owner. Reinforcement? Or fear he'd, kind of, lose his grip?
  • You're correct BlueHorse. I listened to an interview on local radio last night. It didn't sound like they wanted to assume any blame for the incident at all. This issue is close to home for me as right now we have a doberman next door that gets off leash fairly often. It seems like a nice dog but is poorly trained and obviously doesn't get a lot of love. I am never crazy about involving the authorities but in this case I think I will and maybe we won't have to be in the nightly news.
  • $61,000+? Because the dog's owner is an idiot? Gee, think she'll have her next dog trained? Think she'll follow court orders on this one? Doubtful. If she couldn't figure it out when her dog was attacking other dogs, I wouldn't allow her to be a dog owner. Once is an accident. Twice in a dog's life--well, sheet happens, even to the best of us. But repeatedly? I'm embarrassed about my dog's behavior because she's a barker around strange people. (a young rescue--but it's still MY problem) (and now she's got a new thing going--she barks at people coming into the yard, but when I call her to come to me, she hides behind them, because she knows she's not supposed to be barking. Then strangers give ME the hairy eyeball. *sighs* I've never beaten her, but there are times I'm tempted to strangle her...damn Border Collies, they always gotta be doing something weird!
  • Speaking of strangling, we're in the middle of house training and you know what a joyride that is. Luckily Bruno seems to be a bright one.
  • Awwwwwwwwaahh! What a cutie.