Dogsey

Well what happened, happened. The dog reacted in a way that is unacceptable and was dismissed from the show. He didn't really bite the judge, though... the man seemed to have moved in time.

He reacted once before the judge finished examining him, it was ignored and the judge kept on. He then turned to snarl (or make some sort of noise) and truly reacted, which caused his glasses to fall off.

The judge IMO should have stopped and dismissed him when he made the first little jumpy move, that could have gotten really ugly, luckily did not. The owner claiming they didn't see that coming kind of bothers me as well, for she should have.

The dog was not looking at the judge when he began to get "nasty" so I think the excuse about the tint of the glasses is just random. Really random...

Instead of making excuses for that dog, I think that this is a good time to remember that dogs can never be truly predictable even when they are normally very, very well behaved.

The "excuse" about the tint of the glasses was made by the judge, not the exhibitor.

I am aware of that, I never said the owner of the dog made that comment. The owner blamed the heat and tiredness of the dog for his actions. She said this along with saying that he is absolutely not an aggressive or unpredictable dog.

Aggressive? I'd not say this was aggression, but if she had no idea he'd do that and he did it... don't see how she can say he's not an unpredictable dog. But to me, any dog must be counted as unpredictable.

As for the judge's comments... he says first that it was his glasses that spooked the dog into reacting like that, which makes no sense as the dog was not looking at him when he "snapped" and then he goes to say it was probably something he did to the dog, when the dog gets the same examination by every judge.

A bit strange, I think. If it were not a show dog with all these titles, nobody would be making excuses for a dog that nearly bit a man in the face. There are no excuses IMO.

Either something the man did to Leo hurt him or made him feel very uncomfortable (looking at the video, I think this is the most likely case), or Leo just decided he didn't want that strange man touching him.

The dog was clearly uncomfortable in the ring as he was being stacked & made to stand, he was panting excessively & TBH had it been my dog, I would have excused myself from the ring before he had been judged.

However saying that, there was a show of not wanting to be handled & as a show dog this should NEVER be the case & the owner should retire the dog from competition, if a dog does not enjoy showing they should not be shown QED(had a few dogs that didn't enjoy breed showing & they were never made to do something they disliked)

Whale eye at the start, attempted head turns, heavy panting, mini freezes all pointed towards the fact that this dog was really uncomfortable for whatever reason. In my opinion, the handler should have spotted this (probably even earlier in the day) and pulled out of the competition.
It was a really hot day and Neapolitan Mastiffs are known not to cope too well with the heat. His head was also tightly pulled up on a chain collar which might have restricted his breathing and blood flow to the brain, and this could have increased his stress, making a reacting more likely.

We need to remember that dogs have bad days too, and we don't know what exactly had been going on that day with this dog, so we can't know. However, I'm convinced this bite didn't come out of nowhere and if the signs had been spotted earlier, it could have been avoided by giving the dog some rest instead of continuing the competition.

IDK anything about professional showing but I do know that in CGC standards (which are usually the standards show dogs must adhere to) cite that the dog should tolerate being handled at any time regardless of the excuses the handler makes.

EVEN if the dog doesn't want to be handled, turning and snapping should never happen. That dog should not be allowed to show again, despite all his titles. That "bite" could have been a LOT worse.

The fact that the handler couldn't tell her dog was distressed (plain as day) means that perhaps she just spent a lot of money on an extremely good quality dog, feeds him very good food etc, and knows little to nothing about dog psyche...

Its so easy to sit on a fence and judge others what they should and should not do..firstly the handler was a male (get that bit right) and accusing him of not knowing anything about a dogs psyche is a bit rich, from my understanding the handler is a member of the breed club, and breeds Neo`s not sure if said dog is bred or bought in, so you can hardy call uneducated.

It was an unbearable hot day, the dog had come straight from breed judging , then vet straight into groups judging, all things could have contributed to the dogs behaviour , its shown at crufts and won other best of breeds so I doubt this dog has shown this behaviour before... it could just be a one off, or not, either way its showing days are over.

We can all sit with hindsight watching it after the event and judge him for not removing the dog sooner, i am sure neither judge or owner wanted that to happen, but at the end of the day its a dog and it just proves that sometimes the unexpected can happen.

I was there that day and the heat was bad enough for me let alone any dog. Up til this event the dog has had many wins and an unblemished record but in the ring on that occasion as can be seen on the video recording made the handler did seem to be over reassuring the dog around his face and possibly made the dog edgy? Personally I don't think the type of glasses the judge wore made any difference and the handler has recognised that this is a very unfortunate thing to happen for the breed.

The type of glasses had absolutely nothing to do with the dogs actions, and because that made no sense... the judge took another route, and said it was something he did to the dog... which also makes no sense The handler claimed the heat and the dogs fatigue caused the bite, which is like whatever.

I just find it funny how many nonsensical excuses they made for that dog. He almost bit a man in the face, point blank period.