How and who exactly should have been the ones to try and secure this dog for 'testing'.
Why should the police or anyone else be the ones to risk their lives and/or injury for the sake of learning about the dogs temperament, and how would those results have helped stop future attacks??

The dog still killed a person, the outcome would be the same, the dog being PTS, you dont really think it should be released back into society , do you !

Yes, there is often a patten, and all the "understanding " in the world wont change this happening again..

The type of owner who buys and breeds for hard dogs , to use as weapons and such, treats them as they do , will have no interest in all the "reasoning " behind the "attack"

That's what they got them for in the first place .

A burglar knows he is committing a crime, being psychoanalyzed is not going to stop him , he will do it regardless.

Drug detection dogs usually work for a toy, which is associated with the scent of what they are looking for and presented as the reward when the indication is made. They are often taught to indicate at a slight distance from where drugs are concealed so they should not come into direct contact with the drugs

the point being, that neither would this dog, unless it was eating the plants directly!

If either of my dogs bit another human being, they would be pts with no hesitation. They wouldn't need any "assessment" by anybody, they crossed the line, and I certainly wouldn't want them biting anybody else! A quick "nip" at the vet is acceptable, but then I'd be sensible enough to have put a muzzle on them prior to walking in that door so it just wouldn't happen. This dog did not "bite" the woman, it ravaged her, it mauled her to death, end of. The reason being, it was unfortunate enough to have been brought up by some moron who used and abused it, and no matter how many assessments you throw at it, that dog would never, ever forget!

Oh wait, maybe we should have assessed it a bit further, then let it go into a rescue, they would see how well it got on with all the helpers in there, and maybe other dogs,and let some nice couple come and adopt it, take it out on nice country walks, until one day it meets a little kid in a pushchair and just so happens, that kid just happens to set up the very same circumstances as happened with this woman last week, so he kills it Maybe it would be pts then, or maybe it wouldn't, it could be assessed further perhaps?

I cannot believe some people are wanting to "assess" this dog WTF I'd assess it alright if it attacked one of MY friends or family, and that would be with a 12 bore!!!! I would feel exactly the same if it was a german shepherd dog too, I'm not racist in the dog world!!! I have no time whatsoever for aggressive dogs (through no fault of their own of course!), there are far too many normal dogs in rescue being walked past and ignored, to waste time on a dog who can never be trusted around humans! That's my twopennorth!

I used to know some people who smoked cannabis and they lived in the close confines of a caravan with their two large mastiff type dogs, males.

It didn't appear to have any effect on the behaviour of these dogs - who would, I suspect, have inhaled the stuff on a fairly regular basis...

They were gorgeous dogs but sadly started fighting when the owners started to have relationship problems. The caravan living meant they could not get away from each other and the dogs sensed the emotional tension.

Good question . Just out of interest, dog who attacked some children in a playground a few years ago, was, it was hinted at, high on drugs. Whether that was correct is unknown to my knowledge.

Wys
x

I think once a dog has mauled a human (especially in a prolonged attack, which this clearly was) then it's simply not safe, and I believe that the dog should be pts or shot, whatever is safest in the immediate circumstances. I personally do not believe the dog itself needed assessing, I think a postmortem might have been useful to check for any physical/brain tumour type problems or similar.

I think the dog probably did what it did due to the circumstances it was kept in, the life it led ... and you cannot blame it for behaving like a dog who was bred to think for itself, which many of these newer molosser types are bred for.

I feel very sorry for everyone, the victim and the dog, but NOT the owner ...

Wys
x

Just for interest---I was involved in rehoming and giving back up to two mastiff type brothers who had belonged to a drug dealer. Both dogs drank water as if it was going out of fashion----not just a lot but gallons. One owner dealt with it by putting loads of bowls down the other limited it but always carried water on walks etc.

I did wonder if it was in any way drug related. One I know has died recently aged under 7.

I wonder also how many people who want the dog assessed have actually faced a REALLY aggressive out of control dog? Then add the size of the mastiff.

rune

I know what drugs dogs are and explosive dogs, I used to assess them for the Police, Army and Prison service. They still do not become "addicted" or otherwise affected by drugs like cannabis in the house, thats madness! Thats like saying all these folk who cultivate the stuff are high all the time, they are not!

Not many!