I just mean a snap is a snap, not an attack - whether it's an immediate response to pain or to another situation it feels inappropriate. No, it's not good for a dog to snap when it feels challenged by a human, but a dog needs to learn the difference between interacting with a dog and interacting with humans. A 7 month old puppy is bound to make mistakes and unfortunately in this circumstance it had a rather horrible outcome. The dog is not entitled to respond aggressively but a human is not "entitled" to do whatever they want to a dog and expect a perfect, "acceptable" response every time.
No one is saying that the dog should be left to snap as it pleases and that there was no element of mistake in the dog's reaction, but any dog has the potential to snap. It's the parents who are the responsible humans here, equipped to make much more informed decisions and appropriate actions than an animal, they should be the ones to have prevented the child being so near to the dog in a potentially risky situation.
Dogs aren't perfect, they aren't risk-free, we need to accept that and be constantly aware of it. Any dog could snap for no particular reason, a dog could suddenly pull a child out into a road, it could bowl a child over and cause accidental injury, they're not predictable robots. Yes, we're making assumptions but I really don't believe this puppy was acting in a truly aggressive way and I feel pretty confident it will go on to be a perfectly normal dog with no aggression issues if the new owners put the time in to teaching it boundaries and manners it may not have been taught in its previous home.

I think the descriptions given of the dog, the scenario, etc. point much more towards the non-aggressive assumptions made than the "deadly dog" ones though. The dog did not get up to bite the child - suggests it did not really mean it, if it wanted to attack the child viciously I'm sure it would have had time before the parents could reach it. The child was sat on the floor near the dog, which implies its face was level with the dogs and that a bite to the face was probably the most logical thing, rather than an intentional aim for the face. The dog growled a warning which indicates it was uncomfortable, if the dog was aware enough to growl then there may well have been other subtle bits of body language that could've been missed. The dog had not "attacked" in the past - nips are pretty normal in puppihood but there were no mentions of previous unwarranted "attacks" to suggest an aggressive nature - the very fact that they trusted the dog to be near the child on the floor suggests they had no major worries about it. Plus the owner was prepared for the breeder to take it back, which suggests the injuries caused weren't so severe that the owner believed the dog 110% was dangerous and needed to be PTS. I don't think we're making totally insane assumptions here.

Entitled isn`t a word I`d use about an animal. Is a cow entitled to protect her calf? Is a deer entitled to run into the road and cause an accident? Is a horse entitled to chuck you off?
You see, we fall easily into the trap of expecting our companion animals to share our emotions and feelings and sometimes expect them to share our understanding as well.
An animal doesn`t understand our laws - or even the way we live. Food appears, people come and go. Occasionally very short people act in an unpredictable and frightening way. To us it`s a childrens party. To a dog it`s another strange event in a mystifying life. (He can`t poop here but can there; .can I eat here but not there.. etc). The dog has merely learned through experience what is the best thing to do in certain circumstances. Dogs don`t think stuff through - they can`t.
So if an animal bites, it`s not `bad` or `naughty` or `vicious` because those are himan words. The dog reacts to a situation in a way that seems likely to succeed. If growling a warning doesn`t work, he can only fight or flee. And if he really wants to keep his dinner then fight it is.
It is our fault for putting the dog in that situation.

Thank you for your long reply but, as I said before, I wasn't posting in response to this situation, more the general points that other posters were making. Perhaps I should have started a new thread?

I didn't describe everyone's assumptions as 'totally insane' and never would - everyone has a right to their own opinion, however they arrived at it!

Interesting study here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1109133233.htm

Young, Unsupervised Children Most at Risk for Dog Bites, Study Shows; Dogs Often Target a Child's Face and Eyes

ScienceDaily (Nov. 9, 2010) — As dog bites become an increasingly major public health concern, a new study shows that unsupervised children are most at risk for bites, that the culprits are usually family pets and if they bite once, they will bite again with the second attack often more brutal than the first.
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The study, the largest of its kind, was done by Vikram Durairaj, MD, of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who found that dogs usually target a child's face and eyes and most often it's a breed considered 'good' with children, like a Labrador retriever.

"People tend to think the family dog is harmless, but it's not," said Durairaj, associate professor of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, who presented his study last month at the American Academy of Ophthalmology's annual meeting. "We have seen facial fractures around the eye, eye lids torn off, injury to the tear drainage system and the eyeball itself."

Some wounds are so severe that patients require multiple reconstructive surgeries.

Durairaj said dog bites are especially devastating to children because they are smaller and their faces are within easy reach of the animal's mouth. The likelihood of a child getting bitten in their lifetime is around 50 percent with 80 percent of those bites involving the head and neck.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year and 885,000 require medical attention. The total cost is estimated at up to $250 million.

The study looked at 537 children treated for facial dog bites at The Children's Hospital on the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus between 2003 and 2008. Durairaj found that 68 percent of bites occurred in children 5-years-old or younger with the highest incidence in 3-year-olds. In the majority of cases, the child knew the dog through the family, a friend or a neighbor. And more than half the time, the dog was provoked when the child petted it too aggressively, startled or stepped on it.

The dogs were not breeds usually associated with attacks. Durairaj found that mixed breeds were responsible for 23 percent of bites followed by Labrador retrievers at 13.7 percent. Rottweilers launched attacks in 4.9 percent of cases, German shepherds 4.4 percent of the time and Golden retrievers 3 percent. The study was done in the Denver area where pit bulls are banned.

"What is clear from our data is that virtually any breed of dog can bite," Durairaj said. "The tendency of a dog to bite is related to heredity, early experience, later socialization and training, health and victim behavior."

He stressed that familiarity with a dog is no guard against attack and if a dog bites once, it will likely bite again with the second attack often more vicious that the first. The first time a dog bites, he said, it should be removed from the home.

"I was called in to see a dog bite. A girl had a puncture wound to her lip. Two days later I saw the same girl, but this time her eyelids were torn off and she had severe scalp and ear lacerations," Durairaj said. "The onus is on parents to recognize aggressive breeds as well as behaviors and never allow their young children to be left unsupervised around any dog."