As we've seen and said before a dog should never be left unsurpervised with children. Although in this case it seems that both parents were present at the time of the incident. However, who knows what 'may' have gone on before, could the girl have been able to 'tease' the dog? Had she screamed (as girls do when excited etc) in his presence? Either way the dog may have found the situation stressful, i.e. a party enviroment. So I would not have let him roam around - and really this is the responsibility of the owners (therefore not the dogs fault _IF_ it did get a little wound up).

With that said, I would like to see the larger photos you speak of, of before and after treatment so we can see more detail. Could you upload some to photobucket.com and post them for us? (its free)

To be honest, if it was a bite I would expect a puncture wound or at the very least a noticable sctratch under the chin too - but reserve judgement until seeing much larger/detailed photographs - i.e what was presented at court.

I would also add that it is very unlikely that a dog would be released unless there was a very strong case for it being innocent - we all know how much of a frenzy the press have whipped the public into about dogs!!

Yes, looking at the picture of her face it looks clearly like a claw mark, you would expect a lot more bruising from a bite and puncture wounds:



The scratches down her cheek from the pic look just like that - scratches, and as I have said, nails are actually often a LOT sharper having recently been cut so this would in fact, tie in with what you say about his nails being recently cut, having dogs yourself you should know this already? And front dewclaws are usually the sharpest on the foot at the best of times.

I still don't see any other puncture wounds anywhere on her face? The main wound is one long diagonal wound. If it was a bite then as far as I can see, it still must have been accidental as at the most, one tooth could have caught her face and the scratches from the smaller teeth at the front but to be quite honest, a male rottie intending to bite (i.e. non accidental) a child for whatever reason, in a split second would have had her face hanging off, if he meant business, she wouldn't have gotten away with with what she did, she would have needed weeks, months, even years of surgeries had it been a true vicious attack and you;d have had a damn job getting him off. Two hours you say? My mums hysterectomy took longer. I'm sorry i'm just not buying that this dog maliciously attacked, for one he would never have passed temperament tests, do you know what they put dogs through on such tests? Nor would a court have EVER let him go home, they just wouldn't have chanced it, especially with a rottie, if a rottie does something wrong intentionally it has no chance of getting off the hook and very little chance even if it is a genuine accident.

Michelle's dog still seriously hurt Chloe so of course she is going to be upset and worried that a friendship is at steak, that is just human nature.

The only people who know what happened I suppose are the people who were there and I guess no one else will ever know if this is how it goes on so we can only go on our own judgment by the picture of the wounds and the stories from both sides.

Oh and when Michelle allegedly took Bully into the conservatory and 'beat the hell out of him' for what he did, did he turn on her? She must really love him to fight for him like she did, that's all I can say, a lot of owners wouldn't bother and most owners would have gladly had him PTS if they thought he had been in the least bit vicious towards humans, i'm sure Michelle would agree had she thought he meant to intentionally attack Chloe she'd have done the right thing, especially with a baby on the way. And a pregnant woman fighting to keep a dangerous dog?

Doesn't happen often but I agree.

I think Azz has made some very good points.

From my point of view - I am aware that my dog tends to jump up and give the paw in an exuberant way so if we have people around I am careful with respect to interactions, especially with children or older people, to the extent of separation. I heavily supervise all interactions with my own toddler - NOT because I think he would deliberately hurt her but because he is big and jumps around a lot and doesn't realise the damage he could do - I still use safety gates.

When I went into hospital to have my child I had such huge scratches on my legs I was questioned by the midwives . Their faces, when I explained I'd been wrestling with my dog, were a sight to be seen, but it was true!

As a mum, I am careful to educate my little girl about dogs and her behaviour but as she is only young, I take steps to heavily supervise her interactions with other people's dogs.

I don't mean to sound puritanical and I really hope I don't. I am not perfect and accidents happen, but there are steps that can be taken to avoid them as much as possible.

Hello AZZ,

Bully has been socialised with adults, children, horses and other dogs from a very early age, and is in constant contact with.

The new years events were not rowdy there was soft music, playstation and chatting the children were upstairs because thats were they chose to be thats were the toys are!!!!

Yes bully and buscuit (a friends dog) did have free roam downstairs of which they both followed my husband around.

and just to add no-one from our team got on the stand, we did not need to put our case forward with witnesses etc, no i wasnt in the court room but our solicitor, barrister and panel of experts were.

so in conclusion i did not need to be in the room to know what happened..

Kindest regards

Michelle and Bully

PS I CANNOT PM TILL I HAVE 20+ POSTS I AM TRYING

Of course it was distressing, you are a mother and your little girl was hurt, it must have been terrifying for all of you, even Bully. As for the medication you are on and the councilling Chloe receives, no one is saying it was a walk in the park for you to go through but different people take things different ways. People go through a lot less traumatic experiences and still need councilling and medication and others go through much more distressing experiences and refuse it or simply don't need any so that is not a fair point to make and certainly doesn't mean it must have been a bite because you are on medication!

The reasons people are saying it is not a bit is probably because from the pics we have seen, it just doesn't look typical of a bite and also the fact remains, for a rottie bite, she has got off really REALLY lightly even for an accidental bite, i'd expect it to be a lot worse. JMO.

Is it just me or does anyone else find it a bit odd how Lottie brought this up and the very next day we have both the owner and the mum as new members?

Just out of interest, how did you both find us?

I was thinking that too

Hi Random, I know someone from Bull Bread and she phoned me yesterday and told me to look.

and Lottie is sharring her HICCUPS on another thread LOL.

Kindest Regards

Michelle and Bully.

I did think that too...

I was trying to decide if we were being conned but both Michelle and Nikkie were online at the same time