BY JIM HUTCHISON
When pets become predators, man's best friend can be a kid's worst nightmare
IN MAY 1999, Zack Pichor, four, went outside to play with a friend while his father, Randy, repaired the side deck on their Squamish, B.C., townhouse. Moments later a neighbour's dog wandered by and began licking the boy's face. When Zack tried to push it away, the large husky-cross knocked him to the ground and straddled him. Clamping powerful jaws over his skull, the animal proceeded to shake the screaming child like a rag doll.
His father was unable to hear his cries for help, but a neighbour who witnessed the attack raced to the boy's side and managed to haul the dog off.
"Call 9-1-1!" she shouted to Randy. "Your son's head is half ripped off!" Dropping his tools, Randy ran to Zack, who was bleeding but conscious and sobbing.
Emergency-room doctors sutured 14 wounds. Then reconstructive surgery was performed on Zack's right ear, which was almost torn off in an attack that lasted just seconds. The dog was ultimately destroyed, but Zack's mother, Donna, would learn that it was not the first time the animal had jumped the owner's fence. The Pichors are now suing the owner for damages.
THERE are few dog-attack statistics in Canada, but a national poll of 1,211 people, conducted for Reader's Digest, showed roughly 29 percent had either been the victim of a dog attack, or had a child or knew of a child who had been. And a 1996 Health Canada survey of emergency departments across Canada revealed that 57 percent of the dog bites in Canada involved children under ten years of age. A smaller, more detailed study found that the victim knew the dog in 71 percent of cases and lived with the dog in 26 percent.
The U.S. Centres for Disease Control suggests the problem is growing as dog attacks requiring medical treatment soared by 37 percent between 1986 and 1996. Such statistics also apply here, says Michael O'Sullivan, executive director of The Humane Society of Canada.
Nova Scotia veterinarian Steve Noonan suspects the rise in ownership of bigger dogs is fuelling the increase in reported dog bites. "That's not to say small dogs don't bite, but dogs like German shepherds and golden retrievers are capable of inflicting more serious injury."
Potentially aggressive dogs such as pit bulls, rottweilers and Dobermans, can be ticking time bombs when let loose around children. "There's been a huge increase in the number of pit bulls in our neighbourhood," says a Surrey, B.C., mother whose five-year-old son was bitten when he tried to pet an unmuzzled pit bull at Bear Creek Park on September 12, 1998. "Too many pet owners buy these dogs without understanding the risks," she says.
To curb the number of child dog-bite victims, Noonan says, owners must take more responsibility for their pets, and children need to be warned of the dangers. Noonan visits Halifax-area schools to teach children how to avoid dog attacks.
"The vast majority of the four million dogs in Canada never injure anyone, and most bites are preventable," says O'Sullivan, who has run animal shelters across the country. But he cautions owners who think "because their dog is friendly to them, it poses no risk to others." The No. 1 rule for parents, he says, is never leave young children or infants unsupervised around dogs.
While visiting a friend's house in 1996, Christine Hunter of Rockland, Ont., took her eyes off her son Jamie for a few seconds. Having grown up with a Lab, her five-year-old had little fear of dogs and ran up to her friend's dalmatian to offer him a bone. The dog snapped at the child, biting his ear hard enough to draw blood. "We were lucky; it could have been his face," Hunter says.
"It's frightening to see people let their children pat or hug strange dogs," Noonan says. "A dog's only defence if it feels threatened is to bite." Parents need to be more vigilant, Noonan says -- even with their own dog.
On January 30, 1999, Andrea Buckett lay down for a nap at her parents' house in Toronto while her mother put Buckett's 14-day-old baby, Cameron, in another room. Buckett woke to screams from her aunt and ran for Cameron. She nearly fainted at the sight of her baby's bruised and bleeding head.
Her own dog and her parents' dog -- both German shepherds -- had entered the open bedroom door and attacked the baby. After he was rushed to The Hospital for Sick Children, doctors worked for six hours to save his life. Both dogs were destroyed. Today, Cameron has fully recovered, but Buckett has a warning for other parents: "These were dogs we trusted. Never leave young children alone with any dog."
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After being charged for failing to take reasonable precautions with their dogs, owners Jesse McCarroll and William Beierling admitted the dogs sometimes slipped their collars and roamed the neighbourhood. But following a daylong trial on March 14, 2000, they were acquitted of any wrongdoing, as they had left the dogs in a closed shed and the dogs had no history of violent behaviour. A friend had inadvertently set them free.
In another case that stirred public outrage, Dale Howie, 12, of Oshawa was attacked by his neighbour's 45-kilogram rottweiler in May 1998. The dog latched on to his arm and dragged him down the street, but he managed to escape. Two weeks later the dog knocked him down again and sank its teeth into his inner thigh. Screaming for help, Dale tried to cover his face and neck as the dog tore at him. "It was trying to kill me," he says. "I would have died if a neighbour hadn't dragged the dog off."
The owner, David Cooke, refused to have the animal destroyed and was ordered to muzzle it in public. But after Dale nearly came face-to-face with the dog again and ran into nearby woods to escape, Cooke had the animal put down. "It's unacceptable to let dangerous dogs roam about attacking children," says David Howie, Dale's father. Even worse, he adds, "there is nothing to stop Cooke from getting another dog."
Indeed, Ontario's Dog Owners' Liability Act does not prevent a person from owning another dog after an incident.
Like some municipal pounds across the country, Vancouver's has seen an increase in vicious dogs being impounded. "It's no mystery why they attack people," says Barbara Fellnermayr, manager of Vancouver Animal Control. "Owners train them to be aggressive, neglect and abuse them, and leave these otherwise highly social animals isolated and locked up in the backyard."
In January 1995 an unleashed pit bull savaged and killed a Labrador retriever 300 metres from two schools in Kitchener. Police officers gave chase for ten kilometres through the streets, shooting at the rampaging animal. Fifteen shots were fired before it was killed.
That was the last straw for city councillor Berry Vrbanovic, who had seen a steady increase in pit bulls terrorizing and attacking residents in his ward. He began a campaign to have them banished from the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo.
Support for the bylaw was strong. One of the first breed-specific bans in Ontario, which also included strict safety rules for existing pit bulls in Kitchener, it was enacted in 1997. "In the two years before the ban, we had 18 pit-bull attacks," says Kitchener-Waterloo SPCA officer Jamie Laflamme. "Since then we've had only four reported incidents." Vrbanovic hopes new provincial legislation will simplify the process for Ontario municipalities wanting to enact breed-specific bylaws.
Fellnermayr wants to see a clampdown on backyard puppy mills. "They sell puppies under the table for $300 each," she says. "They just churn them out, interbreeding brothers and sisters, crossbreeding and creating unstable dogs that are potentially very dangerous." The Pichors were shaken to discover the husky that attacked their son Zack was part wolf and that other pups from the same litter were sold to people in the area.
SHOULD you decide to adopt a dog at your local animal shelter, remember that dogs with a history of aggressive behaviour are not a good choice. Sharon Appler took a five-year-old part-German shepherd home from the Winnipeg Humane Society. A worker had told her the previous owners brought it in because it bit a child. But her children were older and the dog seemed so friendly that she didn't think they would have trouble with it.
A week later, when their daughter Carly, 12, was playing with the dog in the living room, it bit her on the thigh. A few days later it sank its teeth into her husband's arm. When it began growling at their older daughter, they knew they could never trust the dog so they returned it and adopted a gentle collie-cross named Keesha.
After Courtney Trempe, eight, of Toronto, was killed in a neighbour's backyard by their 54-kilogram bullmastiff on April 29, 1998, there was a public outcry demanding action to curb dog attacks on children. At the end of the inquest, the Coroner's jury made 36 recommendations, which it hoped to see adopted in jurisdictions across the country. The recommendations included requiring dog owners to take a course in responsible pet ownership, making dog-bite prevention programs part of the school curriculum and creating a provincial dog-bite reporting agency. But since the tragedy, little has been done.
Now six, Zack Pichor still has nightmares about the dog attack and is receiving therapy. "His hair has grown over the scars, but the emotional damage is still with him," says his mother. "Yes, our kids have to be taught that not all dogs are cuddly and friendly, but dog owners need to be more responsible as well. One more child mauled is one too many."
What will you do if facing an angry dog? ... Take the Quiz
Interview with Stanley Coren
BY MICHELE MELERAS
Stanley Coren is a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who has authored several books on canines, including Why We Love the Dogs We Do. For further information, visit his web site at stanleycoren.com
Is there such a thing as a bad breed?
There are some dogs that have been bred to be suspicious, to be guard dogs. And there are some breeds that I certainly trust a lot less than other dogs since they're designed to be sharper -- to have spontaneous aggression. An example of that is the Akita. Another example is the dalmatian. And I would be much more suspicious of a Kuvasz, maybe even a chow chow, than I would a Doberman.
Are there any dogs that have bad reputations but are not necessarily vicious?
North-American Doberman breeders have changed their breeding standards over the years and have produced a wonderfully stable working dog. In Europe though, they still like their dogs sharp.
Breeders have also begun to calm the rottweiler down, so that they are basically quite stable dogs. Their big problem is of course their size. Pound for pound, they are the strongest dogs in dogdom.
What about the pit bull?
Pit bull is a term that encompasses crosses of breeds with the bullterrier, the Staffordshord bull terrier or the American Staffordshord terrier. It's not in their genes for these dogs to be vicious. But nefarious breeders are taking rottweilers and backcrossing them with Staffordshord terriers to produce a more aggressive dog. They are systematically breeding biological weapons. These dogs get out into the population and give a bad reputation to the vast majority of other dogs.
Can you rehabilitate a bad dog?
Ninety-five percent of all dogs are flexible enough if you catch them young. The best way to take a dog and make it non-vicious is obedience training it and socialization. A socialized dog is a good dog. In the first year of its life, expose it to 200 people and take it to 50 or 60 places. What you'll end up with is a dog that is not excited by the appearance of a new person or by a new place. This is good advice for any dog, but for those that have a predisposition towards problems, it's a necessity.
So some dogs are indeed hopeless?
There are some dogs that are genetically flawed if they're deliberately manipulated, and there's not a thing you can do about it.
How do you feel about breed-specific bans?
What ought to happen is the following: If your dog does substantial damage, then you ought to be slapped with a heavy fine. If you make the owner accountable, then you get self-monitoring that will stop off-lead dogs and will stop people from getting dangerous breeds.
What about prohibiting an owner from getting another dog after an attack?
If it can be shown that the owner was negligent, then it's a reasonable thing to do. But it is possible for a responsible owner to not have a sound dog and for there to be an incident. In some cases, the dog may be provoked. Under these circumstances, I don't think the owner is culpable because diligence was followed.
How can a dog incident be avoided?
If you act frightened, you start to generate certain pheromones, a biological odour, that the dog can detect. So stay cool. Don't stare a dog in the face. Don't put your hand over the dog's head. Talk in high-pitched tones. Offer the dog the back of your hand. If the dog comes up and touches you, rub its ears and fondle its head.
Should parents expecting a baby get rid of their dog?
No. The psychological evidence shows that kids who grow up in a household with a dog have a higher social IQ and are less likely to have problems. In general a well-trained dog gives unconditional positive regard and kids tend to see the dog as a companion.
Should families with children avoid getting certain breeds?
If you have really young babes, big dogs can cause problems simply because of their size. So if you're going to get a big dog, choose a relatively inactive one like a Newfoundland or a Great Dane. Or get a sucky-faced dog like a Lab or a golden retriever. Both dogs are about as friendly as you can get, and they're bright, so they're easy to train.
Otherwise, get a small, companion dog like a toy spaniel, a Pekingese or a Tibetan terrier.
What advice do you have for people in the market for a dog?
Always err in the direction of a smaller, less active dog. Never, ever base your decision on big glossy images of a dog. Go out and see it in the real world. Don't get a dog in a pet store. They tend to be puppy-mill dogs, dogs that are bred under bad conditions by people who don't worry about genetic control -- people who don't give a damn.
How do you know whether you have control over your dog?
Does your dog listen to what you say? If you tell your dog to sit, does it sit? The leader of the pack doesn't have to take commands from anybody.
What kind of dog do you own?
I just lost my absolute favourite. A cavalier King Charles spaniel. It's a beautiful dog. The kind of dog you see in all those Victorian paintings, with full-flowing tail. I have a flat-coated retriever, a dog too active to live in the city, really. My younger dog is a Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever. I like retriever temperament. Most retrievers are kissy-face and very attentive towards people. I very seldom repeat a breed because I don't like living with the ghost of a former dog.