03/13/2019
Disturbing, but a good read about the Huskies who attacked the boy and ate his arm...
I could not agree with this woman more. Something I learned 20 years ago from my Veterinarian
"Ok, we've all seen the headline about the two huskies that amputated a 4 year old child's arm. I have been asked my thought in several PMs. As a behaviorist/trainer, as a dog
breeder, as an owner and as an advocate for responsible animal stewardship, my thoughts are as follows.
I don't trust the news media. Not at all. Headlines sell. That is a hard and fast fact in this world. Get the drop on the competition, break the story, damn the facts, get the exclusive. Don't trust the media and most certainly do not don't trust their narrative. I'm not interested in the sensationalism or the rampant guessing and fabrication that goes into a media covered story. All I want to know are the facts. Once I have them, I ask myself, "What makes sense?" I usually don't have to take a step from there to be able to see the truth.
We live in a society that wants to save every dog. While that isn't a bad thing all the time, there are definitely times where we need to give pause and really consider what we are doing with this thought process. The loss of life, whether it be human or animal, is not something to take lightly. It would be wonderful if we could save them all, but more importantly we should be asking ourselves: SHOULD we try and save them all? It's a rhetorical question, meant only to get you thinking, but it's important that you do think about it before coming to your own conclusion. Now onto the huskies.
A few days ago, a little boy lost his hand and arm up to the elbow to a dog (or dogs) that then ate the body parts they removed. The little boy was in his yard. The huskies were in their yard. A young boy, next to young dogs, all with long lives ahead of them. A few days ago, all of that changed. What we do know is that one of the dogs (based on what I have seen so far) attacked the boy under the fence resulting in multiple bite wounds, over his body, black eyes, and severe bruising to his face and jaw. Absolutely horrific injuries for a child that age, regardless of cause, and that is without mentioning the amputation of one arm from the elbow down.
So how this all went down in under debate. According to the owner of the dogs, they were innocently playing in their yard and then the devil child next door stuck a sock covered arm under the fence and her innocent babies were overwhelmed with their desire to play. Mistaking the socked arm for a dog toy and engaging in the most exciting tug game of their lives, our innocent dogs were the victims of careless parents and their inappropriately dressed child. According to the parents, the little boy was outside with his father, playing in his yard while wearing mittens and a hole in the fence allowed one of the two dogs enough space and leverage to grab the child and attempt to pull him back through that same hole. The father was able to eventually scare the dogs back from the fence long enough to pull his child to safety.
Two families, two stories, only one witness to the actual attack and as usual my thoughts are that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. What preceded the attack? Was it one dog or both? Were the dogs antagonized? Did they simply strike when the saw opportunity? Did just one dog eat the severed limb or did they both? What if I told you that it didn't matter? What if I told you that there was more than enough information here for a decision to be made? What if for one moment we set aside the "gotta save them all" mantra and instead we look at the behavioral aspect of this tragedy and saw it for it really was?
What happened a few days ago was tragic. It was traumatic, life changing and horrific. There is enough information available and enough known facts to draw a few conclusions and the biggest and most glaring is that THIS IS NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOR. I feel like this is being missed in the grand scheme of things. Regardless of motive or intent, this was not ok in any stretch of the imagination. This may surprise some of you, but dogs can smell humans. In fact, smell, taste and touch are the ONLY senses dogs are born with. Sight and hearing? They show up later. It bares repeating, the strongest and most developed senses a dog have are touch, taste and SMELL.
Those dogs knew that there was a human on the other side of the fence long before they heard or saw him. Yes, even with mittens and socks on him, they still would have smelled him. If search an rescue dogs required their subjects to be naked in order to be located we would have a lot more missing people. There is no excuse for a domesticated dog to not recognize human scent. The idea is absurd. A dog can detect odor in parts per TRILLION. Tell me again they didn't know that was a child.
There are dogs bred specifically to have high prey drive. This would be the drive responsible for a dog seeing a dancing sock and making the decision to grab it and give it a good shake. These breeds bred to have high prey drive, prey drive higher than your average pet husky, are not ripping off limbs and consuming body parts. I've been working with some of these breeds for years and I still have all ten fingers and all ten toes and wonder of all wonders, none of them have consumed parts of a human child. That would be because the removal and ingestion of human limbs is not normal behavior for domesticated canines.
These dogs are not fit for a polite and civilized society. They do not deserve a second chance. They should not have the opportunity to do the same or similar again. The behavior was abhorrent. It was against the norm of the behavioral spectrum. This was not a bite. This was a prolonged and sustained attack. It was vicious, it was uncalled for and there are zero reasons for these two dogs to continue living. If they find that one dog had no part and the other was solely responsible, then fine. Save the dog that should be saved. As things stand right now, it's a no from me." -Jen Rainey
