Chocolate Labs Not My Best Friend

maxkicker · Jun 27, 2005

Shineillusion said:

Speaking as a parent, it is virtually impossible to watch children constantly. The phone rings, you have to visit the bathroom, you get a speck in your eye and have to wash it out; life happens. To place responsibility on the victim, or in this case the mother of the victim, is absolutely not fair, especially if she was not present when the incident happened.

If the owner failed to exercise reasonable caution and the dog ran out of the house, resulting in some form of attack, be it a true aggressive action or overly rough play, how is the mother of the victim responsible?

From a purely legal point of view, in most localities the dog owner is responsible for the action of the dog, unless it can be shown that there were mitigating circumstances, such as a dog who bites to defend himself from an attack. A child who pokes a stick in the dog's eye or kicks him in the face would be concidered an attacker. A child who is throwing a ball or riding a toy would not, even if it's possible the dog may view it that way.

If a child is playing on the owners property, with the owners permission to be there, the dog owner is responsible not only for the dog's actions, but is responsible to exercise reasonable caution to protect the wellbeing of the child. They assume that responsibility when they invite or accept the childs presence on their property, especially if the childs parent or guardian is not going to be there.

It's no different than owning a swimming pool and letting the child come over for a swim while Mom goes shopping. It's your pool, it's your responsibility.
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agreed!

elizavixen · Jun 29, 2005

Shineillusion said:

Speaking as a parent, it is virtually impossible to watch children constantly. The phone rings, you have to visit the bathroom, you get a speck in your eye and have to wash it out; life happens. To place responsibility on the victim, or in this case the mother of the victim, is absolutely not fair, especially if she was not present when the incident happened.

If the owner failed to exercise reasonable caution and the dog ran out of the house, resulting in some form of attack, be it a true aggressive action or overly rough play, how is the mother of the victim responsible?

From a purely legal point of view, in most localities the dog owner is responsible for the action of the dog, unless it can be shown that there were mitigating circumstances, such as a dog who bites to defend himself from an attack. A child who pokes a stick in the dog's eye or kicks him in the face would be concidered an attacker. A child who is throwing a ball or riding a toy would not, even if it's possible the dog may view it that way.

If a child is playing on the owners property, with the owners permission to be there, the dog owner is responsible not only for the dog's actions, but is responsible to exercise reasonable caution to protect the wellbeing of the child. They assume that responsibility when they invite or accept the childs presence on their property, especially if the childs parent or guardian is not going to be there.

It's no different than owning a swimming pool and letting the child come over for a swim while Mom goes shopping. It's your pool, it's your responsibility.
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I'm not saying none of this is the dog owner's fault. What I am saying is that as a parent, you are responsible for your child. It seems that too many people don't want to take responsibility but expect everyone else to be responsible for them. If you don't want your kid to get hurt, watch them, or know where they are and don't let them play near a strange dog. If that is too inconvenient, then hire a sitter or don't have kids at all. I'm just saying that b/c where I live, there have been 3 child deaths in like a year, all unattended children, like around 3 yrs old, and people wanted to start banning large breed dogs. Well....I have a large breed dog and that really irritated me b/c I don't want to potentially lose my dog b/c some idiot didn't watch their kid. It just pushes my buttons b/c I go to great lengths to keep my dogs contained and out of trouble, but sometimes it is impossible when the parents just let their kids do whatever. I had one dog who was not very people friendly and kids would run up to him and jump on him and I'd have to try to run away yelling "he's not friendly, go away!" and the parents would do nothing (if they were even there) yet it would be my fault if he snapped at one of the kids. Sorry to rant, I've just had a lot of experiences with unsupervised kids. But bottomline, parents are responsible for their kids no matter where they are (maybe not legally but if you want your kid safe, that is your responsibility).

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Chocolate Labs Not My Best Friend

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