Boy killed by family dog

Dogs have recently been well discussed in this country, especially Rotweilers.

Last Saturday a ten year old boy was killed in southern Finland when attacked by at least by one of the family’s two dogs, Rotweilers, in their own home yard. There were no eyewitnesses to the incident and the boy died on the spot due to the inflicted injuries and the two dogs were later on put down by the vet. Neither one of the two dogs had previously shown any behaviour out of the ordinary nor do the police have any suspicions of the incident having been set up.

Rotweilers are prohibited in many countries as they are considered as hard to cope with and being “one man’s dogs”. More commonly Rotweilers are bread as guarding dogs and sometimes even brought up as fighting dogs. Here in Finland the breeder's association has taken care to breed a more social type of dog, and a Rotweiler expert at the Veterinarian institute of the Helsinki University considers this attack as quite unusual for Finnish Rotweilers.

Who is to say why this sad incident took place, whether the boy made something that caused the dogs to attack him or the dogs just flipped. One thing is for sure, no matter how friendly a dog normally is, it still is an animal that is unpredictable. Guess that is how life is, things happen and not always nice things, unfortunately.

An acquaintance had a friendly, very sociable little dog when the offspring was small; unfortunately I have no idea of the breed but one of these nowadays so popular lap-dog breeds it was. He was always prancing around, playing with the kids and wagging his tail until one day out of the blue he just snapped and bit one of the toddlers in the face. Must have been the size that was convenient, and unfortunately it was my offspring he attacked and was scarred for life. Anyway, as I was standing right next to the dog and child when it happened I can vouch there was nothing preceding that could have caused the attack. Still it happened. Our family dog instead, a sturdy Basset-hound girl now long ago dead, she only used to growl low, stand up and leave the scene when the offspring got too friendly with her as she was napping the day away.

Still, she did not bite, she never used to, and I always said she hasn’t bitten anyone until this day but you never can be sure. And puppies and kittens are always on the go with grinding their teeth on everything and anything, no matter how much you try to make them stop. The itch must be terrifying.