Campaign starts to adopt dog that killed Alberta baby

[JayP]

Originally Posted by J pold

The reason to kill the dog is twofold, the only way to have a true guarantee that this incident will never happen again is to put the dog the down, but also the nature of the dogs being, it is an animal and therefore should be treated with a different moral standard.

Then shouldn't all female dogs who've had litters be taken out of homes with young children? I don't think you're understanding the difference between a behavioral issue and instinctual issue. Any dog in the same circumstances is just as capable of doing the exact same thing. This is something that is impossible to train or breed out of animals and simply a risk humans have to accept by bringing them into our homes.

And as I said earlier, other dogs out there are much, much more likely of having a similar incident simply because the adoption process would be very strict and the dog would be placed in a home where it would never be in the same situation ever again.

[Zevo]

Originally Posted by puckluck

I understand why this thread has garnered so much traffic, I just think it very sad we hear more about a dog being killed than a human being executed. I also wonder if the people who are against the killing of the dog are also against the death penalty.

Rodrigo Hernandez was just executed in Texas about a week ago..what was the point of that? Where was all the media coverage?

Wow, what a stupid arguement. I'm guessing if a dog raped and murdered people, everybody would be on side with putting it down.

[Aegypticus]

So if the dog hadn't been put down, there's a one in a billion shot that it's involved in another incident like this one in the future. On the one hand we have the life of a dog. On the other hand we have an almost zero, but not nonexistent, chance that a dog that has killed before (regardless of intent) kills another human. I'd say the choice is pretty clear.

Kill the dog.

[Eric Vail]

Originally Posted by JayP

Then shouldn't all female dogs who've had litters be taken out of homes with young children? I don't think you're understanding the difference between a behavioral issue and instinctual issue. Any dog in the same circumstances is just as capable of doing the exact same thing. This is something that is impossible to train or breed out of animals and simply a risk humans have to accept by bringing them into our homes.

And as I said earlier, other dogs out there are much, much more likely of having a similar incident simply because the adoption process would be very strict and the dog would be placed in a home where it would never be in the same situation ever again.

If every dog had the same level of risk that this one did, wouldn't we be having these incidents all the time.

The fact that most people's dogs don't kill their babies seems to indicate that this is not an instinct that every dog has.

If every dog was a threat to a babies life, then no dog should be allowed to be near them. I think the millions of cases of dogs and babies co-existing without problems are evidence that evey dog isn't a risk.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Aegypticus

So if the dog hadn't been put down, there's a one in a billion shot that it's involved in another incident like this one in the future. On the one hand we have the life of a dog. On the other hand we have an almost zero, but not nonexistent, chance that a dog that has killed before (regardless of intent) kills another human. I'd say the choice is pretty clear.

Kill the dog.

Well then you might as well kill all dogs since there's is a chance ALL of them could do the same act this dog did.

[Aegypticus]

Originally Posted by Joborule

Well then you might as well kill all dogs since there's is a chance ALL of them could do the same act this dog did.

The vast majority of dogs have not killed a human. I'm talking specifically about the chance that a dog is allowed to live after it has killed a person and it ends up doing it again.

[Eric Vail]

double post

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Aegypticus

The vast majority of dogs have not killed a human. I'm talking specifically about the chance that a dog is allowed to live after it has killed a person and it ends up doing it again.

But if we're playing a game of chances, and the chance of the now dead dog was very low to occur (since people who determine if the dog should be killed or not decided death wasn't necessary), why are we taking the chance with other dogs, where there is the same low chance of those killing a baby no matter the circumstances?

Wouldn't you figure benefit of the doubt should be a factor here? It's not like the dog mawl this baby down and tore it to shreds. It was trying to help and nurse it based on reports (I guess that's evil and it must burn in hell). If you want to take precautions with the dog so this doesn't happen again, is placing the dog in a household which doesn't house a infant still not enough to negate the chance of the dog doing this a second time?

[puckluck]

Originally Posted by Zevo

Wow, what a stupid arguement. I'm guessing if a dog raped and murdered people, everybody would be on side with putting it down.

It's not an argument. Try reading better.

[jhunt223]

14 pages in and the people in the kill the dog camp still haven't come up with a reason for killing it that doesn't basically break down to " 'cuz " when any scrutiny is applied to their argument. You idiots are wrong.

[Aegypticus]

Originally Posted by Joborule

But if we're playing a game of chances, and the chance of the now dead dog was very low to occur (since people who determine if the dog should be killed or not decided death wasn't necessary), why are we taking the chance with other dogs, where there is the same low chance of those killing a baby no matter the circumstances?

Wouldn't you figure benefit of the doubt should be a factor here? It's not like the dog mawl this baby down and tore it to shreds. It was trying to help and nurse it based on reports (I guess that's evil and it must burn in hell). If you want to take precautions with the dog so this doesn't happen again, is placing the dog in a household which doesn't house a infant still not enough to negate the chance of the dog doing this a second time?

There's a big difference between taking the chance with a dog who has no history of this sort of thing and taking the chance with a dog that has killed before. Can you imagine the story if that ever happened?

"Dog Kills Second Child"

It doesn't matter what the circumstances of the original incident were. The backlash and cost would be enormous. Original owners vilified. Family of the second child either outraged or emotionally crushed, depending on if they were the new owner or not. On and on down the line.

The cost of eliminating the chance of this very specific and horrifying scenario from ever happening is one dog's life. Worth killing the dog to take it off the table.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by jhunt223

14 pages in and the people in the kill the dog camp still haven't come up with a reason for killing it that doesn't basically break down to " 'cuz " when any scrutiny is applied to their argument. You idiots are wrong.

WTF are you talking about? It's killed once. We don't want it to ever have the opportunity to do that again. The only way to do this with 100% certainty is to put it down.

Like we do with bears.

And cougars.

And crocodiles.

Etc.

You don't have to agree with it, but quit pretending our position doesn't make complete sense.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by Joborule

Well then you might as well kill all dogs since there's is a chance ALL of them could do the same act this dog did.

That's what people need to understand. It's not a behavioral thing that you can train. It's an instinctual response that is impossible to train out of an animal. We can train our dogs all we want, but there's always going to be the chance that some isolated incident snaps them back into their natural instincts. It's a risk dog owners need to realize and is not isolated to any breed or specific dog.

[jhunt223]

Originally Posted by Sliver

WTF are you talking about? It's killed once. We don't want it to ever have the opportunity to do that again. The only way to do this with 100% certainty is to put it down.

Like we do with bears.

And cougars.

And crocodiles.

Etc.

You don't have to agree with it, but quit pretending our position doesn't make complete sense.

Those are wild animals. Dogs are domesticated animals. We can control domesticated animals by restricting them to certain conditions. Put that dog in a house without newborns and with competent owners and the chance it kills a newborn again is 0%. 0. Not 0.00000000000000001. It's 0%........ 'cuz

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Aegypticus

There's a big difference between taking the chance with a dog who has no history of this sort of thing and taking the chance with a dog that has killed before. Can you imagine the story if that ever happened?

"Dog Kills Second Child"

It doesn't matter what the circumstances of the original incident were. The backlash and cost would be enormous. Original owners vilified. Family of the second child either outraged or emotionally crushed, depending on if they were the new owner or not. On and on down the line.

The cost of eliminating the chance of this very specific and horrifying scenario from ever happening is one dog's life. Worth killing the dog to take it off the table.

But if that dog is not in the presence of baby (a fragile two day old at that), then the likelihood of that headline is pretty much nonexistent.

There are a lot of different ways that children and adults can die, which occur at a much larger rate than fluke dog death. In fact that's exactly what this is, a fluke. **** happens since that's just the way of life; risk of death is always present. Having the assumption that this dog is going to be a serial killer and kill each baby it sees a fairly extreme hyperbolic view, since you're basing this on a assumption that's unlikely to happen.

It was a pure accident where the dog showed no aggression apparently. Since harming the child wasn't intended, I just don't see how death towards the dog can be justified. This was a case of that 0.0000000001% chance of death occurring. We live in a random probability universe; we can't make life/death decision based off of those.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by jhunt223

Those are wild animals. Dogs are domesticated animals. We can control domesticated animals by restricting them to certain conditions. Put that dog in a house without newborns and with competent owners and the chance it kills a newborn again is 0%. 0. Not 0.00000000000000001. It's 0%........ 'cuz

It's more than 0%, guy.

[Aegypticus]

Originally Posted by Joborule

But if that dog is not in the presence of baby (a fragile two day old at that), then the likelihood of that headline is pretty much nonexistent.

Yep, and the cost of making it completely nonexistent is one dog's life. Totally worth it.

[jhunt223]

I get the sense this is basically who I'm up against.



There's really just no point in continuing this discussion.

[Aegypticus]

I think there's just a large disparity between how highly people value the life of a dog. To me, the life of a single human infant is worth more than the lives of every dog on the planet.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by jhunt223

I get the sense this is basically who I'm up against.



There's really just no point in continuing this discussion.

Either it's that guy, or this guy.