After reading posts here most people ARE IN FAIRYLAND! ALL dogs have the capacity to harm. They are animals, not small humans. They do not think like us. They DO NOT THINK AT ALL! Dogs can turn on anyone or any other animal without notice, although there are circumstances where their behaviour is imminently predictable. Once again, it's hard to figure the rationale people have in defence of THEIR dog.

From a psychological perspective a dog takes over with it's natural instinct when it's owner's(men's)instinct is missing. Another important comparison which should be looked at is criminal behavior occurring after intake of medications.If it happens to humans it can happen to animals.There follows the question:What is in the animal vaccines? If a schoolboy shooting/killing people for no apparent reason, gets now finally to be looked at in regards to medicine intake,wouldn't you look at medically induced and manipulated natural and pre-seeded behavior of animals? One would think so! Being pack animals it would be unwise to introduce a new life into the family circle and not expect the mature ones to bring the newly born up to their own level as survival machines.Look at the way adult and young animals play roughians with one another. When in distress or danger they are picked up by the neck and brought to safety. Does any dog get training how to pick up a baby by the neck? If nature takes its course does a dog know how tender a human babies neck is, and when it stops breathing after being carried away,nature tells it to shake life back into it.(we civilized take this as mauling) Did you you the smile on that dogs face being led into this van? He probably thought he did all he could to save the child. Who knows.Dogs should only be brought into a family circle as a pup after the children are born and not before, as their instinct will tell them to protect the unit/family. I'd say find that dog a new home amongst adults and support this family over the loss of their first born.A license with training to keep a dog or wild animal would be a great idea especially with young families.Happy new year to you all!

My last 2007 666 dog-bikkies worth.

Galah, the thread is about the differences in dogs, while I had made up my mind not to get into one posters head differences in breeds matters.
But it is the difference in owners that matters more.
Blues ,Shepard's, Kelpies, bully's, black and white Colly's, had them all and more never trained one to defend me.
Now my country town Utes are mid north coast ones, meditation vegetation farmers ones.
Rottys bully's pit bulls all trained to hate, more rubbish in the front of the Ute than the back, no not every Ute but too many.
Yet the ones that mostly kill live in houses or yards ask the owners, no my dog is safe they will tell you, rubbish.

galah, your statement is absolutely correct. to the question 'do we need savage dogs ? NO ! & neither do we need their owners. Pets, to a great %age are a reflection of their owners' mentality. I know of a 7th day advenurer religious fanatic who set his dogs onto pigs under the hypocritical pretence of ridding the bush of vermin. He actually jumped onto the pig after the dogs had mauled it to his satisfaction (& safety of course) and commenced stabbing it in a frenzy. when you see those sort of characters heading into the bush with their dogs it all becomes self-explanatory. City kept large dogs which turn on their owners or on children are quite often of a breed which is totally unsuitable as a pet. I mean Rotweilers in a flat or insufficiently large yard is a recipé for disaster. this fact is, tragically, demonstrated so often.

Belly, I don't know much about dog breeds.
Looking around me, almost all of my neighbours have one or more dogs. While some of the neighbours are good dog owners, others seem to ignore their dogs.
No only the dogs suffer boredom, but the neighbours have to put up with a lot of barking as well.

Dogs need attention and some of our time.
The reason why I don't have a dog is because I'm not sure that I could give it all the attention a dog deserves.

I do think that there is always some danger of having a dog in the presence of small children. I'm not sure if there are any dogs that can be guaranteed to be 100% safe around children, in the same way that we can't be 100% sure that a child won't drown in a fenced, backyard pool.

This is a website that may be of interest to dog lovers with children:
"Reliability With Children
Dogs best with Children, Which dog is good for my kid?"

http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/children.htm#K

The Savage - Man or Beast?

http://www.maria-daines.com/music-61.html