Posted on 18th Aug 2011 @ 10:15 AM

Dog Kills Child in Melbourne

We wake to a child being killed in Melbourne today, what a horrific thing to experience. My thoughts go out to the family of the child and the family of the dog, I am sure both are suffering today.

All dogs can bite, even a small dog can kill a small child and no matter how much we trust our dogs, circumstances change quickly and all of a sudden the dog can see things in a different light.

It would be futile to try and speculate on what happened when all we have to go on is the news report and we know how (in) accurate they can be. We received a call this morning at K9 Pro HQ from a Melbourne journalist asking if I would come to Melbourne and assess the dog, we are discussing this now as to the importance and possible outcomes.

I don’t buy into the BSL argument; it has been proven time and time again to be pointless and ineffective, but what isn’t pointless is understanding that having a dog is a privilege, and that privilege can be taken from us, that privilege also comes with responsibility.

A responsibility to raise our animals correctly and train them well, often and to be able to mix with people. People that have a dog that is reactive to other dogs, children, adults etc need to consider getting some professional help which will include an solid animal management plan.

Don’t wait until it is too late. Attacks like these are preventable.

Having children myself makes cases like this a sensitive issue for me, the thought of one of my children being harmed makes me feel sick.

Further sickening is the knowledge that dog attacks will continue to happen without more education on why they occur and how to prevent them.

Hug your kids and your dogs...