Re: Need a webpage on pitbulls & breed bans

Paula wrote:

The question is whether you would be able to handle the results if your mileage varied from your parents' experience. Dogs are alone with toddlers without major catastrophe, yes. But will the fact that you were not injured as a child left with dogs make it okay if your dog mauls or kills your child some day? Or would you be thinking over and over that if only you had taken the kids or dogs with you when you left the room, your child would be alive? My dad not only drove tractors as a kid, but was the person designated to get under the tractor and fix it when it stalled out in the field. He is still alive at 81, but I wouldn't have my kids crawl under any tractors. He had some near misses himself, but even if he hadn't, I couldn't live with myself if my kid got run over because I assumed something that could be very dangerous must not be just because my dad survived it without injury.


You've got the risk part of the equation down but not the benefit or the likelihood part.


This came up on another usenet group. A woman had heard about child abductions and sexual abuse from strangers. She was particularly worried about awful things happening to her grandson if he was in a public restroom alone. She said that she knew she embarrassed her grandson by insisting he use the ladies' room with her, but she wasn't taking any chances with allowing him to use the men's room by himself. She said this, and I pictured a 4 year old. The poor kid turned out to be 8! I asked her how old he had to be before he would be allowed to enter a public restroom in a mall by himself. Bad things happen to 12 year olds too. I could imagine him with a driver's license and out on a date but returning to grandma when he needed to pee.


How dangerous is the dog? How trustworthy is the kid? For that matter, if the tractor isn't running, how dangerous is it to crawl under it? (I know little about cars and less about tractors so that's an honest question.)


You have to take into account the harm done in the thousand little cuts to a child's growing competence and confidence that come from over-protection. I don't think a toddler should be left alone with or without a dog. There are playpens and cribs for those moments when Mother has to be alone, whether that's the bathroom or making dinner with pots of boiling water. But after the child and dog have demonstrated an ability to play nicely together, after the child is fully verbal and communicative and not given to sudden unpredictable movements, I don't see why a 5 year old can't be alone with the family St. Bernard while the parents are in the other room reading or talking.


Though it would be horrible if it happened, I don't think that the chance of the family dog going off the deep end and mauling or killing a child are that great.


--Lia

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