Why do pet dogs turn into killers?
Puppy owners have a "golden time period" of five months to train a friendly, sociable dog and prevent incidents like the deadly pitbull terrier attack in Johannesburg this week, says an animal behaviourist.
"You must do it before they are 5-months-old," said Quixi Sonntag, a lecturer in animal behaviour at the faculty of veterinary science at Onderstepoort in Pretoria.
A 74-year-old woman from Eldorado Park in Johannesburg was mauled to death this week by her son's two pitbull terriers, which attacked her while she was watering the garden.
"It is extremely important to make sure that a young dog is correctly socialised. From as little as a few weeks up to four months is the golden time period," said Sonntag.
"You should be exposing your puppies to sound, handling, going to different places, different surfaces, difference races, big people, little people."
If this was not done, an older dog might be scared of the unknown and could react with aggression to a situation it was not comfortable with.
This was especially important in breeds that tended to be more aggressive, like guard dogs, terrier breeds and specifically the fighting breeds.
Sonntag said fighting dogs such as terriers were bred to fight without giving their victim any warning, unlike other dog breeds which would normally first give warning signs.
"They are originally bred not to show warning signs, they were bred to jump in and fight."
The obvious warning signs of a dog that could attack was growling and hair raising.
"But before that, most dogs will show calming signals, like looking away, turning the head, licking the lips, yawning, sitting down and keeping their bodies low. That usually means they need time out," said Sonntag.
She believes children need to be educated in schools on how to treat dogs and what to do if a dog shows signs of attacking.
"The common things children need to understand, is to not interfere when dogs are sleeping and eating. When it shows it doesn't want to interact, if it is growling or walking away from you, do not go and mess with it."
What should one do when a dog is about to attack?
"Stand still like tree, don't wave your arms, look away, do not shout and then, very, very slowly, walk backwards."
Getting dogs off a victim during an attack could be very difficult, said Sonntag, especially if more than one dog was involved in the attack.
"In less severe cases, throwing a blanket over a dog could startle it. Sometimes you need to pinch it or pull its tail to cause another focus point but there is no quick fix."
In the case of the Eldorado Park attack, the dogs were eventually shot at to get them to loosen their grips.
"You can push your hand into its throat so that it loses its grip," said Sonntag.
Dogs which were punished for bad behaviour by their owners tended to be more aggressive than dogs that receive treats for good behaviour.
"They don't perceive punishment as a learning exercise; they perceive it as a conflict," said Sonntag.
Marcelle Meredith, executive director of the national council of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said the reasons for dog attacks differed from situation to situation, but that ultimately, as with people, their behaviour was mainly linked to how they grew up.
"It depends how you raise your animals... and if something goes wrong in a loving environment, then there is something wrong with the animal," said Meredith.
SPCA spokesperson Christine Kuch said sometimes dog owners were responsible for attacks.
"People say: 'He suddenly just turned on the children.' But that dog probably just got sick and tired of being dressed in fancy Christmas hats."
The SPCA does not have statistics on the number of dog bites which occur in South Africa on an annual basis and neither does Statistics South Africa.
Sonntag said even though such data did not seem to be available in South Africa, "one thing is certain, more people are killed by other people than the number of people who are killed by dogs".
According to United States website dogbitelaw.com, the number of fatal dog attacks in the US last year stood at 33.
That was roughly double the average in the prior two decades.
The yearly average for fatal dog bites in the US was 17 in the 1980s and 1990s.
The website said more than 50 percent of bites occurred on the dog owner's property and that most victims were children. - Sapa
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