[ Post a Response | True English Mastiffs ]
Posted by JennyR MACO on will a Mastiff bite? I do not see reaching over the fence in a friendly manner as an acceptable challenge for a bite, if he had been threatening towards the dog or climbing over then yes I would say the dog was justified. This was a fence in a public business area; this was not the home environment. This was a borderline incident, I can see both sides on this one, I am just a little less tolerant of bites because I have a teenager and I could just see her wanting to pet one of the nice dogs in the fence and the more protective one taking that moment of misjudgment as an opportunity to bite, and I feel that that is just not acceptable Mastiff behavior. Now for a more pressing concern, I truly believe that a Mastiff is mint to be a companion, not a guard dog. I do not think the general public has enough knowledge about doge behavior to control a guard dog the size of a Mastiff. I do not think that some breeders are pressing this point to their puppy buyers. It seems as though some breeders themselves do not have a problem with using the Mastiff as a guard dog. I am afraid this will lead to more incidents of owners not properly training their pups to be as social as I believe they are mint to be and an overall increase of the number of Mastiff bites.
on 4/10/2006, 10:16 am, in reply to "Re: Thanks Rodsue"
Good questions Susiequ
Yes I think that how a Mastiff is introduced to a stranger does make a difference on their behavior, most well trained and socialized Mastiffs in the presence of their owners allow the owner to be the leader and take their cues from that owner if the owner is at ease then the dog should feel at ease. I think that when the owner is not present and the Mastiff takes over his own decision making that he will not stray too far from his raising, if he were well socialized and confident in himself and had no incidents in his life to make him fear or be weary of humans then I do not think they will do something completely outside of his normal acceptable behavior, if he is not given some reason to think a person is a threat. I think that yes they may become a little more protective of the environment, but not to the extent that he would be an aggressive dog if her were not one to begin with. In the situation originally mentioned the man ignored the dog telling him that she thought he was a threat and she proceeded to bit him. While I am not completely blaming this dog for the bite, I contend that I would have liked for this dog to have held back and waited for a true “threat” before biting.
Any dog bites if hurt, frightened, or threatened, but a Mastiff that is properly trained and socialized will typically not bite except as a very last resort. Do NOT let a pup (of any age) bite anyone or anything (except its litter mates) in play, since they NEED to know that biting is not allowed. They will still bite if there is an absolute necessity, but will not try it any other times
Honestly with the way crime, in the form of sexual predators, seems to be on the increase in this country I can understand why folks want the more protective behavior. These children taken from their beds in the night and abused and killed is enough to make you want to sit up all night with a shotgun pointed at the door. I too decided I need a dog with a more protective nature so I got my self a Bullmastiff when I could just have easily have trained a Mastiff for protection, but I did not feel that was an appropriate thing to do to a Mastiff. I know others obviously see thing differently. I just hope that if folks want to allow the more protective nature in these dogs to become dominant that at least they have a responsibility to not put them into a situation where an innocent person pays the price for that decision, and in return the breed as a whole gets its image tarnished.
Thank you for your insight, I may be in the minority in my opinion, I appreciate folks not taking it personally as an attack on their beliefs or their dogs.
JennyR
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