you have to read this

i dont know whether to laugh or cry at this artical, its a must read.....
On a wind-blasted fold of the North Pennine Moors, not far from a branch of the Priory, the refuge for troubled celebrities, is a place where dogs go to be rehabilitated. Bleakholt Animal Sanctuary serves as a home for 110 unwanted dogs: nine are deemed beyond help, nine are undergoing rehab, the other 92 have been passed as safe to return to human society.

Each week Suzanne Holding, a pet behaviourist, tests the progress of the inmates. Among them are two rottweilers: Sally and Ally, representatives of a breed whose reputation as fearsome creatures has lately been burnished by a series of savage attacks.

The death of 13-month-old Archie-Lee Hirst, killed by the rottweiler his grandparents kept in their yard, was followed by reports of other rottweiler attacks that weekend. Earlier in December a kennelmaid lost her arm in a gruesome mauling by a rottweiler that she was exercising: proof for many that this was an unpredictable breed that could “suddenly turn” on anyone, even people caring for it.

Statistics for dogbites are not broken down by breed in the UK - studies in the US have shown that increases in rottweiler attacks have correlated only with the rising numbers kept as pets. “You see more bites by yellow labradors than any other dog,” says Neil Martin, manager of Bleakholt Animal Sanctuary, “because there are more of them and people treat them as teddy bears.”

Rottweilers have become less popular in recent years: the number registered with the Kennel Club has dropped by more than 2,000 to 4,257 last year. Overall the Pet Foods Manufacturers Association estimates there are 100,000 in the UK. Even if there are proportionally fewer rottweiler bites, the dogs do more damage. They typically weigh between 6st and 8st and “their jaws are phenomenally efficient”, Martin says.

The other problem for the breed, as he sees it, is “the moron brigade”, which buys them for their perceived dangerous qualities. He often rescues rottweilers named Tyson, or Bruno, or Major: dogs with fighting names. “Dogs are faithful animals,” he says.“If their pack leader - their owner - is aggressive, they are going to be aggressive,” he says.

In aroom at the sanctuary, Holding, 48, and fellow pet behaviourist, Jenny Harter, 24, test the temperament of Sally and Ally. Harter rushes at Sally holding a dummy child, arms outstretched; she sits beside the dog holding a small doll, mimicking the sounds of a baby crying; she dresses up in a mackintosh and hat for the “stranger test” and she pulls away a bowl of dog food using a plastic hand. Sally passes all the tests with flying colours and hopeful glances at the high shelf to which the bowl of food was removed.

Ally appears fine until the plastic hand taps his bowl. He lurches and clamps his jaws around it, shaking it and growling. “He has ‘food aggression' issues”, Martin says. Holding is reluctant to attempt the baby-doll test as she fears he will interpret the sound of crying as “prey” and try to eat it.

Such “issues” are not specific to his breed, however. After the two rottweilers we meet Harry, an English cocker spaniel. “We all thought Harry was good as gold,” says Martin. Harry had ignored the food, but at the sight of the hand he explodes with rage, leaping forward, knocking over the bowl to shake and bite the plastic flesh. His former owner was an elderly lady who is now in care. It was a loving relationship, but Harry felt that he was in charge when it came to meals.

Ally the rottweiler and Harry the fearsome cocker spaniel are in rehab: their trainer feeds them a spoonful at a time, teaching them not to bite the hand that feeds them. Martin is looking for a suitable home for Sally. Though she will make an excellent family pet, Martin will insist that the new owners have experience with dogs. “I wouldn't let them have a rottweiler if they had never had a dog before,” he says.

The dog had its jaws around my grandson's head

It was the first time Gwen Lawrence had brought her two-year-old grandson Harvey back to her house in West Sussex and before she got him out of the car she looked around for Tyler. Her partner had bought the rottweiler six months earlier. “He was quite boisterous and strong,” she says. He lived in the garden on a long lead and in the breakfast room.

When she got home he would come bounding to the door, but there was no sign of him this time. “As I was getting Harvey out of the car I saw him. He was sitting quietly on his lead in the garden. With Harvey behind me I walked over and stroked Tyler's head. In one second he had his jaws round Harvey's face. I screamed and pulled his jaws apart, Harvey fell down on the floor. I had the dog by the collar but he was too strong. I threw myself over Harvey. The dog went underneath me, trying to pull him out. He never touched me. I thought if I could force my fingers into his mouth he couldn't bite the child again, but the strength of him was too much for me.

“I was screaming for help. A neighbour came with a hammer and hit the dog on the head and it went off. I was exhausted. Harvey was covered in blood. I went inside and made the worst phone call in my life.”

Her son Mark, Harvey's father, arrived at A&E to find his son in surgery. “His face was ripped open, his chin was hanging down. The dog had knocked away one of his teeth as he bit his jaw. The surgeon said there were two circular holes in the skull. They couldn't find the bits and they were worried the dog's spit had got in...He was in surgery for six hours. He had 300 stitches.”

After the attack Gwen spoke to a doghandler. “He said this happens with grandmothers. The dog was jealous. When you go through something like this you realise how many of these incidents there are.”

She wrote to her MP, asking him to back a campaign for dog licensing. “He said it would be too expensive. In the year and a half since, Harvey has made a full recovery, though he still bears the scars. “Every time I see them it takes me back,” Gwen says.

This dog will protect you to the death

James Kaye is a slight, neat young man who guards Russian billionaires and company headquarters and occasionally breaks up nightclub fights between dozens of men. That is the power afforded by a well-trained working rottweiler. Should anyone challenge his authority, he will take a pace backwards and, like a minder stepping in to head off trouble, his rottweiler, Soul, will interpose himself. Should anyone attempt to incapacitate Kaye, Soul will incapacitate them. “He is trained on a bite to the arm, between shoulder and elbow,” he says. His firm, Canine Security, has always used rottweilers. “They are big dogs, they have good deterrent value, they are courageous.”

It is clear why these dogs appeal to less scrupulous handlers. After a series of rottweiler attacks in Scotland in the late 1980s, inquiries by the Scottish Rottweiler Club suggested that the dogs were being used by criminals to attend drug deals.

Kaye thinks that there should be licensing for rottweilers - “to stop people who don't have any experience or time with dogs from owning them; to protect the dogs.”

Soul is a two-year-old rescue dog, lean and muscular. “He is trained so that you can switch him on and off,” Kaye says. The training, all done through play, established Kaye as “the pack leader”, arbiter of when to sit, when to lie down, when to eat. He doesn't make any decisions, he always takes the lead from the pack leader,” Kaye says. “A member of the pack will defend to the death the pack leader. That's where the guarding quality comes from. When you've got a public-order incident you don't know what you might be confronted with.The dog will protect you.”

When rottweilers attack children in back gardens, “it is because the dog is the pack leader”, and it can panic. It is not responsible for its actions, he says. “The dog is like a two-year-old child. It is not a good decision maker.”

Other dogs come out only when he goes in

On a damp night last week in South London, Kain was standing on his hind legs, paws resting on a third-floor balcony, giving his customary address to the estate. “He's a very noisy dog,” says Rooney Reed, 28, friend of Fred Bernard, 27, nightclub promoter and owner of Kain. “He wants you to know where he is. The whole estate, it echoes.”

Kain has a sort of fame in the area. Each evening Bernard takes him for a walk. “As soon as he's gone in everyone else brings their dogs out,” Reed says. His friend had never had a dog before, but seven years ago he picked up a copy of Loot and saw a picture of a rottweiler puppy for sale in Tottenham. “I thought they looked cute,” he said. “My friend had a rottweiler, I saw his as a puppy. I always wanted one.”

Reed recalled picking up the dog at 2am. “He came over and sat on my lap,” he says. “Apart from Fred, I'm the only one he really accepts. He doesn't like anyone else for some reason.”

Bernard adds: “He's cool with people he knows, but other people that he doesn't know, he's playful.” Those people include Bernard's cousins, who refuse to go near him. Bernard says that he wouldn't trust Kain with children, “but then, I wouldn't trust a labrador either”.

“My dad and my brother took him to obedience classes,” he says. “Not that it helped.” Still he feels Kain suffers from being misunderstood. “Two weeks ago I was walking my dog down there and the kids all screamed...They all know about him. One kid comes up and says that his mum said my dog bit a kid. His image has been tarnished and he hasn't bitten anyone in his life.”

On our way to meet Kain a neighbour said that he hoped we would survive. We waited outside the flat while Bernard escorted the dog to the balcony. “People are scared of rottweilers,” he says. “The dog gets stereotyped.”

He brings Kain in, the dog swivels on his leash with excitement, chewing playfully at Bernard's hand. “Just chill,” he says. “Stop being such a jar...right, you're going back out.”

Later he takes Kain for a walk, the enormous animal straining on the leash. He seems friendly enough. “Don't get too close,” Bernard says.

I wanted a labrador, he wanted a rottweiler

When Steve Mayall's marriage broke down he bought a rottweiler. The family home is on an estate beside the Thames, and when he moved out he wanted a guard dog to look after his ex-wife Joanne and their two children, Harry, then 3, and Jack, 9. “He didn't like the idea of me being on my own,” Joanne says. “I wanted a labrador, he wanted a rottweiler, but I am convinced that as long as you are careful dogs are all right. I knew once I got it home it would be a family pet. I wasn't going to shut it outside.”

She named it Kaiser - “after the Kaiser Chiefs”. They had owned a Staffordshire bull terrier, but had to get rid of it when it bit Harry on the nose. When Kaiser arrived she read the books of César Millán, the famed Mexican “dog whisperer”, and Victoria Stillwell, the leather-clad hound-tamer of British TV.

Joanne cleared out a cupboard beneath the stairs and laid out a bed for him, to which he is dispatched whenever he plays up. “It was a different story before we got that,” she says. He pops up in front of her whenever she answers the door, front paws on the gate. Jack says that each time Kaiser completes his toilet in the back garden, “he runs inside and runs up and down the stairs until we tell him to lie down. It's like he's celebrating.”

Harry has alopecia and likes to run up to Kaiser, bent double. “Lick my head!” he shouts. “Lick my head!”

Later, Steve Mayall, 34, a van driver, drops round with his new partner and baby. Although Kaiser has not turned out quite as he had thought, he seems satisfied. “I wanted Jo to train him as a guard dog, but he's good as gold,” he says. “Once, when a stranger was asking the kids for directions, he came out barking. He does what I got him for.”

For her part, Joanne, 32, continues to follow all the principles of proper dog management, but one. “He does sit on the furniture,” she says. “I know it's bad, but when you are the only adult in the house you sit there on the sofa talking to the dog. You like the company.”

very good article,i feel that me personally i do not trust dogs in general on weather they will attack or not .i have personally been through the agony of an attack on my daughter jen and the lasting effects months after the ordeal. my friend still feels that her and her x are responsible for introducing us to the dog that bit and left a reminder for the rest of her life. the dog in question had bitten before and when the whole thing went to court the dog had been put in hiding .the dog was given a chance not to be put down as this had been its first reported incident. this was only a small dog but the devestation it caused lasted a long time .when we got george we had to do a lot of soul searching because he was a collie cross jack russell. jen although had this trauma loves all forms of animals apart from spiders and this has never trying to get to her goal.people should be very aware with the responsibility of bringing in small babies and young children where animals are conserned. i do think after my experience that any animal can just turn for no aparent reason , weather classed as a ferocious animal or the most timmed .

People need to beaware that any dog, no matter of the breed can bite a person. There are more small dog bites every year than bites of that of the rottweiler. These small dog bites however are not put into the media because they are "SMALL DOGS" which to me is ridicculous. Anything to do with rottweilers is spread across the news and then the rottweilers are made to look dangerous, which is not true.

Yes i was attacked by a JACK RUSSEL when i was younger and i had to have plastic surgery to correct the damage and yes i remember that whole day and the pain to this day. But i do not blame the jack, the jack russel because he was tied up and was barking at the ducks. He was getting very excited and frustrated to get at the ducks and he couldnt and the closest thing to him was me. After this accident happened i was very weary of dogs and i did learn from my experience but it has never stopped me from loving dogs and i still want to carry on with the career path i have chosento do: become a veterinary nurse!

People need to be aware of all dogs in their homes and outside of their homes, because a dog may seem happy, but when they get scared, ancious and excited an accident can happen whether it happens to a child or to an adult.
People just need to think about the dogs and what they could be capable of, instead of babying them and treating them like teddies. Because they are not and have teeth, feelings and do get annoyed just like everyone else.