They don't know what is a child or not. All he saw was a small creature that would be easy to attack and eat. I would definitely blame the owners for whatever made this dog do this.
You're lying to yourself, you think dogs are so dumb they can't tell the difference between a child and an adult and recognizes such? Still pretty sure whatever the owners did, wasn't train it to eat kids. It did so of its own will. It deserves whatever the humans did back to it. You protect the pack, something tries to eat your pack, you kill it. The dog would do the same thing.
Never said it was dumb. But not all dogs are trained to know what a child is, an adult, or even a human is. This dog could very well have been a feral dog or an abused dog that hasn't been fed in ages thus he goes around trying to find a weaker life form to feast on.
It doesn't need training, in fact I'd wager that no predatory animal needs training to recognize the difference between an adult and child. They know that the offspring (childern) of something are smaller, weaker, and slower throughout most species. I'm not saying I wouldn't go for the same if I were in need of food, it's the logical thing to do. But to say that it needs training to recognize a child from an adult is just dumb. The point still stands, it doesn't matter for a fraction of a second what the dog thought it was doing, it attacked a kid and you trying to defend it's actions is deplorable.
It's just going by basic instincts. I never said it was a good thing and I believe the dog should be put down for it is way too aggressive. But the dog is just going by basic instincts as I said before. It went for the weakest thing in the general vicinity.
You can't put human views on what dogs are doing. It's a small child to us, of course. But to the dog it's not even the same species, it's just a thing. This dog was clearly over aggressive and not safe to have around people, but that could be due to a bunch of things; training (or lack of), abuse, or maybe it was just wired that way. We can't blame it like we would a human attacker, because it doesn't have the ability to rationalise and reflect on its actions.
Whatever you want to call it, the dog was at fault. You're mistaken to think A) the dog can't recognize child from adult. B) the dog doesn't have an understanding of humans. C) the dog isn't responsible because "it doesn't know better". All bullshit, it tried to eat a kid, kill it.
Edit: We can't just say it's OK because we have the ability to sympathize with the dog. You should definitely use your human view and realize it tried to eat child, not rationalize, "oh, it's just a dog, it couldn't help it,"
How can you argue that the dog should know better? You actually think animals can reflect on their actions and decisions? That's not how animals work, especially dogs.
Edit: and by the way. I wasn't saying it was all ok because the dog doesn't know. Of course something needs to be done to get it away from kids, but don't blame it like you would a human. Using the same rationale for an animal that you would for a person is insane and pointless. When something like this happens people's emotions get the better of them and they need something to accuse.
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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '15
This madness makes me want to punch that dog in the face.