I need to report a dangerous dog

meritaten

I had a staffie too, but cant say how hard she was as I never hit her. she did remove all her neutering stitches (11 of them) while hiding behind the sofa and didnt murmur so I think they dont feel pain!
my staffie adored kids and the only sign of aggression from her was if we shouted at the kids - the dog would immediately spring to their defence and stand between the shouter and the kids! could it be that the staffie was actually defending the littleun? they do seem to love kids and it would be the ONLY reason my staff would attack anyone. but saying that, I do think that its Social Services who need to be informed here.

Padstow

I don't envy you "gottodothis", as to protect the child, the dog would have be removed and euthanised. However, as the dog is being ill treated I have to say that there are worse things to happen to a dog than being put to sleep.
Please take care as they can't be decent people.

foreign_correspondent

its a social services issue, it is a child protection concern, so you need to ring them - apart from the risk posed by the dog, it sounds like the family are incapable of managing the behaviour of a dog without resorting to violence, so I dread to think what their parenting skills are like - there is a strong correlation between animals and children being abused in many families - the child is probably witnessing all this too.

If social services do not act, speak to the NSPCC... sometimes they take some prodding into action.

Some info here that may be useful:

http://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/658843/Interview-Jonathan-Silk-RSPCA-regional-director---hiddenlinks-abuse/

http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/publications/downloads/understandingthelinks_wdf48177.pdf

janeawej

Any incident the police are called to where there is a child in the house should automatically activate a form to be sent to social services (it used to be called a 121A form) So they should be aware of it shortly anyway, however they will treat your call confidentially and have a duty to investigate this

joshtbh

as has been said, please contact social services miamoo, it's not a police matter it's a social services matter. They won't take the dog off them unless they think it will be a danger. The police are useless.