Quote Originally Posted by Lee-Bee View Post
This is a hard one. Growing up we had a dog for 19yrs. He was a great dog, gentle, not aggressive at all. One year when I was about 7 on Christmas eve I decided to give him his present early. He got a new dog bone. Then I decided no, wait, he needs to wait till morning or I won't have a gift to give him. So, being my 7yr old self I got down on my hands and knees and decided to crawl up to him and pick the bone up with my teeth. Yep. Well, my dog was indeed a dog and dog's protect their food...especially brand new bones. So he bit me. I was indeed dumb enough to have put my face in front of his mouth so he happened to bite me on the lip, requiring stitches.

We spent Christmas eve in the emerge waiting for stitches. My dog never, ever acted aggressive towards anyone after this (or prior to this), and we had him another 12yrs or so. So, sometimes it really, truly isn't the dog's fault. Dogs are animals though, not children and they cannot be trusted to be left unsupervised with young children, because children do lack common sense!
I know someone locally who's child was bitten whilst in daycare! The dog still lives and they still take their child there!! I must be missing some specific details to that story because that's nuts, but I would never send my child to a provider with a dog in the first place. I too have had dogs for years and agree entirely with what you say Lee-Bee. It distress' me to hear of those who would immediately put a dog down for being simply that, a dog, an animal. These are the risks of having an animal in the household that should be taken seriously. This is essentially why when we moved overseas and we owned older dogs who would have likely not survived the trip or the climate change, we decided to refrain from getting any more dogs as the liability in a daycare setting is huge. We are all very excited now that it is such a short time till my doors will be closing, to be discussing the possibility of taking on another dog again...I don't miss the dust though lol