I always check local news out when I get up in a morning and this morning the headline "Man dies separating two fighting dogs" headed the list. How absolutely dreadful but I do hope that the general public will wait to hear the full story before jumping to conclusions. At the moment the report says that a 21 year old man was trying to separate two GSD's which were fighting at a house in Blackpool. Although the dogs did bite the man, the police think he may have fallen and banged his head. This happened Friday evening. (Doesnt say if the dogs were inside or outside!!) As you see, all sorts could be read into this report and hopefully a more in depth report will follow. Both dogs have been destroyed.

How awful :(

Apparently the dogs belonged to a housemate and they launced a 'sustained attack' on him when he tried to break up the fight, but police say "We cannot dismiss that he has died as a consequence of falling in this incident." taken from here

What a horrible thing to happen, 21 years old :(

Thanks for the link Mastifflover. Does go into more detail. Poor lad. Doesnt bear thinking about.

Too many unanswered questions here isn't there.

Why were the dogs fighting?
Should the two dogs have ever been left alone together?
How were they treated?
Why did the young man feel it ok to step between two large dogs whilst fighting, was it a regular occurance?
Why in turn did both dogs turn to attack him?

Dogs do and can bite their owner during a dog fight, but if both these dogs turned on him then I agree with the action of having them PTS they obviously were unstable characters. Or did they accidently puncture him whilst still trying to go for one another? I guess we will never know unless there was a witness.

It sounds like cause of death will be through a bang on the head, terribly sad for such a young life to end this way and my heart felt condolences for his family what a tragedy.  I don't know how I feel about the dogs without the full picture, too many unanswered questions, but what a waste of a life, perhaps even 3.

There must have been something going on.  My two boys had quite a big fight last year and I was bit only once and only as a self defence bite, was not supposed to be for me and although they say dogs don't have feelings the look of shock on poor Lastar's face when he did it, that they actually both stopped straight away!

Terrible thing to happen and condolences to all the families involved.  It's tragic enough for a 21 year old to lose their life but this in such a needless way must be terrible.

RIP.

That's the trouble with separating dogs - I was extremely badly bitten (spent 7 days in hospital) when I tried to separate two dogs fighting ....AND I stayed at the tail end - trouble was the dog whose tail I had hold of and was trying to drag into a position where I could separate the two by using a door - lost its grip on other dog and in trying to get back at it managed to savage my arm pretty badly :(

Dogs weren't attacking me though - I just got in the way - and it is something to be aware of.   When adrenaline is flowing, one can be in the wrong place at the wrong time :(

i am probley wrong here but i always hate it when dogs get pts over things like this, i mean was it really their fault?
i jumped in between a pair of mongrels attacking my rottie when he was younger and i got bit, not badly thank god but i couldnt blame any of the dogs for it i did put myself their and if their owner couldnt stop them attacking then id blame the owner not the dog, my rotties a Big lad now and has been had a go at alot of times by other dogs and  tho he will pin another dog to the floor when they lunge at him if he cant get away from it, i can call  him back straight away to the point that iv had my dog at my side while the attacking dog is still coming at my boy but my boy wont go back, makes the stupid owners look very stupid indeed as they run around screaming cos its just their own dog they cant control, i once had a women scream at me "is he all right is he all right " meaning will my dog attack her little runt thats yapping at my boys heels , i felt like saying yeah lov he's fine but im well pee'd off,  as a boot her dog up the butt :-) lol just kidding, great dog shame about the owner,
maybe these dogs were bad dogs but i always find myself feeling that they also have  been victims in these situations,
sorry should say im not a people person either si maybe im byest,

Yes the dogs are victims too but a grown man has been killed by them, they must really of had a go to do that.  Still it's early days and the stories seem weird, some saying that he fell several times etc?

> maybe these dogs were bad dogs but i always find myself feeling that they also have  been victims in these situations,

The dogs may be 'bad' through no fault of thier own, for all we know thier owner could have trained them to attack, allthough that isn't the dogs fault as such (doing what they are trained to do) it still makes them very dangerous (if a 'sustained' attack on a person is not dangerous enough). What we do know is that a man died and he has suffered bite wounds from the dog(s).

The more little snippets that are filtering through in the story, just seems to be making things much more strange. I would be very suprised if this turns out to be a tragic accident (ie. dogs have an 'off' day, have a scrap, man tries to break it up, gets bitten lots, falls over enough times to kill himself with head injries and dies), rather than somehting a bit more sinister (anything from - dogs kept in garden with no training all thier life to - 'attack dog' training session gone 'wrong' or dogs used as weapons).

It sounds to me as though this really could be classed as an accident. It may be that he got bitten trying to separate two large dogs who were fighting, fell and banged his head, which is an accident.
Not defending anything, just how it seems likely to have happened to me. Very very sad.

A terrible thing for man and dogs. 
We shouldn't always assume that because this was a young man the dogs were trained to fight.  As others have said - once dogs are in 'fight mode' it is difficult to bring them back down.  Also I don't know about others on here but I had a terrible time with fighting with my own dogs [bitches] and had to re-home one.  Have had a few bites and scratches separating them,  though accidental, I think that had the fights not been broken up early and had I not sometimes used a variety of tools [eg bucket of water] to 'cool' the situation down AND had they been bigger and ALL aggressive [only one really wanted to fight] I could have been seriously injured.
I hope this doesn't get too blown up by the media or else GSD's could end up on the dangerous dogs list too.

RIP

> great dog shame about the owner,
> maybe these dogs were bad dogs but i always find myself feeling that they also have  been victims in these situations,
>

true enough.

> The more little snippets that are filtering through in the story, just seems to be making things much more strange. I would be very suprised if this turns out to be a tragic accident (ie. dogs have an 'off' day, have a scrap, man tries to break it up, gets bitten lots, falls over enough times to kill himself with head injries and dies), rather than somehting a bit more sinister (anything from - dogs kept in garden with no training all thier life to - 'attack dog' training session gone 'wrong' or dogs used as weapons).

If this is the case, and I feel it may be, it is unlikely that we will hear anymore as it is no longer newsworthy and scandalous.  does anyone remember the incident that I think took place last year where the man was allegedly attacked but then other info came through that the dog was protecting him after he had a seizure or something.  there was no piece in the media heralding mans best friend protecting him. :(

> does anyone remember the incident that I think took place last year where the man was allegedly attacked but then other info came through that the dog was protecting him after he had a seizure or something.  there was no piece in the media heralding mans best friend protecting him. :-(

it was a rottie wassn't it? the police shot the poor thing

god yes all them kinda things get me mad , and where as i do feel bad for the families and the people who get killed but in most cases their seems to be a bit more to it that emerges after the first horror story that we get, the baby being held by the child at the gate across a kitchen door she was bouncing the baby up and down in view of the rottie they just about had  the dog a year , and it was mostly left in their garden , baby bouncing the poor dog was hoping this was some kind of game he dont no its a baby, its not like the rottie was a real family pet that they had inside their house within their family unit ,
poor baby gets killed dog gets killed because it thought that the girl standing by the door bouncing something fun looking in her arms was a toy he just couldnt wait for it no more so after being teased enough with this bounhing baby not ever being trained around a baby he just goes to grab him and well the damage is done , same with the 2 rotties in the pub who killed the baby it tragic, its unthinkable no one would ever wish it on anyone but they were guard dogs in their own home and they come in one of their rooms to find this strange smelling object that moves if you nudge it with your nose i mean what do we think was going thu the dogs mind ? they dont understand what a baby is unless you bring them up around your baby and are careful and loving family but not a lot of these cases can say this was the family pet that they had from a puppy that just killed a member of the family, can they i belive that very rare, i know it awful to say it as it many children whos lives have been lost to dogs going mad but i think the owners of these dogs get off scot free almost but the dog dies to it dont seem fair,