Large Fierce Mammal

Anything that bears this logo is certified as "intrinsically safe". You will NEVER find it stamped on an animal.

Intrinsic (adjective) – Belonging to or part of the real nature of something/somebody.

Safe (adjective) – Not likely to lead to any physical harm or danger. Not involving much or any risk; not likely to be wrong or to upset somebody.

I obtained the definitions above from the online Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Please note that the  definition of “safe” includes that word’s meaning as it applies to where I’m going with this article.

Now here’s a term many of you may not be familiar with – intrinsically safe. This refers to engineering and manufacturing measures employed to ensure that electrical and electronic systems can be used in the presence of explosive gas/oxygen mixtures without blowing the user to kingdom come. This is important in certain industries, such as oil and natural gas drilling and fuel refining. Whether it’s an on/off switch, an electric motor, a camera, a hand held communications device, a test instrument, or a flashlight, intrinsically safe technology ensures that no matter how tired, distracted, stupid, negligent, untrained, misinformed, delusional, or intoxicated the user, normal interaction with the device will never end badly because all the real smarts went into the item long before it got into his hands.

By extension, we can see that when something is declared to be “intrinsically safe”, then by its very nature it is not likely to lead to any physical harm or danger, nor does it represent much or any risk, so it isn’t likely to be wrong or upset anybody. We can’t say the same for such items as chain saws, lawn mowers, firearms, knives, axes, jack hammers, and wood stoves because they are designed both to interact destructively with matter, and to do so in a controlled fashion under the guidance of a human operator. Likewise for things like motor vehicles, nail guns, and gas barbecues that are not intended to be instruments of destruction but clearly can be, again because of the human factor. Because they aren’t proofed against the tired, distracted,  stupid, negligent, untrained, misinformed, delusional, or intoxicated user, each item in both classes is more than capable, to quote my father, of creating all manner of hellery . These items are useful but each, by its very nature, comes with intrinsic risk that society finds acceptable in the expectation that they will be employed by people who themselves accept the intrinsic responsibility of owning and/or operating them.

Today I’m going to take the use of that term out of the realm of industrial engineering and apply it  to biological organisms – specifically to dogs and dog ownership. My inspiration is the recently publicized case of Sarge, a dog accused of attacking a 5 year old boy who is the son of a woman visiting Sarge’s family on the fateful day. Details, as reported to the press, can be found here in the article posted to the South Shore Now website on 2 August 2011. I have read a few press articles on this incident, and watched some of the television coverage. While I regard the South Shore Now article as being the most balanced because it makes an effort to give both (human) sides of the story, it doesn’t escape my notice that the article’s title proclaims New Canada incident involves Rottweiler, results in hurt child.

Sarge is a dog who happens to be a Rottweiller. As experienced professionals in canine behaviour rehabilitation, most particularly with cases of dog-dog and dog-human aggression , Mrs. LFM and I are both professionally and personally offended by this seemingly inevitable sort of smarmy sensationalism. It takes very little internet mining to turn up the facts of reported dog bite statistics from around the world. Yet watch only the headlines and you will get the impression that only Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, and Bull Mastiffs ever get involved in bite incidents. The report histories going back many years prove otherwise, but a headline that reads Second Labrador Retriever Attack in Ontario This Week isn’t going to sell newspapers. Don’t forget the line from the great Sir Elton John’s song, Candle in the Wind –

Even when you died
Oh the press still hounded you
All the papers had to say
Was that Marilyn was found in the nude.

Some things never change, and you can still fool some of the people all of the time.

End result – Sarge has been seized by Municipality of the District of Lunenburg animal control. He is being held at a local kennel and his family have been permitted to visit him, but his ultimate fate will be decided when his case comes up for a court hearing. If he is declared a “fierce and dangerous dog” under the law, he could be sentenced to death or placed under a muzzle and leash order. My suspicion is that one or the other will be the outcome, and complete exoneration is not in the cards for Sarge because of the unassailable facts that his actions injured a child – his tooth marks were there for all to see – and misinformed public clamour has branded the incident as an “attack”.

This incident has polarized the community into two camps – those who want Sarge to return to life as it was before the incident, and those who want him dead. In all the shots I’ve seen sent back and forth by people with no first hand knowledge of what actually happened that day in the presence of nobody but two little boys and a dog, I have seen a mob mentality start to prevail that is all too common in the comfort blanket of perceived anonymity that is the internet. In that place, truth doesn’t exist because its voice gets drowned out by the screech of old axes being ground. Governments and courts should seek to find truth in matters that arise from the laws they create and administer, but sadly their efforts all too often lead to outcomes where all parties to the matter at hand walk away equally unhappy.

Neither I, nor any other human being I’ve ever met, even comes close to meeting the requirements for being certified “intrinsically safe”. If you have an issue with that statement because you honestly believe that, by your very nature you are not likely to lead to any physical harm or danger, nor do you represent much or any risk, so you aren’t likely to be wrong or upset anybody, then I don’t want to know you.

Before the advent of mechanized and electronic everything, animals in concert with knowledgeable people were the go to source for getting  things done. Anyone skilled in handling horses or dogs will quickly laugh you off the property if you bring the term “intrinsically safe” anywhere near their animals. And yet, in this day of the worldwide childproof daycare centre, this is exactly the attitude being embraced by society. Even a familiar and well trained animal can behave unpredictably, including people.

The use of the word “attack” in the Sarge case makes my eye twitch. All emotional, axe grinding public outcry aside, I can safely say this was NOT an attack by the dog on the boy cast as “victim”. I can say this with certainty, even though I was not a witness to the event, and declaring all claims of negligent parenting, clueless dog handling, and ulterior motives by any party to be of absolutely no consequence. I KNOW this because the child is intact and alive.

If my 50 pound Australian Cattle Dog actually ATTACKED a 5 year old child with INTENT to attack, in the truest canine sense of that word, the child would be dead with little chance to cry out for salvation. Does that make him a demonic force of blind destruction? No. It makes him a beautifully efficient Force of Nature whose 50 pounds of pure attitude was carefully crafted over generations, by humans, to dominate something the size of a bull into capitulation. He is not intrinsically safe, nor do I expect him to be, and no amount of socialization or training of any kind will permit him, or any dog, to be declared so, but that doesn’t make him a walking antipersonnel mine.

Substitute that 50 pounder with a mature Rottweiler, a dog bred for purposes not unlike the Australian Cattle Dog, with a strong drive to work, herd, and guard. Massive, powerful, and tireless, a Rottweiler that is truly bent on savagery is a formidable adversary for even an armed man. Make the target of its onslaught a 5 year old boy and it would be a closed casket funeral where the parents would be burying pieces of their child.

This was an unfortunate accident engendered by events, actions, and inactions that are not being examined by any of the parties that have involved themselves because of the tendency of our culture to look for someone else to blame. This has become a matter of vengeance for the people who consider themselves aggrieved, and this dog is quickly becoming the poster boy in what I see as yet another battle in the ongoing war between those who understand the responsibilities that come with owning a dog on the one hand, and those who seek to press “delete” on specific breeds they consider too intrinsically dangerous to live. Where a breed ban doesn’t exist, then killing the target breed one animal at a time will suffice. In between these two camps are the actual parties involved, with all their human frailties, foibles, and self-interests, and a dog that, to one degree or another, will suffer human administered “justice” for being a dog who, on the day, acted as his dogness said he should.

Remember this – movies and TV shows notwithstanding, a dog is not a cuddle toy, a child’s playmate or bedfellow, a babysitter, or an animated piece of furniture. Society has lost this Great Truth, and dogs are the ones that pay the price.