[TrinaJ]

This incident would never have happened had the boy not trespassed into another person's property. As a mum, my heart is breaking for the child, and his family, he's going to be scarred for life, probably mentally and physically. But as a responsible PARENT I would have, i hope, instilled that manners in him that made sure he knocked politly at the door and asked for his ball to be returned to him.

Unfortunately not everyone is as educated as some of the members on this board and they let their dogs run free in their yards, in this case, a 6ft fenced yard which the owners probably felt was keeping their dogs in a safe environment. Hopefully other people who hear about this will learn from it and start supervising their dogs whilst they are outdoors.

Yes rotty's are of a kind temprement but they are protective of what is theirs too and they thought their yard was theirs...Perhaps they hadn't been socialised with children and felt threatened, unless we were there we wont ever know exactly what happened, its just another sad day for the rotty.