Child attacked and disfigured at a playground. Who is responsible?

As far as I understood, the child was attacked by a dog while playing on the playground. I personally saw the bandage covering half of the child’s head (visibly about 5 years old), which suggests that the face is disfigured.

Whether the case developed in Ruse or was subsequently brought for operative treatment in Maxillofacial Surgery at UMHAT "Medika" I have no idea, and it is not important, because such cases are all over the country.

I saw the parents as well, their looks...

 

Who is responsible?

I lived 15 years and six months with a fifty-kilogram tiger boxer, which I took even before I had children. The reason was the following: I believe that children who grow up with pets have more developed empathy and responsibility. But before I took it I made enough effort to educate myself (more or less) in cynology (mainly the part with control and training), and I am also lucky to be a "village child" and to spend my entire childhood with horses and dogs. Give me a pinscher and I will make it a killer, give me a staff and I will make it a "kitten", but it will always be on a leash.

A pet is like movable property (from a legal point of view): a car, a kitchen knife or a hunting rifle, respectively responsibility for it is borne by its owner or the one who controls it. In the case of stray dogs the responsibility is borne by the municipality (it exercises the control) even though it is not the owner of the dogs.

When we want to "operate" a vehicle or a hunting rifle we are required competence ("right" and "ability"). With pets at least try to acquire the ability yourself.
There are also dog breeds which are more difficult to train because they have a different temperament/reflexes/nature and genes which are not for amateurs. The logic "I am cool and my dog I want it to be an American pit bull terrier (like me)" is wrong in most cases. The choice of dog breed in most cases is in correlation with the character of the owner (my conclusion).

I know that the law does not require "competence for a dog", but I will develop the case a little more abstractly.

The consequences

In the given case with the child I do not have information whether it was attacked by a domestic or stray dog, but the consequences are the same. It seems unlikely to me that a stray dog alone (not in a pack) walks on the playground, and stray dogs are more timid and with weaker territorial attachment compared to a domestic dog which is constantly walked in a given area. In 90% of the cases stray dogs attack only when they are in a pack. What the dog is does not matter – the result is the same.

Dear owners how do you think such disfigurement will change the future of this child?

• What will it do at every meeting with any dog?
• How will classmates accept it at school and in teenage age?
• How will it affect finding a boyfriend/girlfriend? To fall in love with it?
• How will it affect the future profession? Model, news speaker, prime minister or public person will it be able to become?
• How will the psyche and self-confidence be affected?
• The list can continue endlessly ... complete it yourself before you let your dog run free.

The compensations for dog bites with permanent scars and multiple operations in Bulgaria are around 10 000 – 15 000 euro. How do you think against the background of the list above this covers the caused "lost benefits" for a lifetime? Most probably, if you are the owner of the dog you will answer that this is what the court decided. And if you are a parent, grandmother or grandfather ... or the person himself – will you sing the same song?

Dear dog owners (from 0.7 to 70 kg.) here are rules which are MANDATORY, if you do not want to walk them only with a muzzle (with a fine of 200 euro this will be achieved).
Although according to law (as far as I remember from my "dog ownership") after a certain weight dogs must be walked with a muzzle, personally I do not agree with this if the dog is on a short leash and is walked by a person with weight twice bigger than the dog.

• Always on a leash! Never free outside! - No matter how good-natured and trained your dog is imagine that it runs toward a child (to play)... What does the child feel seeing a huge dog running toward him? Only one fright can cause damage for a lifetime. A relative of mine stutters already more than 50 years after being frightened by a dog. And if your daughter begins her life with stuttering, but you are paid the compensation determined by the court?
• When you pass through a door (elevator, entrance door of the building etc.) FIRST YOU THEN THE DOG. Imagine that the first thing your 5-year-old girl sees after opening is a mouth with teeth at the level of her face (God forbid it also barks)...
• Try not to allow people to pet it. Because after all you do not have an encephalogram of the dog in real time, and even one smell is enough to provoke aggressive behavior.
• Always right next to you. Always at distance from the others.
• Everything your dog does YOU do. Perceive it through the prism that this is YOU.
• Clean up the feces, because one day your granddaughter may play with such.

Dear mayors I am sure that you and your relatives also have children. I do not think that the probability of them falling into such trouble is 0%. If it were 1% would you accept it freely?

 

Why I decided to write all this separately

If there is something to which I definitely cannot remain indifferent, it is a child's crying. Every time when I passed by the child's room to go smoke it was crying.
I hope what is written here will prevent at least one such crying.
I hope the owners will understand that such behavior is not only irresponsible, but also CRIMINAL.