UK Child Killed by Belgian Malinois
Introduction
Yesterday, Monday July 22nd, 2024, the guardian.com reported the death of a woman who was killed by her pet dog. The exact details of the cause of death, the breed of the dog, etc. were not disclosed, but the article did mention that roughly a month ago a 7-month-old was killed by a Belgian Malinois, which is not considered a banned breed in the UK. The article, which you can read here, provides very little in terms of details, only that the dog bit the child in the head and the child died a few hours later. This article underscores something we’ve continued to emphasize on k9chronicles.com: children should never be left alone or in reach of a dog without heavy supervision. The article doesn’t specifically say that there was no supervision but I am going to go out on a limb and say there wasn’t adequate supervision. So what likely happened here and what could have been done to stop it?
Important side note: the dog pictured is my dog. Very sweet and innocent, not the dog in question.
What Likely Happened
I had a Malinois who unfortunately passed and I have familiarity with the breed so I know a couple of things: they are bitey dogs and have extremely high prey drive. Even with the best training, you can’t change their nature. They can also be extremely neurotic dogs who react quickly and forcefully to a threat or a perceived threat. I believe one of three scenarios happened:
- The dog saw the child as prey. When my Malinois was 3 months old, she literally tried to take the clothes off my 3 year old nephew because she thought he was a fun tug toy and she’s gone after my 7 year old niece because her hair looked like a toy. Even at 3 months old there was basically nothing they could do to stop her. She could climb on almost everything they could, was faster than them, and had sharp little teeth. Now granted, my dog would never kill a child because I always supervise and have worked extensively on bite inhibition, but if you fast forward another 9 months and keep those behaviors, they turn from cute to potentially fatal around children.
- Food aggression. Food aggression is a natural behavior in dogs. In the wild dogs would generally have some level of food aggression as they figure out their pack hierarchy. Domestic dogs are rarely put in their place if they show signs of food aggression which again can turn deadly if they have severe food aggression and a child goes too close while they are eating.
- The dog was reacting to a perceived threat. If the child grabbed or hit the dog, the dog may have just reacted and bitten the child. It wouldn’t take a lot for a full grown Malinois to fatally injure a 7 month old.
What could have been done to prevent this?
Dog and children don’t mix well, in particular full grown dogs and infants do not mix well. Always, always keep children and dogs separate unless heavily supervised. If you want to have children and dogs, have the child, let them grow up for a couple years, and then get the dog as a puppy so that they can grow up with and be socialized by the sounds and chaos of being around kids. Basically no one ever has recommended Malinois as a good household pet if you have kids. I would not recommend having a Malinois as a family pet unless you’re a professional trainer. Get a lab or something like that if you just want to enjoy having a friendly dog. Even a Rottweiler or Doberman are leagues above Malinois in terms of their suitability as household pets. If you’re determined to have a Malinois with kids, they must be raised with the kids and trained extremely carefully and you must train bite inhibition constantly.
Conclusion
It’s an unfortunate story and a lot of the details weren’t disclosed. The dog was euthanized which is appropriate given the situation but still unfortunate that any of this happened. It is not worth it to have dogs if they put your children in danger and you’re not judicious about monitoring your children with the dogs.
