Boy, 2, is fatally mauled by family dog in San Diego
July 31, 2010 | 4:27 pm

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/child-mauled-to-death-by-family-dog-in-san-diego-military-housing.html

A 2-year-old boy was fatally mauled Saturday morning by a German shepherd in the family home in off-base military housing in San Diego, police said.

The child was rushed to Rady Children's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The family lives in military housing in the Tierrasanta neighborhood; the father is forward deployed. The dog was the family pet.

The boy's mother was sleeping at the time of the incident, police said. The death is under investigation.
 

omg how terrible poor wee boy

So the 2 year-old kid was unsupervised with a big dog?  That's a recipe for disaster regardless of the breed.  My cousin pinched his dog's nose hard when he was a toddler, and he still has the scars on his face over 20 years later.   It wasn't the dog's fault.

Opal 

 Second article says it was a German Shepherd mix......

True enough, but my old dog, Candy von der Knappenmühle and his father, Grand vom Ritterberg, both had breed surveys recommending them for improving temperament.. which is rare. And I could tell you stories about Candy, and how much common sense he seemed to have with children and fools. Normally, I would never let ordinary people interact with a SchH3 male this much as I allowed them to with Candy. But, I felt that I could absolutely trust that dog to do the right thing, and he never let me down. One time I took him to the home of some strangers, at the request of a friend, who wanted to do a "Schutzhund" demonstration. This was a HUGE man and very intimidating, but Candy did a perfect hold and just double dared the guy with his eyes to make a move. In that moment of tension, a little tiny girl in a pink ruffled dress came running out of the garage, opposite from me. There was no time to do anything to stop it. Suddenly her little arms were wrapped tightly around Candy's neck and she had him in an embrace, with her little blonde curly head right over his neck / shoulder area. Candy NEVER so much as looked at her. He just kept his eyes glued to the bad guy.

Another time we took Candy camping, and I went out for a morning walk and found a little girl alone on the campground road, very shy, but fascinated by Candy. I encouraged her to come to pet him, and she also hugged him and hung onto him, until the father came and found her. She never spoke a word or answered questions. She barely made eye contact with me. Turns out she was autistic. Her father was frantic but grateful she was safe. Candy just seemed to know that there was something special about her and became her security blanket for twenty minutes or so, very patiently tolerating her embrace. It was so touching.

There were so many other cool things that he did, like that. He always seemed to know the right thing to do. He was a real dog, with real defense and man drive, but he was practically bomb proof. A cat could run directly in front of him and he completely ignored it. Strangers came to see him and not one, but two of them actually patted him, then grabbed his cheeks in both hands, dropped to their knees and looked him dead in the eyes, and proceeded to roll around on the grass with him. Yes, roll, over and over. Candy just got up with a "huff!" of indignation, shook himself off, and left them laying there like fools. This happened two separate times! Normally I would never let it go to this point, but I completely trusted that dog! He was just one special kind of dog.

A son of Candy's died a few years ago, at twelve years of age, not far from where I now live. The little boy in the family then is a grown man, now. He used to pinch that dog's nose, again and again and again. I told him not to do it, but he didn't stop. "Max" just tolerated him. This was the whole bloodline. Yes, behavior is largely founded in genetics. I have no doubt about it. When you have raised dogs and watched the pups grow and compared them, you see the subtle similarities. No test can really measure this. It takes good observation of the family line.

doesn't matter what breed it's always negligent to leave children and dogs unsupervised...it's tough to watch 2 year olds opening doors and getting into everything, but this probably could have been prevented...poor child

Sadly, that family line was largely ignored, lumped in with the vast herd of other "SchH3" imports in a sort of amorphous cloud.. as if they were all the same.. which they definitely are not. Ufo vom Fiemereck was the gangster SchH3 dog I owned, and he truly produced some psycho pups with very, very bizarre and even unpredictable behaviors, more reminiscent of a wolf.. stalking, "rage" attacks on the handler (incorrect social drives and lack of correct subordination). That whole line.. ugh.. I could tell you just as many stories about it and how dangerous those dogs were.

But, phenotype does not equal genotype. I've also seen tough dogs which can produce dogs with extremely good intuition, intelligence, social adaptability and gentleness towards innocent people.

The breed wardens used to give us more insight into the character of dogs, but the dogs, like the breed surveys, seem anymore to be made with cookie cutters. And, the training techniques can cover a lot of the real nature of the dog, to produce a sort of canned series of behaviors which do not do a lot to reveal the real nature and character.

Well,  that's the way it goes. At one time, our breed was legendary for it's intelligence and trainability. Now, I get the feeling that we are looking at an assembly line manufactured product. Maybe I'm being too harsh. I'm out of touch with  the "modern" dogs. I just like certain bloodlines and they do not happen to be from any of those lines which are popular for show. I'm sure there are some nice ones, though.

I just wish we had more insight into the individual characters of the dog.

Side note.. another dog which was recommended for improving temperament was Yago vom Haus Valentine, but that line is long gone, now. There was another dog.. I cannot remember the call name, but it started with a C, and the kennel name was "von der fünf Giebeln". He was known to produce wonderful temperament. Also a very long time ago.. He was imported to the US.

I guess some people have not heard of the "terrible two's". When our daughter was two and three years old, I needed two of me, just to keep an eye on her. She scared the crap out of me a couple of times, and believe me, I was watchful.

I think too many people are thinking that the dog is a babysitter. Yikes!