For 40 years I defended hundreds of homeowners/dog owners by appointment of their insurers. Included were three death claims. In every case the dog owners never failed to tell me, at length, how their dog was the most wonderful, gentle pet and that they could not imagine what the victim did to provoke their dog. The next thing I usually heard was how the dog slept with their children and they would never have allowed this had the dog been vicious.
From this, I learned four things:
1. All owners love their dogs and believe their dogs are harmless;
2. All owners are blind to reality and fail to appreciate the danger their dogs pose to others;
3. Any dog can bite at any time or attack another dog at any time;
4. Large dogs bite harder, do more damage, and pose a greater danger than small dogs.
As a final observation, my clients who owned pit bulls were the worst offenders and failed to have any insight into the danger their dogs posed to others. Frankly, most of them were flaming as ....oles who should have been locked in a cage with someone else's pit bull!
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