Why would a family with children in a Brooklyn apartment have an Italian mastiff (Cane Corso) living with them?

A fighting dog in the house with a bunch of toddlers? S-T-U-P-I-D.

Tragic combination of stupidity and irresponsibility.

I will go along with the stupid diagnosis

Because douchebags are allowed to reproduce and are not excised from society at birth. Whether this is a good thing is a subject of debate.

(Seriously, training a dog to fight? Douche-fucking-bag)

Just going to agree with everyone else here and go with plain stupidity. Having a fighting dog in a house with children is bad enough, but in an apartment? That’s even worse, and just ridiculous.

People don’t think. They just go with their urges. Or maybe the girl wasn’t happy about it, but she was being abused and felt like she had no say.

Ignorance & irresponsibility.

The reasons for having a dog like that in the house aside from how this one was trained, but in a general sense, they were probably thinking the dog was good protection. Maybe they thought it safer than a hand gun or other weapon or maybe they preferred a gun over the dog but for legal reason they could not legally own one. Knowing the dogs past logic should have said it was a time bomb waiting to go off even if they supervised the dog around the kids at all times. At the very least they should have had a muzzle on it after it killed the family rabbit of they even had the mind to keep it beyond that.

Well anyone that’s dumb and cruel enough to train a dog to fight probably is not going to make the best parent. That said, I’m sure like any other dog they are perfectly safe when placed in the right hands. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a big dog in an apartment provided you are are able to exercise them regularly. In fact, I feel dogs in apartments sometimes have it better because their owners are forced to walk them while someone that has a house often gets lazy and just lets them out in the yard all the time.

I don’t even allow my 10 pound 13 year old terrier mutt alone with small children. She is a sweetheart but she is a dog with teeth so it is my duty to protect her from herself and small children.

All people who have kids and dogs have the same duty although so many don’t think it is necessary because the dog always lets the kids crawl all over it and pull its ears, etc. Accident waiting to happen!!!

@tko7800 Wanna know the worst part? Cani Corsi are well known for being extremely docile and protective when raised properly, but since they were originally a fighter breed there’s still assholes who abuse them and mistreat them on purpose because they’re also known for being one of the most resilient and deadly races out there. Which means that this particular scenario is to be entirely chalked up to the douchebaggery of the owner, and yet the dog is the one who’s going to get killed. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Yes, @Thammuz is correct. I googled “Cane corso temperament” and they said the dogs are good when socialized properly. The news said the owner, whose nickname is “Dread” like to watch “When Animals Attack.” The news also had interviews with neighbors who said the mom would be outside (getting the mail, smoking cigs, whatever) and leave the kids in house with the dogs. Not too smart. This time the mom came home and dog was standing over child, and dog had bitten the child’s throat out. The NY FD had to use their tools as weapons to get the child’s body away from the dog. Really sad, like @Thammuz said, that the dog will be euthanized as a result of what was probably pent up aggression and not being socialized properly.

Idiots like this make me sick to the stomach. Firstly, training a (pet) dog to be aggressive angers me. People like this just want a status symbol and thousands of dogs suffer because of it (in this country we see so many dogs, mostly bully types, destroyed because they are encouraged to be aggressive towards other dogs and also people). Secondly, allowing children to be around an animal that is trained to be aggressive is unbelievably fucked up.

I am all about “blame the deed not the breed” in the majority of cases such as this and, in my opinion, the deed can often be blamed on the human being that is a major influence on a (domestic) animals temperament.