Nintendogs Blamed for Enticing Real Dog to Attack Child

Daveman

has tits and is on fire
Jan 8, 2009
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... no, they're right. Because there is nothing wrong with having a dog that bites a child's face off when it hears another dog bark.
 

Sonic Doctor

Time Lord / Whack-A-Newbie!
Jan 9, 2010
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WakeTheDead1 said:
I blame the game for what happened to Megan. If they hadn't been playing it I don't think the dog would have gone for her

*facepalm*

yeah well there was this little boy left in a house with a wild jaguar, and he was playing Zoo Tycoon and a jaguar roared on the game and then the jaguar ate him, i blame the game
Funniest thing I read all day, thank you.

---------

Yeeeessss, kicking the dog had absolutely nothing to do with the dog attacking her.
 

samsonguy920

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Mar 24, 2009
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Tom Goldman said:
While this might at first seem like the unjust blaming of videogames by a publication known somewhat for doing so (the Daily Mail), this attack actually could be the result of an unfortunate coincidence this time.
Coincidence would mean there was no relation and therefore no responsibility.

Nine-year-old Megan Walker was playing Nintendogs on her Nintendo DS at a family friend's abode while the house Bull Mastiff named Saracen was sleeping in a nearby room. Reportedly, when the Mastiff heard Walker's in-game dogs barking it came gunning for her, dragged her off of a sofa, and bit a large portion of her lip off.
Note the bold portion. This would seem to be a detail other posters aren't bothering to notice. The parents of the child aren't even mentioned here. It is inattention to details like these what causes mistakes and misconceptions where the wrong party is put to blame.

The girl was taken to a hospital where surgeons were able to sew her lip back on. Though she's doing better, it's unknown if she'll need plastic surgery or not. The mastiff was put down as a result of the attack.
That gives me deja vu of a dog attack I had been involved in. I ignored warnings about a dog, and I put myself in a position where it attacked me. I did not blame anyone but myself. It is a shame too many other people don't share such honesty.

Walker recounts what happened: "[Nintendogs] barked and Saracen dragged me off the couch by my foot. I was scared." Walker's grandmother says: "I blame the game for what happened to Megan. If they hadn't been playing it I don't think the dog would have gone for her."
Someone is being dishonest here.

So what do you think? Is it actually possible that the noises coming from Nintendogs were the trigger for such a violent attack? Some dogs certainly have violent tendencies, but the dog's owner told police that that little girl may have kicked Saracen, so videogames weren't the only possibility here.
Sounds like someone may not be on the family friends list much longer with this supposition.

In this case, above others, it actually seems plausible that a videogame was partially and coincidentally responsible for a terrible event, though I wouldn't exactly blame Shigeru Miyamoto for a coincidence*. Then again, if a dog is that violent it shouldn't be running free around nine-year-olds, so its owner was ultimately responsible rather than the game.
I do agree with one point that has been put out, a bull mastiff had no business being inside the house when the child was on her own in the room. Too many things can happen from either party to cause a problem. A problem occured and the dog paid the price.
*: There's that word again. Who is to blame for a coincidence? God? The Tooth Fairy? No. Coincidence occurs because of random events. Either case, this could have been prevented with some decent foresight on the part of the family friend.

One thing I am curious about, is how good is the sound quality from a handheld device like the Nintendo DS? I have been a dog owner for most of my life, and none of them have ever responded to dogs barking from anything as good as Surround Sound. The only thing that I have seen reactions by any of them to was the sound of knocking, which is a much flatter and simpler sound than the vocal report of a dog.
This leads me to believe Grandma doesn't know squat about what she was talking about, but probably rehearsed her granddaughter to avoid any blame being put on the girl or herself.

I am so tired of people who can't own up for their own mistakes.
 

Davey Woo

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Jan 9, 2009
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Regardless of whether the game did trigger the attack or not. A dog that goes for people that easily should not be left alone with young children.
 

LadyMint

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Apr 22, 2010
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I believe it.

Some (most) dogs are just that dumb. The one I live with gets confused when I play any game where you can hear semi-realistic animal sounds. If a dog or cat makes noise in a game, he looks around the TV for where it might be coming from. It's really funny to watch.

The game is partially to blame for being so realistic, but you can't ask the game makers to back off of realism just because of it. Nor do I think it warrants them being sued if suing is what's coming up in this situation. I believe the same thing would have happened if the girl were playing with a Speak-N-Say and it kept going to the panel with the dog. This bull mastiff was probably being territorial and it wouldn't have taken much to set it off. I couldn't tell you for sure since I wasn't there, but it might have given off some warning signs that went ignored.

I do agree that the game was partially responsible, but only as much as a TV program would be responsible for making a dog act territorial when it freaks out for hearing other dogs on it. It was the child's choice to play the game within hearing range of the dog. It might have been jealous of all the attention the game-dog was getting.
 

joshuaayt

Vocal SJW
Nov 15, 2009
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Need more evidence. Had she been riling the dog earlier? Does this dog have a violent history? Did it actually "come gunning for her", or did it casually stroll in, and then, upon seeing her, attack?
Not that I'm doubting the validitiy of the claims, especially- I can definitely see a situation wherin a dog hearing another dog's barking leads to it attacking, but we really need more data. Funny how often I find myself saying this, I wish newspapers could include everything about mishaps, even stuff like personal records. Yeah, privacy privacy etc etc, but think! We could all be detectives!
EDIT: And of course this will have an anti-video game swing, but really, if it was entirely the game's fault, then it would have happened regardless of the form of media- lapdop, portable speaker, anything that a child could hold that could plausibly emit an at least semi-realistic sound.
 

Eddikins

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Jul 1, 2010
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All these dog attacks here in the UK lately are such... urgh.

They are nearly all by the same type of dog and they never mention if the child who got attacked did something to the dog.

My dog, a jack russell is extremely sweet and cuddly, but you get near her when shes in her bed and she will attempt to rip you to shreds, but hey thats her area not anyone elses.

Point is i bet most of these stories involve the kid baiting the dog and they never tell you that because if they did then they wouldnt really have a newsworthy story.
 

Crispee

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Nov 18, 2009
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I call bullshit like everyone else. If Nintendogs caused real dogs to attack children, one might think there would have been more than a single reported case of this in the 5 years since the game's release.

Hell, I have two cats who can tell the difference between a dog barking on TV and a real dog.
 

The_Echo

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Mar 18, 2009
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By this logic, the dog would go apeshit every time one of it's canine brethren made noise on TV, which is rather common.
 

Owlslayer

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Nov 26, 2009
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I'm pretty sure it wasn't the games fault. I bet that if there would have been a dog barking in the TV, the dog might have attacked her anyways. I think it's kind of silly to blame the videogame.

But i don't really like how so many people come here and blame the parents or the dog. It could have been any-ones fault, or a coincidence of some sort.

Also noticed that some people who were capslocking here didn't completely read the article. Not gonna specify, but still.

Anyways, i guess my point is: don't blame if you don't know the truth. Too bad that truth is such a rare thing these days...

And i feel a bit sorry that a dog that was most likely just excited was put down for his own reflexes. However, if this was indeed the parents' fault and the dog was uncontrollable, well, the dog had to go.
 

Cherry Cola

Your daddy, your Rock'n'Rolla
Jun 26, 2009
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Same thing would probably have happened if a dog was barking on the tv.

It's the owner's of the dog that are to blame for this, because that dog was obviously not properly trained.
 

Keava

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Mar 1, 2010
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I had about 7 different dogs in my life, including such 'apparently violent' breeds like mastiff, doberman, pitbull and rottweiler. I could bark or meow and even wrestle with any of them and most i'd get would be bark back or playful nip and tugging on sleeves of my clothes.

In most cases of dog attacks the fault lies either in the owner who constantly mistreat the animal by beating it, locking it in single room for days, training it to actually be violent or it's the kid's fault and she actually teased and annoyed the dog more often than just giving him a single kick. Not to mention leaving a 'stranger' girl in a house with a big dog and without a supervision is just plain lack of responsibility to start with.

But yeah, blaming games is so cool these days so let's blame WW2 on videogames too!

Oh and my current bloodhound, when she hears dog braking on TV, usually just starts wagging her tail and goes behind the TV to see where the dogs are hiding. Silly thing.
 

Kraiiit

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Aug 15, 2010
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Master_Spartan117666 said:
Fuck...
NOT.
THIS.
SHIT.
AGAIN.

I WISH people, especially the media, would stop blaming things on video gaming, when there are other, higher-ranking things related to this.
Dog = FUCKING MASSIVE. Problem 1
Dog = NOT TRAINED AROUND LITTLE KIDS. Problem 2
Parents = NOT WILLING TO TAKE BLAME. Problem 3 (the major one, because that proves the parents are afraid of responsibility)

Ta-DAH.
3 larger problems found.
Anyone wish to contribute to this list?
Don't you find it somewhat amusing? Not the injury, of course. Anyone with half a brain can see just how ridiculous the blame is, and how the reasons you listed played a much bigger role.

Its the kind of thing clearly skewed to attack video games, and its not very well done. Had the noises been emitted from a cellphone or a dvd player- entirely plausible- there wouldn't have been anything to report on, apart from possibly LACK OF DOG TRAINING RESULTS IN INJURY.

Think about it like this- as much as Jack Thompson is hated, I can say I'd much rather have him against games than for them, simply because making an arse of yourself doesn't exactly push your point. Hopefully, this sort of shit draws more focus to the reporters busy ambulance-chasing.
 

Mordwyl

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Feb 5, 2009
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Bull dogs are some of the friendliest dogs I've ever had the pleasure to raise. Mastiffs in particular are very relaxed and don't like fighting, so just hearing this breed did that out of virtual barks seems washy to me. I knew a bull terrier that sang (well, howled) along with a good song too and even they're more defensive than them.
 

Iron Mal

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Jun 4, 2008
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So if we were to replace the game with anything else that makes dog sounds then that would have been enough to prevent this tragic incident?

The two most likely situations I can picture being believeable are (as many others have stated) either the dog was a hazard to begin with (so fault lays with the owner for exposing a child to such a threat) or the child did something stupid to make the dog react in this way (in which case fault lays with the child for being an idiot and the parents for not observing/teaching her better).

Games were only involved in a very coincidental way here (the game could have been subsituted with anything that makes dog sounds, like one of those pens that has four buttons for sound clips in them, and the same events could very easily have happened) although I can understand why the family of the child want something to blame besides themselves.