"By "uninvited guest" do you mean the 7 year old kid visiting the neighbors house who accidentally throws a Frisbee too high and it land in your yard and innocently runs over to get? And by "licking" do you mean the child having their face ripped off?...It makes no difference in the dog is in your yard and the their are signs everywhere, that's not the point. Using a dog to attack would be trespassers amounts to the same thing as (or at least it should legally) mounting guns around your house with triggers attached to trip wires. The dog, like the trip wire, can not differentiate between a would be burglar or a 7 year old looking for his Frisbee. The owner of the dog should be totally and solely responsible for the outcome, just like the person who set up the booby trapped guns." What a crock? Parents should be held liable for their children actions. Those kids KNEW they were wrong to go into someone else's yard, it is called trepassing! Everyone has to learn their actions have consquences while unfortunate (same as if they had been hit by a car running into the street to get the Frisbee) it is still their own fault. And now they have to live with those consquences. Now you can blame the dog or the owners of the dog, but face it the kids made a bad choice. They are lucky that choice didnt cost them their life. And those parents who weren't around to tell their children not to go into their neighbors yard should be charged with neglect.

Depends on how badly he damaged it...normally the plant will heal itself without too much assistance. Give it a couple weeks and see what happens....if it ain't broke, don't fix it...good luck.

jomuir, besides your propensity towards discrimination, you're also showing ignorance. The point of fact is that most dogs have been bred for hunting, guarding and fighting. A lot of that involves killing. Pits put up with a LOT of harsh treatment. Foolish, ignorant people think that they're a "tough" breed so they need "tough handling" when that's nonsense. Yet, pits are often subjected to this harsh handling, if not outright abuse, and they put up with it for a long time until they decide to put their foot down and say enough is enough. By the time it gets that bad, the dog is plenty defensive and ready to do damage. We all have our breaking points and since pits hold off for so long and theirs comes as such a sudden shift from their usual tolerance, people mistake these dogs as "suddenly snapping" and as "crazy" and "unpredictable". The breeds I work with most are pit breeds. But I also with other breeds as well, all kinds. I work almost exclusively with rescue dogs and they come with the worse behavior and health problems imaginable. Rather than relying on second hand propaganda from the sensationalist news or what I've heard from an aunt's friend's brother's story, I rely on first hand experience with these dogs and FACT. Most people don't know how to correctly interpret canine body language at the best of times and pit breeds can be harder than others to read due to their slight signals and physical alterations due to breed specifications. But they do give signals. And they're not anymore crazy or violent than any other breed, when it's just the opposite. They're willing to put up with more longer than other breeds would. For for people who just know everything and in their hearts, they just know that the pit bull "breed" is evil, you also display your ignorance as it's not A BREED. It's breeds. And no, their jaws don't lock and they need to be socialized from a young age with other dogs just like any other breed does. Any breed of dog can become dog aggressive or people aggressive for any number of reasons. That's all I'm going to say on the matter because I'm really quite tired of these pit bull hate parties all over the internet.

AMY- "...but they never actually gave the kid a negative consequence, they just threatened and caved." You are right! When DD was 4 and DS was 8 I had no car for a little while. I had to borrow my neighbor's to grocery shop, once every 10 days or so. I could buy milk and such near our house, but had to drive to a big store for real food about 5 miles away. My kids usually stayed home with my EX, but it just so happened that the only day I could use this car was a day Ex regularly worked. I don't think I took either of them for at least two years, lucky me! Now, suddenly they got to come with me, but every time we went, these little angels would act up. It was like someone switched kids with me as I entered the store! On the third trip, I told them if you don't behave, "we are going home without the food." Did they believe me? NOPE. They figured we had no other way or time to get groceries. Hahaha. Well, they started up about halfway through the store, and BAM, Mommy left the cart right there, and took those kids home. A few days later I asked a friend to take me shopping, because we really were down to bare necessities, but I never had nearly as much trouble with them. BTW-There were no perishables in there yet, and yes I felt bad, because someone had to restock the items. Better than letting them act like brats. Despite the hard times we were going through at the time, I still smile about how shocked they were!