Analyst warns: cute dog-and-child videos online can hide real danger

A serious dog attack in Carnikava, where two unsupervised dogs bit six children and injured a teacher during a kindergarten walk, has reignited public debate about dog behavior and child safety. On TV24's program "Preses klubs," political analyst and co-founder of the PR agency "Mediju tilts" Filips Rajevskis addressed the issue, including seemingly harmless videos circulating on social media that show dogs interacting with children.

Pack instinct never disappears

Rajevskis reminded viewers that dogs are pack animals by nature, and this principle still applies even when a dog seems fully controllable and friendly. A dog can behave differently depending on whether its owner is present, and situations can become especially complicated when multiple dogs without owners come together.

The danger of "correction"

According to Rajevskis, a dog may sometimes perceive a child similarly to its own puppy. Dogs raise puppies using methods that can look harsh to humans — nudging with the snout, gripping by the back, or other corrective behaviors. As a result, a dog might try to "correct" a child's behavior in the same way, which can look like an attack to an onlooker even though the dog may simply believe it is teaching the child. Such interactions can end in serious injury for a child, even if the dog had no intention of causing harm.

Videos don't show everything

Rajevskis pointed out that many social media videos show only the end result — for example, a dog pulling a child out of the water — without showing exactly how the dog grabbed the child. The same applies to videos of a dog calmly lying next to a child: viewers cannot know how the dog is actually perceiving the child in that moment, and such scenes often raise concern for him.

He emphasized that full responsibility for interactions between a dog and a child lies with the owner, and one should not rely solely on the fact that a dog has not shown aggression before. Correcting aggressive behavior, he said, is professional work, not something an owner should attempt alone. Rajevskis concluded that leaving a large dog with a child without adult supervision is a very serious responsibility, even if the dog has so far seemed calm and trustworthy.