my hubby bought one of those signs a few years ago that reads: FORGET THE DOG, BEWARE OF WIFE.
does this mean he is liable if i bite someone?
just joking ofcourse.
seriously, our insurance agent told us, also, that hanging a sign out BEWARE OF DOG, is telling the world that you have a dog that you know to be dangerous and that makes you personally liable (duh, we are anyway) for damages that dog might incur.

Before Auster died, I wanted to get 2 signs.

Dog in yard

Beware of cat.

Only problem is that the signs didn't have pics and there are a lot of hispanics in the area, so I would have had to get something with a dog's picture on it as well.

the likelihood is a court will be more favourable towards a householder that has taken steps to warn people of the presense of a dog, rather than those who have not; and an unsuspecting postman, child etc has then been bitten..

Gary,
That might hold true in the UK, but in the USA, decisions have fallen on both sides of the divide over this issue, depending on the court system.

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Thanks for the info Robert.

My opinions are all over the board on this one Amber. While I agree that the parents and the child were idiots, I still feel that the Rott shouldn't have bitten the child.

When I was a kid, my Grandmother lived next to a police officer from the canine unit. He owned a gorgeous, very large GSD male named Caine. Anyway, I used to jump the fence to retrieve balls all the time when Caine was out. Caine actually liked to make a game out of it and he would steal the ball before I could get it and run away with it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> The bottom line is that this was a patrol dog who could do some serious damage to a full grown adult, but it would NEVER do so without being commanded to.

A dog just shouldn't be biting a child that comes into the yard, unless it's been put at alert to protect the property. Then, of course, you would need "beware of dog" signs as a warning. I understand that there may have been an issue of the kid landing on the dog. Then, maybe it was a fear bite, not an aggressive bite.

As responsible, rational human beings we always need to remember that there are moronns out there, and if there are enough morons who agree, the rational people are screwed. Sometimes we ARE responsible for what happens to idiots who do stupid things. Look at McDonald's....they had to pay out millions of dollars to an idiotic woman who thought that her crotch was the right place to store her coffee and didn't realize that she could get burned if it spilled!

I have signs that simply say "Dog in Yard" posted on my fence.

You could always keep a few extra large Duroc (hog)sows back there with the dogs to clean up the mess after the dogs welcome the intruding idiot to your yard. What trespasser? Probably have a wonderful effect on the agilty of your dogs too.

I had couple of yorkshires(hogs), I don't think anybody would want to get close to hogs for obvious reasons. you dont really have hogs in your back yard do you?

No, I have no hogs, thank God. I just have some personal knowledge that they are a bit dangerous and are not "picky" eaters. I had cousins that would pick up any sort of road kill (deer, coons, dogs, possums, etc, etc..) and toss it right into the hog pen, pour some corn on whatever it was, and it was gone inside of 30 minutes. Bones and all. On deer skulls they just had to take a hammer to it, as the hogs had a problem getting their jaws around it whole. But by no means were they going to leave anything, even the fur that came off of the hide was cleaned up.

I am uncomfortable with advertising the fact that there is a dog in the yard. Good expensive dogs, including very good protection dogs, get stolen at times, and I've had children who learned there was a dog on my property set off firecrackers to get it barking. How about putting up simple, stern-looking "WARNING: DO NOT ENTER" signs?