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Hi Stav,
Although a plan can certainly be made for a case like this following both the fear aggressive and dominance aggression blueprints, this case has so little room for error and is the perfect storm for life altering injuries or death to their youngest child, either during the management process of training or after the owners’ let their guard down with some time.
Without being politically correct and remaining unbiased, this family just brought into their home the exact type of dog statistically that kills the most children: 2 year old intact male pitbull with an unstable temperament. This can turn out very very bad. Stats here: https://www.dogsbite.org/
I would feel unethical if I told the family anything other that it is not worth the risk to their child when there are so many other dogs that get killed daily without homes that do not pose this type of risk to the child. A stable pitbull can be a great family dog, but one that does not have a “normal” temperament for the breed, but still has the quick trigger and ability when it does decide to show aggression is what the problem it is. It would be different if this was shih tzu with similar temperament, there would still be risk of terrible bites and scars, but guardian and gladiator type breeds we are talking about lost limbs, parts of the face, death etc.. when it decides to go for a child and sometimes even adults.
One of our most important jobs on the professional level is evaluating a situation and determining if the situation is reasonably safe, despite what the client may request.
Safety is determined not just by the dog itself, but the ability of the owner, and the environment the dog is expected to live in. So this dog may be OK in a different environment, without a five year old, with an equally dedicated owner with further evaluation.
That being said, there is a LOT that can be done with a good training plan and patience, and technically it could be possible that the owners can succeed with this dog with ninja like supervision, management, and training. BUT, we already know this dog WILL attack the child for multiple reasons and likely other unknown reasons at this time, with what sounds like no warning at all if they don’t completely dedicate the next 10 years to making it impossible for the dog to do so.
