I have been biting my tongue on this subject since I began blogging almost a year ago. But I've had it, no more; and really I would love to see a national movement to exterminate this breed of dog.
Last week in Aurora, a 10 year-old boy was attacked by his family's three pit bulls. Neighbors heard the boy and the dogs and men armed with a baseball bat and large sticks beat the three dogs off the boy but not before he was seriously injured. I heard this morning on the news that they had to amputate the boys arm and that he would require massive reconstructive surgery in the coming years.
I am sick of turning on the news and seeing children, and adults, across this nation being killed by this breed. One local radio show last week dedicated their entire program to Pit Bulls. Many breeders called in with legitimate information on this breed. Pit Bulls were originally bred to kill bears, BEARS!!! What kind of chance does a child, or an adult even, stand against a dog bred to kill a bear? And there is a belief out there with breeders that these dogs have been so interbred that they are literally retarded now. That combined with the type of person who owns this breed, someone who is violent them self, makes for a deadly combination.
The ironic thing about this story is that come January 31st of '06, one of the toughest bans in the nation regarding this breed will be instilled in Aurora. Denver has had an outright ban on pit bulls for awhile and now Aurora has followed their lead. Pit Bulls, along with some other breeds, are not entirely banned from Aurora, but the criteria to own one of these animals is so stringent that it makes owning one virtually impossible.
Yesterday I spoke with my neighbor regarding Pit Bulls; he stated that he once owned one and it was a good dog until it turned two. He said that the dog became so vicious that he had to have it put down. Others that I know who have owned one state similar stories.
Two good things about this story; one, the boy lived. He's very injured, but he is alive. Two, the dogs belonged to the family of the victim. This scenario usually plays out that a Pit Bull got loose and attacked a child in the neighborhood.
Now, I don't want any negative comments or hate mail about this, you will be deleted and banned. If you're someone who defends this breed than you have some facts that you need to digest. Go tell your defenses of this breed to the parents of children killed by them. Go tell your defenses to a family here that lost their mother a few years ago because the neighbors Pit Bulls escaped and had to be shot to be stopped from killing an additional family member. This breed being present in public society is a threat and equates to Mountain Lions roaming the streets. This is a public safety concern and needs to be treated as such. Denial threatens the safety of our children.
Posted by Stacy at November 11, 2005 01:14 PM | TrackBackCan't we instead round them all up, and drop most of them in Al Qaeda camps, the rest in the Kennedy compound?
Posted by: Jeff H at November 11, 2005 01:35 PMThank you for making me laugh, Jeff. I am so angered and emotional about this latest attack, probably because this boy is close in age to my youngest, that I'm literally a wreck. I never again want to see a child killed by a family pet, never.
Posted by: Stacy at November 11, 2005 01:44 PMJeff, that is a great idea! Stacy, I'm with you on this. A neighbor moved on to my street last year with a pit bull. Us 'sane' members of the community finally convinced him to take his dog to his family's farm. I was terrified to let my 4 year old daugther outside.
Posted by: scmommy at November 11, 2005 02:03 PMYesterday I spoke with my neighbor regarding Pit Bulls; he stated that he once owned one and it was a good dog until it turned two. He said that the dog became so vicious that he had to have it put down. Others that I know who have owned one state similar stories.
Oh heck, I'll add mine.
My wife and I went to the local humane society to adopt a dog. As we were going down the line of cages, we saw this beautiful short haired dog that was listed as a "hound mix". She had her nose out of the cage and was trying to lick my hand. We took her out for a walk, and decided to take her home. We had her spayed and I settled into a training session for the dog.
She turned out to be untrainable. We are supposed to make the dog lie down to reinforce our dominance, but the dog didn't want to stay down, so I did what the instructor told me and sat on the dog. There I was, for 15 minutes sitting on the dog with sweat pouring down my face.
As the dog grew, I noticed a widening of the head, and an increase in weight and general heaviness. The dog's neck was 18" around (mine is 17 1/2").
A choke collar was worthless to train her with because of her thick neck, so I was forced to buy a pinch collar (this collar had about 1" dulled spikes curving inward to help get the dog's attention).
I don't want to sound racist, but I had numerous black people tell me what a nice pit bull I had. Pit bull?!?!?!? My dog was a hound mix!
I finally had to come to the conclusion that she was either a full blood pit, or a pit mix. I decided I wasn't going to be a dog bigot, because the nastiness dog I ever met was a poodle. I supposed with enough love and care, any dog could become a gentle, loving family pet.
Wrong.
She started having a problem with my dad. When we were away (she'd never do this in the presence of the "alpha dog") she would snarl at my dad like she was going to attack. She did this with a couple of our friends too. At that time we had a toddler and one on the way.
I finally decided to have her put down. She was about a year old, and couldn't imagine putting an ad in the paper "Vicious dog to good home". Now if there was a junkyard that needed a dog...
I called my ex vet and spoke with the receptionist. I told her that I needed a dog put down and she asked how old. I said: "A little over a year". She said the doctor would not even come to the phone to talk to me. (Now you know why she's my EX vet ;))
I called a second veterinary hospital (where the dog had gotten spayed) and said I needed to have my dog put down. They said they would do it if I would talk to their "animal behavioral specialist". For cryin' out loud!!! I had to talk to a dog shrink!!!!
So I talked to the shrink. I told her the symptoms. When these "episodes" would happen, the dog's eyes would glaze over, and she'd go into a snarling rage.
"Oh", the shrink said. "That's classic pit bull behavior. When their eyes glaze over, they are disassociating their pain centers to get ready for a fight". She said: "We have medication that can help".
I snapped.
I said, in the deadliest voice that I could muster: "Ma'am, here is the deal. I want you to euthanize a dog for me and dispose of the body. For that I will give you as many portraits of George Washington as is usual for this sort of service. Should you not do this for me, I will take her up into the woods, tie her to a tree and blow her head off with my shotgun and leave her carcass for the scavengers."
She said: "Bring her in Monday".
Now have we all digested this information? We have a dog who weighs 90 pounds (the males weigh about 120). This dog has a pecular jaw structure with intense leverage on the jaws. They can generate 2000 pounds per square inch. Add to that the fact that the teeth kind of curve in, and they're designed to take out chunks of flesh.
Imagine an animal like that "disassociating it's pain centers". This, in English, means that this animal feels no pain. In order to stop an attack, you have to immobilize it, shock it, mace it, beat it into unconsciousness or kill it.
Add two more dogs with instinctive pack hunting behavior and what do you get? You get a tragedy waiting to happen.
We were lucky. Our dog didn't bite anyone. But others aren't so lucky like the little boy in this post.
If you haven't figured it out. I agree with Stacy. Either there has to be a federal law, state law, or ordinance forbidding these dogs in towns where multiple people live and work.
Oh, and I forgot. My daughter asked if "Molly was in dog heaven". I said: "Yes, honey. She is."
But to my wife I said: "She's in hell with a job of keeping the damned souls from getting out".
Posted by: Tony at November 11, 2005 04:48 PMStacy,
I agree with you completely. The pit bull is a breed that was created -- possibly for good purpose -- and has apparently outlived its usefulness. Whether it should have been created is an argument for the ethicists, and I'll have no part of it.
There are people who keep these animals in apartments in the city. The animals have an excuse; their owners have none-- they're stupid and irresponsible.
Anyone who would (knowingly, to excuse Tony) take one of these animals out for a walk in a public place should be considered a terrorist.
Exterminate the breed. The sooner the better.
I'd vote for Jeff's suggestion of dumping them on the Al Qaeda, but I'm afraid there would be some that would be used by Al Qaeda against American soldiers, and that's not funny at all.
Posted by: Bill at November 11, 2005 06:18 PMYou're right about the people who own them. My ex-brother-in-law used to breed them in between stays in prison.
He once asked me if he could keep a couple of them in my back yard because he was homeless (yes, homeless, but he wouldn't get rid of his dogs).
I told him that if he ever brought one of those things on my property, I'd stick my 12-gauge up its ass and pull the trigger.
Posted by: The Exile at November 11, 2005 09:58 PMI have one of those BIL's too Exile; LOL! Something else I should have mentioned is that many of these dogs are bred to fight; illegal dog fights, many times to the death. What kind of person does this? We all know.
Posted by: Stacy at November 12, 2005 12:31 AMHmmm. I'm going to end up being a voice, not exactly of dissent, but at least of caution. Instead of a ban on pit bulls, wouldn't it be better to hold the owner 100% responsible for his dog's behavior? By which I mean, if you knowingly own an aggressive dog, you'll be prosecuted for any action the dog takes (such as attacking someone) just as if you'd done it yourself. Basically, treat the dog as no different from a gun or other weapon.
The reason I'm hesitant about a complete ban is because much similar logic has been applied to things like guns. There are X number of children killed by gun accidents every year; should be therefore ban guns?
Now the difference between guns and pit bulls is, naturally, that guns don't have a brain and cannot act independently. Pit bulls can. So obviously, they should be treated differently, to some extent.
BUT -- doing a bit of research about the issue has led me to believe that there's more to it than just "pit bulls are inherently dangerous". A blogger from the Chicago Tribune, for example, posted a "Why not ban pit bulls?" article, and dozens of people responded, many of them defending pit bulls, some of them vehemently. The most common theme was "Pit bulls in the hands of a responsible owner are quite safe; pit bulls in the hands of an irresponsible owner are a ticking time bomb."
As I said, I'm not at all convinced that banning pit bulls is the answer, nor that it would even work. (As with guns, who's going to obey the ban, law-abiding folks who weren't the problem, or the scofflaws who were the main cause of the problem in the first place?) I think holding the owner personally responsible for the actions of his/her dog as if they'd committed the actions themselves is probably a better solution.
Posted by: Robin Munn at November 12, 2005 03:17 PMI owned a Pit Bull, and I still see her frequently. She is one of the sweatest dogs I've ever had, and I had a lot of them.
When we first picked her up, she was a baby, and we were told that she was a boxer pup. As she grew, many pit bull owners have told us that she is identical to their dog, and since I've seen photos of pitt bulls that are a dead ringer to her.
Once i knew she was a Pitt Bull, I never trusted her. She hasn't given me reason not to trust her, but I don't. We gave her to friends who bought our house about seven years ago. Although she was a good dog, I would not defend the breed, but would say, she's been an exception, and would never buy another.
Posted by: Darlene at November 12, 2005 07:02 PM...guns don't have a brain and cannot act independently.
But, Robin, liberals do think that guns have a brain and can crawl out of my gun cabinet and kill people.
They never blame the person who pulls the trigger (unless it's a cop) and always whine about the gun.
They're no more likely to hold pit bull owners responsible.
Posted by: at November 13, 2005 09:55 PMOops. Forgot to fill in my name for the above comment. Your comments still aren't saving my stuff, Stacy. No biggie. I can type.
Posted by: The Exile at November 13, 2005 09:57 PMI'm sorry Exile, they and I have repeatedly fiddled with the comment template and all that. It really is a MuNu thing. Everyone else likes my cookies except MuNu.
**Note to self, use different recipe**
Posted by: Stacy at November 13, 2005 10:00 PMI must disagree with most of the above. Any breed of dog can bite and turn on its owner. Any breed of dog can attack humans. Remember the uproar about Rottweilers a few years back? Yes, of course if individual dogs have been mistreated and trained to fight, they are dangerous. But you cannot blindly point to any one breed of dog and say, "They are all deadly." They are not. I have known rotten pit bulls, and I have known good ones. In all cases, the disposition of the dog reflected straight back to the owner.
There's an interesting comment from this website (http://www.fataldogattacks.com/). Of course, she's pushing her book. Still, she says one thing I find revealing.
"Overwhelmingly, the dogs involved in fatal dog attacks were unaltered males.
From 2000-2001 there were 41 fatal dog attacks. Of these, 28 were attacks by a single dog and 13 fatalities were caused by multiple dogs.
Of the 28 single dogs responsible for a fatal attack between 2000-2001;26 were males and 2 were females. Of the 26 males, 21 were found to be intact (the reproductive status of the remaining 5 males dogs could not be determined)."
So you could just as well say you're taking your life in your hands if you don't neuter your male dog, no matter what breed he is.
Also, these cases tend to get carried away by emotionalism. Now, I am in no way minimizing the grief of anyone involved. But I would like to think I have enough common sense to only blame the individual dog, should such a thing ever happen to my family. Yes, I would probably demand that THAT DOG be destroyed. I would not, however, paint the entire breed, whatever it may be, with the same black brush.
Posted by: Bonnie at November 13, 2005 11:00 PMBonnie, you will not be deleted and banned. ;)
You made your point well, but we do not hear of other breeds killing. Now, I am smart enough to know not to put all of my faith into what the MSM is reporting and it's quite possible they're on a mission to point out every incident with a PB. But there is no denying that these dogs are dangerous. And like any breed that has been interbred too much, you're likely to have problems.
You have to remeber that this dog was bred to kill bears; not rabbits, but bears. All dogs are carnivores and aggresive by nature. Training is imperative in any breed but more so in a dog capable of doing so much harm. This dog is often chosen by less than stellar members of society.
I'm not sure if you read another comment I posted regarding how many of these dogs are used by their owners. Illegal fighting, often to the death. What kind of dog owner is willing to place their pet in a fight where there is a chance of it being killed? We all know.
Posted by: Stacy at November 13, 2005 11:25 PMWell, I had a nice, moderately long post where I agreed with Robin Munn and Bonnie, and expanded on Bonnie's points about other breeds being feared, but I lost it. However, I would like to share this link:
http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html#Thedogsmostlikelytobite
It has 8 breeds listed as most likely to cause fatalities, and Pit Bulls are second on the list. I'm not going to specifically defend Pit Bulls, because they are easier to cause to be vicious than most, but there are also other breeds that can be dangerous.
Posted by: WayneB at November 14, 2005 01:52 AMI fear I must be with Stacy on this one.
My brother owns one of these creatures. He's a sweet dog and well-trained (and my brother is quite law-abiding!) - but they were bred to be weapons. I'm not sure one should take the chance, especially around children. You may get something like this.
One of the many strikes against them (as anyone can observe) is that they are not nearly as expressive as other breeds. Other dogs have much richer body language and are easier to read, for us and other animals. PB's do not. Their range of expression is limited and the signs that, in other breeds, cause us to back away or other dogs to roll and act submissive, are not readily apparent in a PB. It's harder to avoid trouble unless you know the breed.
Even if they didn't have violent incidents more often, pit bulls are still more dangerous - if my neighbor's bichon frise goes bonkers I can toss it over the garage, but I am less powerful than a full-grown pit bull and would be in peril.
Now, if enterprising breeders wish to work on this by interbreeding with sweet-tempered and intelligent animals, consistently, to create a modified pit bull strain, all would approve, I think.
Posted by: Nightfly at November 14, 2005 07:25 PMNature vs. Nurture...
I'm a softie for animals, moreso when it comes to animals that are raised to be killers.
There are people out there who intentionally abuse their pit bulls to make them mean. It's a status symbol to some people. And I think this is sick.
If and when a dog attacks a human, of course it should be destroyed. If a dog is found to be vicious even before attacking someone, I think there's good cause to confiscate it, attempt rehabilitation, and if necessary destroy it.
I hate to condemn an entire breed, however, because there's a small segment of the human population that get off on raising a vicious animal.
That's just me.
Posted by: Admin Worm at November 14, 2005 09:10 PMHopefully this post won't get deleted. ;-)
Just a correction from a the owner of a "mutt" that happens to be part pit bull. To scmommy, no dog that's 90 to 120 lbs is a pit bull. Full-grown PB's/Staffordshires weigh 30-65 lbs. A dog that big that has the jaws you described is most likely a mastiff. I'm really sorry you got this bad dog with a dominance problem, but if it weighed that much, it was not a pit bull. Stacy, PBs were not bred to kill bears, they were bred to bait bulls, like other bulldogs. Airedales were used as bear hunting dogs, but they are a very different breed. Dog breeders are not licensed, don't have to take any test, and may not know what they're talking about. Accurate breed data is available at www.akc.org.
I think extermination is the only proper course of action for an animal of ANY breed that had ever been fought or was from a line that was proven to be bred for fighting. Unfortunately, that's the only safe/sane thing to do. I'd add that any owner that chains/pens up an aggressive/potentially vicious animal (as opposed to immediately putting it down) should be incarcerated. It would suck to have to do that, but life ain't fair and you have a responsibility to protect the people around you.
That being said, I'd prefer that I not be forced to exterminate my sweet, expressive, loving crossbreed pet because of heavy-handed legislation that isn't based on actual facts. If you check the peer-reviewed JAVMA study WayneB posted, you'll find crossbred pits are involved in fewer fatal attacks than "regular old mutts", and unfortunately many of these laws include characteristics that would forbid the ownership of crossbreeds.
The emotions that make us want to protect vulnerable people are the best part of what makes us human, but when it comes to legislation we oughta make it a point to temper those emotions with a rational analysis of the data, unless we don't care about creating unneccessary misery for others.
Thanks!!
Posted by: Chris at November 19, 2005 10:38 PMMy pit is seven years old, and has not once "turned" on us. She is VERY afraid of our cats (who are declawed, by the way) and runs from annoying little dogs (who bite more than any other dog I have seen). Someone once scaled our fence and entered our yard, she hid in the corner, shaking and shivering. It was our "friendly looking" Chow Chow that scared them off. Animals are like humans, if you raise them to be bad, they will be bad. If you raise them in a wonderful, loving environment, they will be wonderful and loving. Period. End.
Posted by: Krink at November 20, 2005 05:54 PMNo, you boys won't be deleted. I'm sorry, I have actually heard a breeder state they were bred to kill bears. Granted there are many breeds that are dangerous, but you honestly cannot deny that the stories we hear speak mostly of PB's. As I stated in another comment, it's very possible that the MSM has it out for PB's and they only feed us the deaths caused by them. And as you stated, it is about the owners. Unfortunately many PB owners are far too irresponsible.
Posted by: Stacy at November 21, 2005 12:22 AMJust surfing through... I'm in Colorado, also. The episodes here -- remember the woman being killed a little while back -- ought to wake up our citizens about the need to do something. Given what has happened here in recent years, your "proposal" for the breeds long-term, er, prospects make sense.
Posted by: Patricia Tryon at November 24, 2005 02:43 AMIt's really too bad that there is so much misinformation on dog breeds. Pitbulls were not bred to kill bears. They are an offshoot of a bulldog mixed with a terrier-hence their true name American Pitbull Terrier.
Unfortunately, they are a fad breed at this time. Dobermans and Rottweilers went through this in the 80's and the 90's. In those decades, the media referred to every biting dog as a doberman or a rottweiler. I've seen pictures of biting dogs in the news that were obviously other breeds called pitbulls. It's become a catchall term, so statistics are skewed.
Yes, they were fought in pits. It's disgusting. But the people that bred them for that had to make sure they were *human-friendly* so that the handler could break up the fight without getting bit. Any dog that bit was eliminated.
I'm not saying there's not a problem with Pitbulls. I'm just saying that because they are a fad right now, many more irresponsible people own them. And even if the owner is responsible, you don't know what the dog's parents were like. So they are usually irresponsibly owned or bred. Speaking from a breed-standard perspective, human aggressiveness is totally out of line for this breed.
So I Don't think banning them is the answer.
A TRUE american pitbull terrier would never dream of biting a human.
On a side note-did you know that America's top drug sniffing dog is a former pit-fought Pitbull?
http://www.pitbullsontheweb.com/petbull/articles/popsicle.html
Honestly, I hated these dogs less than a year ago. Then I decided to stop reading news stories and do some independent research. I totally understand the viewpoints, having been there so recently. But thank you for taking your time to read this. I hope that you will do a little unbiased research as well.
Posted by: Kristi at December 7, 2005 07:40 PMTo any who say we should destroy the entire APBT breed I ask you this.
Should we kill all of the of the big cats? They will kill a humun.
Should we kill the North American Grizzlies? The will kill a human.
No that to most Americans would be wrong. To make an entire species extinct because of a few that can and do kill humans is ridiculous. Now I know most sites that you can post to will ban and block someone that goes against what they say or believe and if you do thats your right.
Just wanted to let everyone here know that you are more likely to be bitten by a cocker spaniel or a lab then a pit.... statisticly speaking. How many of the dog bites that are NOT pit bull related are on the news? These are the questions we should be asking. Until you meet a pit bull owned by a responsible dog owner than nobody should be making assumptions about a breed they know nothing about.
Posted by: ashley at January 3, 2006 05:46 AMAshley, you make a great point; but as pointed out by some others, PB's are an attractive pet to less than desireable individuals. A recipe for disaster.
UPDATE: This story has turned out that the mother and sister of this boy have multiple charges against them. The dogs were emaciated and mis-treated. Again, a recipe for disaster.
Comments now closed on this post.
Posted by: Stacy at January 3, 2006 02:49 PM