Posted on 04/25/2006 8:18:20 AM PDT by Wristpin
This reminds me of the group who blamed the tiger that attacked Siefried (or Roy, can't remember which one)!
Ask the families of the 15 humans killed by pits last year!
That's all you have? Stupid people? Why was she breeding pit bulls while they are being euthanized by the thousands in the shelters?
Just what we need more junk genetics, junk breeding, going to junk Owners.
Enjoy your breed and don't be so grumpy when you see the collateral damage piling up.
Genes DO play a part. Denial of this is ludicrous.
You don't know at all that the girl "CHARGED" in. Stop sensationalizing. Sounds to me all she did was begin to walk that way and before she was really close, the DOG just "charged" and then didn't let go (typical PB type).
Actually it was made originally to CONTROL bulls (just as in "bull"dog), much like a drover. The "pit bull" came later from the bloodsport of throwing them in pits with BULLS to FIGHT.
I have to admit, Cesar is 1 of the FEW people I admire for dog stuff these days. But he's no-nonsense - I bet he'd be willing to admit some 3% of dogs are absolutely incorrigible.
Another one shot by law enforcement...
"It was either shoot or get torn up by the dog."
Capt. Tommy Bibb
http://ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060412/NEWS/204120340/1001/NEWS01
But he is not breed-specific about that.
You answered your own question in the same line!
Grumpy? no, just trying to deliver some facts to counter the propaganda.
"Michelle Randall, Jasmine’s owner, said she warned Sydney not to go near Jasmine. “She ran into the house after being told not to,” "
I am NOT sensationalizing anything. Unlike others here, I simply have the attention span to read the entire article before making a statement.
Well, excuse me then. I'm sorry I don't recall exactly everything after reading *the whole thing* YESTERDAY.
However, you're still not off the hook. It says she ran INTO THE HOUSE - not all the way up to the pups or even the couch where the dam was. When describing the attack, it says merely "as she approached" - which could be anything. One still cannot assume it was "charging" after that bit of media write-up.
Actually I'm probably too pessimistic. It's probably more like 1%. All living beings have true defects amongst them.
As for breed (or TYPE) specifics, I'm sorry, but I think pits would show a relatively high % of their own #s to have been involved in attacks.
Just as it's all in the wording with us, you can only take the media's version with a grain of salt. They use words like that all the time to either upgrade or downgrade a story depending on how they want you to feel. This is a common technique taught in most higher-level essay/journalism classes.
Oh, I'm aware of that. Hence we can only take away the basic story from such an article.
As for the percentage of pits involved in attacks compared to their numbers, this may never be known, because numbers aren't kept along with breeds for anything but deaths. When it comes to death statistics, though they are responsible for more deaths some years than other dog breeds, compared to their actual population the percentage is miniscule (less than 0.000002%) which happens to be the same percentage for all dog attacks compared to their numbers.
You only see the worst attacks on the news, and of course there are attacks that cause little or no damage, combined with shootings resulting from the threat of an attack that doesn't get a chance to happen. But there are an estimated 4 million attacks a year, so the percentage of dogs attacking people compared to their numbers is also extremely small. The media loves reporting dog attacks if 1)The dog in question is a pit bull or rottweiler 2)The dog in question is the exact opposite of what is considered "vicious" (ie labs, pomeranians, etc.) but they pretty much stop there, unless there's a death or extreme mauling.
I've seen these stats posted many times. I'm not sure the whole story on stats is being told. Deaths is significant, compared even to "just attacks".
And I know the press "latches on like a pit" ;-D about these stories, but I'm still wary of those type dogs. There seems way too much, and we'll probably never have really good stats not only from what you describe, but from the fact half the time the dog isn't accurately described. They do seem to have (mostly) too much "drive" built in, evidenced by their refusal to let go.
My only experience personally was 1 walking the public street who OBVIOUSLY wanted to tear apart my German Shepherd when we opened our building door to go out while they were walking past. And I know my dogs, unlike the ASPCA or the local sheriff. This dog WAS a PB Terrier type, not anything else, and he immediately launched after my dog in a vicious manner (and yes, I know vicious vs. assertive, playful, etc). I don't think my GS understood quite that the dog wanted to fight, not play, but at least she was wary enough to stand with me and not just approach. She'd have been a fool to do so (she was rather old, too, even if you couldn't much tell).
Never mind that, but the fact is killer or serious attacks mostly seem PB-related, including in my immediate area. I think if any dog outside any retriever :-P attacks, they will be reported unless it's minor injuries.
But that's just it. They aren't reported. I just found a ton of attack stories of dogs other than pit bulls that have happened in the last few months. The thing is, these kinds of attacks either aren't published at all, or they run in the back of the newspaper for a day.
http://www.goodpooch.com/BSL/slantedmedia.htm
I am working on getting the links to all the stories, but unfortunately because they don't have as much "pizzaz" as pit bull attacks (quoted from an old friend) it may be close to impossible. The ones listed are only those that were reported AND found by these researchers. The list of course doesn't even put a dent in the 300 thousand attacks occurring every month, but it at least shows that pit bulls are in no way in the lead on attacks.
I agree with you about the statistics. There is no way to really ever know for sure what numbers go under what breed, as even the CDC's findings classify "pit bull type" as one breed. It is at least five breeds rolled into one, which in itself isn't going to look good, but hey. The people reporting don't really know the difference between a bull terrier and an american staffordshire bull terrier (think spuds mckenzie vs. pete the pup)so they get lumped together and it looks even worse.
I have just spent 2 hours searching pit bull deaths for 2005 because someone keeps saying there were 15 of them, but I could only find the same 3 over and over, published by different reporting agencies with slightly different stories(it's amazing the amount of details that end up changed just because a different source reports it. Ages, names, details like who bit who, all seem to get jumbled up) Not that I am saying there aren't more than 3 to find, but I can definitely see how someone searching this and not reading the stories can really be misled about the numbers.
I even read about a boy who lied to police and news reporters, saying a pit bull attacked him, just so he wouldn't get his friend in trouble. It was a German Shepherd that attacked him. Another interesting article I read recently talked about a police officer who was attacked by a stray dog that looked like a yellow lab. He went to a few different news reporters after suffering greatly from this attack, only to be turned down, for the story was "not newsworthy". He came back a month later with the same story, but this time the dog was a pit bull. Of course, he received quite a few return calls.
And this is what I hate about the situation. The media obviously has a lot to gain from keeping the public in fear. They know that people seem to get off on things like this; they get excited when something really gruesome happens. People who report the news for a living go to school to learn how to do it this way. Their classes aren't just about essay writing and journalistic integrity. It's actually a type of sales/marketing. What people seem to forget about the news is that if it was just about reporting the news and they didn't get anything out of it, there would only need to be one news station, and there would never be a need to distort the facts or choose one story over another. They aren't just reporting what comes to their attention, they pick and choose. They report the juiciest stuff, because how else are they going to keep our attention?
Problem with that site: the summary says it doesn't include "pit bull" descriptions - yet some are underlined as "pit bulls". And is not the American Bulldog a pit-bull type? (Maybe not strictly that type - but again of the same bulldog background which fell into bull-baiting.) There's quite a few of those and they're very rare.
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