Posted on 09/04/2018 11:01:47 PM PDT by Norski
COLUMBIA, Md. —
A woman was mauled to death by a dog she adopted two weeks ago, Howard County police said.
County police said officers were called to a house Sept. 3 on Tamar Drive for a report that a woman had been mauled to death by what police described as a pit bull. Officers found Robin Conway, 64, dead in her backyard with significant injuries.
The cause of Conway's death will be determined in an autopsy by the state medical examiner.
A family member reported that Conway's husband found her injured in their yard around 7:20 p.m. with the dog standing over her. He called 911 and tied the dog to a fence post.
Police and paramedics were called and pronounced Conway dead at the scene. The dog, still attached to the post, was barking and lunging on the leash and had to be subdued by animal control officers and ultimately euthanized. A necropsy will be performed to determine if the dog had rabies or any other medical issues.
"All we know at this point is that the dog was not adopted locally. Apparently she got it from out of state. He is a pit bull. And unfortunately, as a result of this incident, he had to be euthanized," said Sherry Llewellyn, of the Howard County Police Department.
"This is one animal she thought she could save. An animal that needed to be rescued. (And that) animal unfortunately killed her," said her sister Susan Eve LeClair.
There have been no previous calls to animal control related to the address.
"They were great. I have friends that have been owners of pit bull mixes and they were great. So there was something wrong obviously with this particular dog that is not to be something to be held against all pit bulls, because there are some lovely ones out there," LeClair said.
Police do not have information about the dog's adoption except that it came from out of state.
Like Muslims, you never know which one is likely to kill you.
Where are you getting data? I wish I had direct info but even AKC makes it hard to find over many years without having their print magazine.
Mine is casually based on a general knowledge of at least AKC registration ranks and some sundry old stud books from the past. The only fighting-prone PBTs listed in AKC are Staffordshire Bull Terriers and American Staffordshire Terriers. Even triple that combo (ranking 82 and 83 this year!) and that won’t compare to Rottweilers. Rotts have been in the top 10 AKC for the last 30 years. Anecdotally, while I never saw a single Rott in “public” before my foray into the show world in the ‘80s (when they started their meteoric rise), since the ‘80s I see one about every week, and our old day-care owner has one.
I DO see various PBT types these days (only in the 2000s), but this is liberal-land, where lots of do-gooders have been inviting Moslems and illegals galore into our area (same area as this very story).
But I’d hardly compare them to the immense population of GSDs, which have been #2 for at least 5 years and in the top 5 for who knows how long. They definitely have been tops for the last century since Strongheart hit the theaters and WWI vets returned with tales of their wonder.
And Germans Shepherds are my “thing”, BTW. I am not a frou-frou dog type. Neither am I an uninformed idiot, although this is not my whole life (i.e., how many hours must we spend before we may post, eh?) as I’m sure it’s not yours, so don’t try to paint me as “not researching” while somehow, you always do every day?
The figures I can easily find show 4.4 million pit bulls alive in the US as of 6/2018.
For German Shepherds I found 3.5 million in the US, but that’s registered dogs.
https://mygermanshepherd.org/global-gsd-population-how-many-gsds-are-there-in-the-world/
Anecdotally, in our more-or-less typical Midwestern USA region, I certainly run across at least as many PB as GS. But maybe there are lots of GS service dogs I would not see?
A lot more PB seem to be coming out of questionable situations / ownership. (1st article)
OT: I saw an absolutely huge GS recently at a local farm & feed supply store. It had to be 50% bigger than any other large / adult GS I’ve seen. (I’m over 60.) Is there a line being bred for exceptional size?
Susy Blue is teasin’ agin.
Susy Blue is teasin’ agin.
I would add, it’s just my “sense” of it (v. difficult to get data): I’ll bet not 1 in 10 pit bull (and dominant mixes) owners register them.
I linked it up thread
Primarily this one
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States
Like anything it’s political
First off, I was just looking at that very site, but a different page specifically about populations.
Second, 24/7 claims it is THEIR survey of classified ads. I still don’t quite get how they come up with millions as if they had time to count up all the class ads in the country.
While it is true that registrations are not the end all beall either, because most do not have registered dogs (AND that is just for the year...does not represent how many registered dogs are living, mostly just puppies) it is likewise logical that about the same % of owners register their dogs across all the breeds. Therefore, there simply is likely so many more times of each of those registrations, and Labs are still likely the most popular across even unregistered dogs.
Last, they classify pit bulls as they should, a type of dog, but they also include dogs who are innocuous these days. French Bulldogs, Boston Terriers and Bulldogs are not the same nasty type they came from.
Either way, you can inflate the numbers all you want, but it will never come close to the 67% of fatalities that PBT types seem to be committing. The best they came up with was about 9% of the dog pop.
Some people just plain want bigger dogs, and many CLAIM their dog is 120 lbs but not. But yes, there ARE Shiloh and King Shepherds that were specifically bred to be oversized, tend to be long-haired, and are often claimed to be mixed with Malamute to help the size. They certainly tend to be square built and straight legged like Mals.
A good German Shepherd should be anywhere from 60-90 lbs. really should not exceed a slender weight of 100. My sis had nice dogs that WERE genuinely about 110 lbs. Too big, but at least they were proportionate and were not fat.
That which people term “pit bulls” are not an AKC breed, therefore, there are no actual statistics on how many exist.
I can say, from observation, if I see 4 Rotts in a month, it’s a miracle.
I see a dozen PBs every time I leave the house, *at least*.
AKC dog breed rankings are less than useless for how many of one breed actually exists versus “pit bulls”.
Case in point, at Martinsburg Bike Night, alone, you literally could not take three steps without a “pit bull” walking past you.
There are a LOT of them.
That same night, I saw one Bull Terrier, no Rotts, one Lab, a couple Chis being carried around and several little “designer” dogs.
My computer is in the basement, where they are not allowed to go. So my keyboard is safe.
Register them with *whom*?
They’re not a breed, as we term a breed.
There’s no “registry” unless you count the “pit bull” registry which is only for tracking “lines”.
1) saying people die by outher dogs is a non -sequintor, of course they do, But the fact a PBT'sd seem to have an inherent uncheck kill switch in theitr heads is the issue.
2) A majority of thr silverwear in my kitch drawer is spoons, but I've never been cut by a spoon, but you logic suggests knives are not any more dangerous than spoons and its the person handling the knife to blame.. You are wrong, knives are more dangerous than other breeds of silverwear, but knives unlike PBT'S don't walk out of the drawer and attack people.
3) PBT's do bite people a lot more frequently than any other breed. Doesn't matter if theres 100 PBT's or 3 million. The breed is a disaster around humans.
4) the only place PBT's are the most popular breed is in the pound. yes, I WAS ther today and clearly 1/2 of the dogs in there had some PBT in them. and yes I can ID a square headed, short coat, strong jawed, muscular , thin tails barely wagging nerviously, or attacking the cage as I walked by, barking like there's no tomorrow, and beady eyed, studying me . I d'd those dog as a PBT.( and they were all in their own wing of the sheltor, someone segregated them)) 40+ dogs and clearly at least 20 were PBT breeds, and none looked soft and cuddly.
These points already addressed.
-There are NEVER really any stats on how many of anything exists. One can only take registries and multiply the figures across the board.
-Pit Bull Terrier/Bulldog is a type, and only 2 nasty breeds in that group are AKC recognized now. Thus, would one have to multiply those figures by at least 6 or so.
But it’s moot. While maybe there are many more PBT types/mutts around than registry suggests, one will never be able to say PBT types (especially just the nasty ones, not the now-tractable breeds) are 50% of dog pop. Never. And seeing only them at the “shelters” doesn’t mean they’re popular, just the type that always ends up back there.
It’s like certain demographics. 10% of the pop, 50% of the crime. Can’t ever make them numerous enough to account for that.
Yup, how many times do I see a “giving tree” at Christmas for a shelter or the “adopt me” posters at the dog wash where basically, all the pix they blithely post are PBT/bulldog types.
Hardly any others. I guess by that I’d judge that PBTs are the most popular type of dog walking through the neighborhood (BTW, which included this house, which was at the end of my LAST residence’ street!).
But I see far more Goldens (including my next-door) than I do PBT out in the light of day - although I do see too many.
Most any dog (even mutts) can be enrolled in AKA’s “Canine Partners” if not registerable — perhaps I should have said “enrolled or registered”. The point is, the majority of dogs are not reliably “recorded” in any way, and registries are likely not an accurate guide to actual popularity / population.
I don't dispute that, however, it is still my observation that a MUCH higher % of owners of Labs, German Shepherds, etc., would register or enroll* their dogs than do owners of pit bull types. It's just the sort of people who tend to own them...
*I leave out here "licensing" -- I don't know if that data gets well accounted on a national basis. "Probably not" would be my guess.
Also, a fairer analysis might be to only include dogs capable of effectively defending their owner. (That's why many people buy "guard" type dogs, and are we to say they cannot?) If a PB or GS comes at me, I'm in trouble. If a Beagle comes at me, I'll punt it over the fence.
NONE of this is to claim PBs (at least the typically nastier types / lines -- I agree with you about generally innocuous bulldogs and such) are not atypically dangerous dogs. I've had a couple bad experiences with PB's myself, and usually try to avoid them. The goal is to get an accurate handle on the problem and not remove a legitimate form of defense or security from people who need it. How many deaths, injuries, home invasions, etc., have PBs prevented?
That big GS I saw was well proportioned. I can’t say there was no Mal in it, but it was not obvious.
I’m glad he was friendly. If not, I’d just about as soon take on an Alaskan Grey Wolf...
The pit that attacked one of my dogs was a rescue with an idiot handler who said, “he’s so friendly.” The rescue operation put it down faster than you can say “law suit” (which is all I wanted, plus hospital expenses for my dog.)
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