A paperboy was bit in my area recently. Of course it received front page coverage in the local rag. The owner said it was an Amstaff. I was immediately suspicious. The Amstaff community in Canada is very small, around 300 owners and I was pretty sure I knew all the Amstaff owners in the area. I got on the phone to the Humane Society, to the reporter that wrote the story and the city editor, to the local TV station asking if the dog had papers to prove it was an Amstaff. Turns out it didn't. They sent a reporter to my house to do an interview that made the first page of the local section and a Toronto TV station did a good follow up on the story....
http://www.pulse24.com/News/Top_Story/20041126-014/page.asp
"But it now appears the dog, named Lyric, wasn’t a pit bull or an American Staffordshire Terrier after all. “It is a mutt,” confirms Bonnie Beekon of the Cambridge Humane Society. “I suspect, between 3 and 5 different crossbreeds of something.”The animal was sold through a newspaper as an American Staffordshire Terrier but it was never microchipped or tattooed. After the attack, the Humane Society determined it was actually a mix of a Whippet, Great Dane and even some Dalmation."
If it wasn't for myself and others that fought for the truth this never would have become known. Of course after the front page treatment the orginal story received, how many saw the retraction?
"If it wasn't for myself and others that fought for the truth this never would have become known. Of course after the front page treatment the orginal story received, how many saw the retraction?"
Good work! People like us need to stay on the local papers a local news about their reporting on Pit bulls because they are damaging the breeds reputation more than the bigger national and international media. Pit bull supporters in my area have gone after our local paper so much that it has actually become more favorable toward the breed.