Posted on 07/27/2005 10:25:34 AM PDT by meandog
Each owner whose pit bull mauls or kills someone swears up until that time that THEIR pit bull is well-trained and not dangerous.
Denial is no reason to put peoples' lives in danger.
I'm a dolt? Care to expound on that brilliant deduction?
I had never seen a pit bull attack until last year. My sister has neighbors on the opposite corner that breed them. Many of the neighbors have filed complaints with the police because of the dogs. I also know they had to settle a lawsuit with one of the neighbors when one of their dogs attacked him as he worked in his front yard. I spoke with him after this incident and he showed me his arm and leg which were scarred from the attack. Other than warnings and tickets nothing else was done about the dogs over 5 or 6 years time.
I was sitting on the side patio having coffee early one Saturday morning when a young girl was jogging with her FFA project lamb. The girl did not go past the home where the pit bulls were in the back yard, only turned at the corner and went the opposite direction of the house where the pit bulls were. The female pit bull jumped a 4-1/2 chain link fence and chased after them.
I yelled at the girl to let her know they were coming. My sister heard me, looked out the window and came out with her shotgun. By that time the male dog had joined the female and they were attacking the lamb. It was pitiful to hear it's cries as they bit it. The girl tried to rescue her lamb but the dogs would not let her get close to it. My sister fired one shotgun blast in the air to try to frighten the dogs off and the male dog ran off. The female had the lamb by the leg when my sister walked up to the dog, placed the gun to it's head and shot it. It released the lamb and ran a few feet before it dropped dead.
The lamb lived, but it's leg was damaged and it limped. The girl was unharmed and the folks who owned the dogs sued my sister. She got a jury trial and the jury acquitted her and praised her for good shooting and bravery. The neighbors with the remaining dog moved.
After watching the savagery of the unprovoked attack, I would never live near anyone who owns a pit bull. That attack was one of the most frightening things I have ever witnessed.
OK, hold on here. You've used a poor analogy here. It's one thing to deny a child access to a .357; it's another thing to deny an adult such access. So let's sweep the whole child issue off the table.
Now we're limited to adults that you say are "not able to become a pack leader." Are you saying that you support some sort of regulation as to who can and cannot own pit bulls?
If so, it sounds like that's what Denver did. Only their choice was a bit, well, binary.
It isn't quite true that it's the owner and not the breed.
That's like saying every parent who raises a psychopath had a hand in their development.
Some "bad seeds" ARE born. And it's foolish to act as if dogs are tabula rasa. They are bred to do different things and while every dog does need proper training and love, some dogs are more prone, EVEN WHEN RECEIVING THAT, to act violently towards other creatures.
They are ANIMALS.
LOL there's nothing to expound. I was losing my temper with someone else and responded to you.
I disagreed with your conclusion of what media decide is 'sexy,' which you seemed to say was based on breed. The Presa Canarios that killed that woman in San Fran got as much coverage as any 'pit bull.' Poodles are not really involved with fatal attacks or even serious maulings, so there's no news coverage. Just as when a pit bull nips his owner's finger or kills a local cat, no one is reporting it.
My apologies for not simply and politely saying: Dude, you're wrong.
There's a reason the insurance industry is excluding coverage for these dangerous breeds. Because they've been paying many millions of dollars to compensate lots of victims of lots of attacks from several dangerous breeds. When in doubt of the severity of the problem, look at the free market -- it's running away from dangerous breeds as fast as it can.
Aw man, they're THE breed of peace.
It's not bleeping coincidence that pit bulls, even before they became popular with the urban gangsta set, were responsible for a disproportionate share of fatal attacks.
ITS IN THEIR NATURE. Not all pit bulls are bad, but a hell of a lot of bad dogs are pit bulls.
Canine homicides and the dog bite epidemic: do not confuse them:
A clear distinction needs to be made between canine homicides (i.e., incidents in which dogs kill people) and the dog bite epidemic. The attention given to the homicides has put the spotlight on pit bulls and Rottweilers. Without a doubt, these two dogs are usually the number one and number two canine killers of humans. (See below, The dogs most likely to kill.) It therefore is correct to single out those two breeds when talking about canine homicides, because those two breeds cause half or more of the deaths.
However, an incorrect impression is given when talk shifts casually from the canine homicide issue to the dog bite epidemic. These are separate problems, not to be confused with each other. While killings definitely are news, and while pit bulls and Rottweilers are definitely over-represented when considering human deaths, there must be a line drawn between the homicides, for which two breeds are largely responsible, and the dog bite epidemic, which involves many different breeds.
Canine inflicted homicides have remained at the same general level (15 to 20 annually), which cannot be said for the number of dog bites, which is too high (5 million annually) and appears to be growing higher (see statistics, above). Considering the fact that there are 65 million dogs in the United States (see above), the homicide problem is minuscule. This is not to denigrate it, but to point out that eliminating it entirely would save only 15 to 20 people, out of the 5 million who are bitten by dogs.
The confusion caused by discussing the homicides and the dog bites in the same breath has its most important ramification in the area of prevention. Some are advocating the banning of pit bulls and possibly other breeds, for reasons that range from their alleged dangerousness to the fact that they are very often treated inhumanely. Those who hear about the homicides often support breed bans.
However, while banning the pit bull might lower the number of human deaths, such a ban would probably not reduce dog bites in any significant manner. After the United Kingdom banned pit bulls in the 1990s, a study showed that the number of dog bites remained the same even though the number of pit bulls had steeply declined. (Study cited in B. Heady and P. Krause, "Health Benefits and Potential Public Savings Due to Pets: Australian and German Survey Results," Australian Social Monitor, Vol.2, No.2, May 1999.)
As a practical matter, the current tide of public outrage should be focused on the enactment of measures that would deal effectively with the broader problem, not the more narrow one. It would be unwise to enact all kinds of controls on one breed alone, not necessarily because it would be unfair, but because it would be ineffective. The war against crime isn't a war against just the bank robbers, but against all criminals; the war against drugs isn't a war against just the Colombian drug lords, but all drug lords. For the same reason, the dog bite epidemic must not focus on just one breed and stop there.
Don't be silly. You just gave us two examples where breed matters. Perhaps counterintuitvely so, but it matters. And if you ask any knowledgeable dog owner, disconnected from this particular controversy, they won't hesitate to talk about gentle breeds versus aggressive breeds.
Now of course that may just mean that some breeds need more attention and training and active owner management than others, and that's fine.
So let me ask you this: are you willing to support some sort of requirements for obedience training and/or comptetency training before someone buys a dog? Or a dog of a known aggressive breed? Or do you just expect people to pray that the owner of the Rottweiler next door is one of the competent ones?
Hmm, perhaps there were regional differences at the time.
I wasn't saying pit bulls weren't owned at all by those types, but the people I knew in Maryland/DC at the time were more likely to own a German Shepherd. You can kind of tell by how people talk about dogs, what they own or think is 'cool' or masculine.
It was definitely German Shepherds and Dobermans. Thing is, the numbers don't lie. And I doubt most of us have to worry about German Shepherds hopping fences and chasing after us like texgal described. I'd bet most of their fatal attacks were on people they 'knew.'
As I said, it is a freedom issue. But folks who pretend that pit bulls are no more aggressive than other dogs, by and large, are avoiding the issue.
Okay let me get this straight:
* 57 percent were children involving (59 percent) of them being by an unrestrained dog on the owner's yard...and (18 percent) were killed by a chained dog (which to me means that most of the time the animal in question believed it was defending its territory from "threats" it recognized as less-dominant than itself). Only 22 percent of the dog bites were off the animal's recognized territory and only 10 percent were sleeping infants (both are cases in which the animal truly needs to be destroyed and the owner jailed).
Ah, I see.
Let me add though that most of us are considered with more savage bites and fatal attacks.
Dog bites, I'm pretty sure no one thinks they are going to disappear.
But I think a neighbor kid getting bit by the jack russell or even labrador is going to feel a lot better afterwards than with his throat ripped out by the pit or rott.
I never worked in underwriting, but I worked on the adjuster/claims side for many years. I handled a number of dog bite cases. The worst one was a pair of Dobermanns who chewed up a 14 year old boy pretty badly. The owners, BTW, were at fault - they hadn't socialized or trained the dogs and just allowed them to run around as a mini-pack on their property. Poor kid walked in with his aunt IIRC who was this prize couple's housekeeper.
I never had a pit bull case. Probably because most of the slimebuckets who have the mean "pit bull type" dogs don't have homeowners or liability insurance anyhow.
>> That's like saying every parent who raises a psychopath had a hand in their development. <<
That's EXACTLY what I'm saying.
They're just supposed to wait and see if the Rottweiler next door kills their child and if it does then the owner goes to jail and everyone's happy. See?
/sarc
It seems like when you combine "big or strong aggressive dog breed" with "evil or stupid people" you get serious dog attack cases.
I really hate how some people think THEIR dog won't do anything or doesn't need training or that it'd be a 'bad thing' if someone fed their dog poisoned food to eliminate the threat to the neighborhood.
Seriously, if a dog owner won't insure that his or her dog won't attack the neighborhood, then the dog needs to be killed in any way those living there can do it. And if EVER the owner encourages an attack or does not intervene to stop one, they should be shot immediately.
Problem is:
Psychopathology has pretty much arrived at the conclusion that most psychopaths are born NOT made through bad parenting.
YES! ... Just as owners of firearms should be trained to use weapons, owners of pitbulls MUST be trained to become pack leaders if they have the potential (and whimpy DU types need not apply because they'll never make the grade).
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