I got a call yesterday afternoon from a long term sub whose time sheet had been processed and whose check was ready to be picked up from the administrative offices. She said she had her dog with her and didn’t want to leave him in her car, so she asked if I would get her check and take it out to her car which would be parked directly adjacent to one of the two doors that lead only to the administrative complex. Since it was only 80 degrees and her task brief, I thought it a little strange, but I know how some people baby their pets, so I attributed her request to that.
At any rate, I picked up her check and brought the check and the sign off sheet outside to her car. As I reached her car, instead of simply lowering her window 3 inches so I could hand her the check and sheet, she started to open the door to reach out with her hand.
When the large Pit Bull saw that, it literally exploded in a violent, homicidal rage. With what I can only describe as snarling demonic intent, it threw its body sideways into the door and knocked it out of her hand. Fortunately for me, her reaction was to throw her arms around the animal in an attempt to restrain it. As I turned to flee, I could see that only her seat belt prevented the animal from literally dragging her out of the car. As i fled I heard, “Oh God, run!” I reached the door with master key in hand but, guess what? The two doors that lead solely to the administrative complex have dedicated locks, so my key didn’t work. I started pounding desperately on the door, and the few seconds it took for someone come seemed like an eternity. In those seconds, I was bracing myself for an impact and a mauling. When I got inside, I was totally shaken.
I guess she recovered the situation because she called me from her car within 2 minutes. I wouldn’t answer because, I must admit, I was still shaking at my desk. About 30 minutes later, she showed up in person to apologize. It turns out that she adopted this animal. All she was told is that the dog came from “a bad environment” and needed a lot of love and patience. Really? It needs to be put down before it does get loose and kills someone.
Sometimes a dog can be turned around, but it was still unfair and foolish to risk someone else’s safety on the untested expectation that the animal would behave well when exposed to a stranger.
And I don’t know if this person is really qualified to rehabilitate this beast.
I think that whatever person or agency allowed her to adopt the dog without further precautions and better instruction is at fault here.
The dog may or may not be recoverable; but needs to be in the care of someone trained to deal with such problems. Whether your co-worker is capable of very rapidly becoming such a person, or wants to if so, I have no idea. If not, she should do her very best to find some such person or agency and get them to deal with this.
I can relate, because I had a terrifying dog experience when I was 6 years old. It left me with a residual fear of dogs for many years. To this day, I’m maybe a bit more cautious with new dogs I meet than is probably necessary.
Disclaimer: I love animals, and most dogs are wonderful creatures. Even the ones with issues may be redeemable with the right training. That said…
My friend’s family down the street had two huge scary German Shepherds that would stand upright with their front paws up against the chain link fence and bark viciously at me whenever I came by.
To this day I remember everything ultra-clearly except for the actual incident, which probably lasted a couple seconds: One day I was in my friend’s garage playing with one of his toys while waiting for him to come out and hang with me-- a coloring toy where you put an outline image behind a piece of clear plastic so you could color, wipe it off and start over. I was coloring a scarecrow. that’s how clearly I remember most of it.
Suddenly his mom brought both dogs into the garage for some reason. I remember seeing them from the corner of my eye. That’s all I remember for the next several seconds, but I must have jumped up in surprise and triggered one of them to attack me.
The next thing I remember, I was running down the driveway crying with a big bite mark in my side. The mom was yelling “come back!”. I took a brief look back to see her at the front of the open garage, struggling to hold both dogs back. She was losing the battle, and they were slowly pulling her down the driveway. Even in my terrified state I remember thinking “she’s crazy if she thinks I’m coming back there.”
This being a different time, there weren’t many repercussions. I remember my mom examining and cleaning the bite-- it looked like the top and bottom impression of a dog’s dental plate in my side. I don’t think they even took me to a doctor. I heard that the parents claimed that I abused the dogs, throwing rocks and things at them, apparently in an effort to keep the dogs. I was so innocent at 6 that I believed everything adults said, even though it was something that I would never do. I was not cruel to animals. I racked my brains trying to remember a single time I ever threw anything at the dogs until a few years later I realized “ohhh…they were lying.” The family couldn’t keep the dog that bit me, but he didn’t get put down- he became a police dog.
Do you have any citable authority for that? I think common wisdom is that no breed is dangerous, only individual dogs are. And that it’s not the breed’s fault if morons and assholes pick that breed to mistreat so badly that they sometimes become irretrievably dangerous.
Pit bulls were responsible for the highest percentage of reported bites across all the studies (22.5%), followed by mixed breeds (21.2%), and German shepherds (17.8%).
This is only evidence that dogs in this breed (and I understand that there is a lot of disagreement about exactly what dogs belong to this breed) end up this way, not whether that is a result of nature or nurture or both.
Did you read your own cite? This is in the first paragraph.
Sadly, since American Pit Bull Terriers have gained such a bad rap in recent decades, they often are left languishing in shelters. As a dog lover, it’s difficult to see a misunderstood breed go homeless for so long.
Didn’t you read the list of places they are banned? This clearly supports my statement that “The belief in many places is that they so dangerous they should be totally banned.”
You asked for informed thought. Those bans are not the result of informed thought but of fear-mongering. If you really want informed thought, you should look at research, not political grandstanding.
Sounds absolutely terrifying, @Jasmine! I’m glad you got out un-scathed.
In my limited experience of dealing with my own problem dog, you always gotta set your dog up for success. This person had him in a tense situation (being in the car can be tense, even for dogs who like cars. People coming up to the car is also tense) and instead of keeping him fully enclosed, she very stupidly opened the door. That’s totally on her.
I don’t know if she made a stupid mistake in the moment, or is just totally clueless and shouldn’t have the dog. Pitties aren’t inherently bad but they’re inherently strong. I hope this person learned a valuable lesson about what her dog is capable of, and continues to put in the work to know how to set her dog up for success.
This much is true. The only dog who ever seriously tried to bite me was a little toy breed, who couldn’t get teeth through my heavy boot leather; though not for want of trying.
They’re also more likely to be mistreated by people who think that they want a mean dog. (You don’t want a mean dog. You want a smart dog. Gentlest dog in the world will bite if it’s necessary. Smart dog knows when it’s necessary. But even a smart dog can be mistreated into thinking it’s necessary to bit when it isn’t.)
People often also misidentify other breeds as pitties – especially if the dog has bitten somebody.
Adoption agencies should try to make sure that the adopting human can manage the dog – taking into consideration size, strength, and physical condition of the dog; likely instincts (such as herding or hunting, but also need to run, need to work, and need for attention) bred into the breed or suspected breeds; whatever’s known about the dog’s history; and the dog’s behavior in the shelter, including carefully monitored exposure to other dogs and cats, and to humans behaving in various fashions (not, obviously, including abusive humans; but including, for example, running children.) But many agencies don’t, and few individual people who find themselves with an extra dog, and nowhere near enough breeders, do.
Very well. I googled, “How many dog breeds in the United States?”
I got: " In the United States alone, the AKC’s dog breed list currently includes 190 dog breeds. Worldwide, the FCI lists 360 officially recognized breeds." The survey I linked to said that 22.5% of the dog attacks in the United States are due to Pit Bulls.
Hmmmm. 1/190th of the breeds are Pit Bulls, but more than 1/5th of the attacks are perpetrated by Pit Bulls. The prosecution rests.
I was charged by a pit bull last week–pretty intense.
I was walking across an empty parking lot. At the far end by the driveway was a couple who were living out of their van on the side street. They were in the process loading/unloading their belongings on the sidewalk and they had let their pit bull out of the van, unleashed.
I saw the dog and started walking to the far corner of the parking lot, but it spotted me and ran at full tilt right towards me, growling and barking. It was about 30 yards away and closing fast. there was no way I was going to turn and run. The only option I could think of was to hop up on the cement base of a light post which at least gave me a 2-foot height advantage. The dog ran up to the base of the light post, still barking and growling. Luckily it didn’t lunge up at me but I was pretty worried about what might happen next.
The owners finally caught on to what was happening and started yelling at the dog to come back. It was reluctant at first but ran back to them after a moment. “Oh, we’re sorry!” they said. Gee thanks folks, how about not letting your dog run loose where it can chase after hapless pedestrians?
No, the prosecution screwed up, big time. That would be a statistical fallacy even if the pit bull was a recognized AKC breed, which it is not. Because it would very much depend on the relative population of different breeds. But as it turns out, “pit bull” is just a made-up legal classification often based on just some general characteristics that are exhibited by many mixed breeds.
This AKC article provides some good information for those actually interested in being informed on the subject: