And, for those who think they need a pit bull in order to walk the streets of Chicago at night? Remember, one of the reasons you are out there is to ‘walk the dog’. did you remember to bring the baggies?
ditch the dog and stay home at night if you insist on living in a dangerous city.
Dude, I don’t at all think I need a pit bull to walk the streets at night–that’s not at all why I got him. He’s not a security dog (and he’d make a rather poor one at that, I’d think). But walking any medium-to-large dog in my city does have the side effect of making it slightly safer for the walker. And, yes, of course I bring the baggies.
And, no I’m not going to stay at home at night, dog or no dog. Chicago, despite the added risk living here brings, brings me more joy than any other city in the world. And, by my risk scale, the risk is insignificant.
Anyhow, to those that asked, my dog is okay. He got his results, and it was just a benign tumor (histicytoma).
Ah, so you just don’t like all dogs in general as pets. That’s fine. At least it’s a consistent position. This dog is my first pet ever. I never really understood how people get attached to their pets as much as they do. I also found it weird how they treated the dog as a member of the family. After all, it’s just a dumb, filthy animal, right? But after getting this dog, I began to understand the attachment and the people who have it. And I know some people just don’t develop that attachment, and a dog will always just be a dog. And that’s okay, it takes all kinds.
Because people like them. You’re are in the minority in you opinion if you live in the US as more than 50 percent of households have a dog.
Yes, any dog represents increased risk in people’s lives. Those of us who own dogs find that risk to be worthwhile.
Even with pit bulls that risk is insubstantial. Killing twice as many children every year as k9s is the dreaded hot dog, in addition to barely being a food product it’s design if perfect for choking children to death. If there is a dog that should be banned let’s start with the frankfurter.
This says it all regarding your feelings and attitudes about dogs. You see them as utilitarian, and they certainly are. I agree with those who believe we never would have established civilization without them.
However, in a very real way, dogs are part of the human family. As such, for a great many of us, I might even venture to say the majority, It is not possible to have them in our lives as mere tools and fail to form an emotional bond with them. An extremely powerful emotional bond… As a woman who, wisely, chose not to have children, Dogs have always been for me an excellent way for me to experience and express those emotional needs that for many other people are met by children. While I rationally understand perfectly well why people choose to have children, in another way I don’t understand it at all, they seem to me much as dogs seem to you: parasites requiring an enormous amount of time and attention and giving very little in return.
I do not love my dogs as replacement children, however I do not see them as faux people. I do not dress them up and celebrate their birthdays. I love dogs for exactly what they are: dogs. Dogs do not need to be pretend people to be worthy of human love, they possess the qualities that make them naturally lovable. Dogs are intelligent, emotional, funny, silly, brave, generous, interesting and satisfying companions. They have their own magic and wonder to them that makes them endlessly delightful and deserving of our love.
Science has finally caught up with common sense, and proved to itself that all animals have exactly the same emotions as human beings do, it’s merely a matter of degree. The same goes for intelligence, and ability to reason. Animals generally, and dogs in particular, possess everything that human beings possess to make them worthy of love and a place in our lives. And if you need to understand it from a more utilitarian perspective, consider this science has also shown that people who have pets, and dogs especially, live longer happier healthier lives than people who do not. It is a very natural human desire and need to love and care for another, and dogs are an excellent way to meet that need, as the only other beings on this earth who genuinely understand us and communicate with us in ways that even our fellow apes cannot and do not. They belong with us, they are part of us.
Finally, a very practical reply to your suggestion of ditching the dog and staying at home: why choose that, when the dog, by her presence, can add to my safety and comfort and expand my choices about my life? Why limit myself when she can ease or remove those limitations? Because a different dog, living a different life, with a different person, hurt someone? Thinking like that would leave me leaving in a hermetically sealed box. The mere fact that we are alive means we are in perpetual danger of being hurt or killed by just about everything in the world. We make choices about which things are worth risking to have in our lives, and for me and millions more, the dangers posed by dogs are so miniscule and manageable, tehy don’t even factor into the equation.
It is, unfortunately, impossible to measure, but it seems obvious to me that for every instance of a dog causing severe harm to a person, there are millions of instances in which the presence of a dog has prevented, thwarted, or otherwise mitigated danger and harm from other sources. The nightime walk being the ideal example: I wonder how many times a man or woman or child would have been victimized by some kind of predator if they had not had their dog with them?
In the end, you are certainly entitled to your own feelings and perceptions of dogs, but the positive impact they have had and continue to have on human beings, even just in their roles as companions, far outstrips the terrible but extremely rare instances in which they do serious harm to us. So while you may not emotionally connect with the way so many of us feel, it would be an embrace of ignorance to argue that they have inadequate value to make them worth the risk, because it is very plainly untrue.
Dog, gun…I really really hope we don’t go down the DGU route here…
Am very glad to hear that.
Let’s not forget working dogs, particularly companion dogs. Yes, there have even been companion Pits; Helen Keller had one and I’ve found a two-year-old mention of a disabled woman with one in Philadelphia.
I hate guns. Seriously hate them. But I’m not really interested in banning them, not least because I don’t think it’s possible at this point: there are more guns than people in this country. But just because I’m not advocating banning them doesn’t mean I will stand by and let anyone perpetuate the wholly false idea that pit bulls specifically or dogs generally can be compared with guns, or otherwise imply that it is hypocrisy to be simultaneously anti-BSL and anti-gun, because it’s a bullshit argument - any similarities are entirely superficial:
US population: 314 million.
2012 dog-caused fatalities: 34
So 1 in 9,235,294 people will die by dog yearly
1 in 2,470,588 dogs will kill someone
privately owned firearms in the US: 310,000,000
2011 gun-caused fatalities: 32,163
So 1 in every 9,762 people will die by gun yearly
and 1 in every 9,762 guns will kill someone yearly
1 in 9700 vs. 1 in 2.5 million…if dogs were killing people at the same rate guns kill people, we’d be looking at about 8,500 deaths yearly! :eek::eek::eek:
And of course, there’s the whole other part of the argument: what are guns for vs. what are dogs for? Well, without even considering the relatively small and minor role of dogs in keeping us safer, dogs are for a long list of wholly positive and wonderful things.
But what are guns for? Killing, maiming, and threatening to kill and maim. Sometimes as a means of protecting, sometimes as a means of doing something terrible. But either way, they are a tool for accomplishing death and damage to living beings. Which no doubt accounts for why they are so spectacularly successful at killing and maiming so many living things, so they are certainly effective!
And if this keeps up we will have to open a thread, but I am going to throw this in for good measure:
The factual reality is that having a gun in the home doubles the likelihood of someone in that home dying by gun violence, and for women specifically it nearly triples the likelihood of dying by gun violence.
On the other hand, security experts agree that one of the simplest, most effective tools for home security is a dog of any kind, even dumbass little nippy dogs, with larger, scarier sounding and looking dogs being even better, of course.
So go right ahead and keep all the damn guns you want, I won’t try to stop you, but please don’t kid yourself or try to bullshit anyone else about how it will increase your safety, or that pitbulls and guns could or should be considered and dealt with similarly. Cuz it’s bullshit, big and steamy piles of it.
Back to the topic.
a young girl was just killed (coroner ruled it a homicide ) in Chicago this week, by the family pit bulls, confirmed as pit bulls, by the family via interview in the Chicago Tribune,
29 of the 31 (94%) fatals in 2013 were by pit bulls, who are 6% of the canine population, and all of the other 300 breeds contributed a COMBINED TOTAL of 2 fatals, and no other type of dog killed more than one person in 2013.
And this isn’t a breed specific problem?
Why?
Give it a rest, drama mare.
Let’s agree that it is.
And then agree that it is a problem with (some) of the people who choose that breed.
So banning it doesn’t address the actual source of the breed specific problem, because those people will just turn to a different powerful breed.
Now, let’s discuss real solutions.
By the way, this video is an excellent reply, from a solid professional, to pretty much every question.
I have to link the video I’m on my iPad I’ll do it In a bit
If and when they do, we’ll deal with it then. Or are you really saying you’re going to dream up some hypothetical bullshit as an excuse to not tackle a problem here in the real world?
No, and you already know that. I’m saying we should cure the infection, not just keep chopping off the different parts of the body it spreads to. I’m saying that focusing on dogs instead of on people is sentencing us to an endless game of whack a mole.
So take 10 minutes and watchthis video. We are here to fight ignorance, this is your opportunity to fight yours.
I have to assume you just saw pit bulls and the froth from your mouth rose up so high it blinded you. Otherwise you would have seen where the police have determined this death was due to NEGLIGENCE. Do you grok what that means or must I spell it out?
OK, I’ll spell it out: The adult in the house NEGLECTED to keep the child safe by either watching her at all times when the dogs were around, or putting the dogs in another room or in the yard to keep them separated.
Again, you don’t know if that two-year-old started poking the dogs in the eyes with a stick or tried to use one of its ears to pull herself up by, causing the dog to see that as an act of aggression. And since you don’t know how these dogs were trained …
You see, quite often, people who get pit bulls choose them because they want a strong dog they can train to be vicious.
If it was considered “cool” for that breed to be German Shepherds, you’d be reading about an abundance of deaths caused by German Shepherd attacks. As it happens, the assholes have decided to glom onto pit bulls. Assholes have ruined it for everyone, just like the jerks at school who keep texting during class so the teacher takes away your phone along with everyone else’s. Except cell phones aren’t the problem, the obnoxious kids are.
I see. Got it.
But then why aren’t there 300 other fatals, from 300 other breeds of canines? Do only pit bull owners neglect children?
Pit bulls = 6% of canine population, yet 94% of fatals.
If these neglectful parents had chosen a golden retriever - they would be 2500 times more likely to still have their child. Would you like to see the study that arrived at this 2,500 factor?
Lets add having an epileptic seizure, in addition to being “neglectful” to the long list of excuses for a fatal pit bull attack.
A 27 year old woman was just killed today by her own land sharks - authorities say it was due to her having an epileptic seizure which may have trigger the dogs to kill her.
PS why aren’t golden retrievers killing their owners when they have seizures?
You know there aren’t because…? How do you know other attacks aren’t being undderreported?
Actually, that occurred last year, and it was recorded.
38 fatals occurred that year, pit bulls did 61% (23) of the carnage.
PS any golden owner, will tell you that looks like no golden they ever saw. Google golden retriever, then google pit bull. Then flip a coin to decide which part of that mix caused that fatal. In fact, I posted that photo here last year, and many SDMB commented it looked like no golden they ever knew.
Even so, it was recorded as a golden, non-pit fatal.
And every USA fatal attack makes the news. Period.