Pit Bulls (continued)

The BBQ Pit
921

The story wording is a bit vague. The killed girl told her grandmother that the dogs had hurt her. It seems to me that if the grandmother was ‘right there’, supervising the play between siblings and their interaction with the three dogs (2 intact males and a female) that Kara would not have to have ‘told her grandmother’ anything. Grandmother would have said, “Suddenly, one of the dogs bit Kara and I rushed to help her. The dogs turned on me but while I was protecting the littler girl, they turned back on Kara and killed her.”

Grandmother had not a scratch.

My guess is that Granny was in another room, heard Kara cry out and came into the room to find the dogs mauling Kara; she grabbed the little one and got away.

Let’s say I’m completely wrong. Let’s say that Grandmother was within a few feet of the girls when the attack occurred and that she quickly did everything she could to stop the attack.

In the first case, the dogs and the grandmother are at fault for the child’s death. In the second case, the dogs and the grandmother are at fault, as well. Or, are they?

Maybe we need to put the blame on the parents. Four people killed by pits in Illinois in the last year or so, and they decide that 2 intact male dogs and a female are great company for their little girls?

A tragedy is a tragedy. No one ever thinks such a thing will happen to them. They might say, “yes, it will happen to someone, but my dogs are different, they are so gentle with the kids, they are just wonderful, licky, lovable, cuddly doggies…” What they should say is, “Hmmm. You know, the odds are really small that something might happen, but if I get rid of the pits, the odds go to zero.”

When something like this happens, the parents do more than enough to blame themselves. Why can’t we learn from their mistake? Why are we so pig-headed to believe that pit bulls and, indeed, most dogs, are not inherently dangerous?

922

the law as it stands in California:

While many pit bulls have made good pets, there have been enough dog attacks by the breed to prompt laws in San Francisco that require owners to sterilize their pit bulls.
January 24, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ – Dog attacks are seen in the news on a regular basis. More than 4 million Americans are bitten every year by dogs, and thousands require medical treatment, says the American Veterinary Medical Association. Unfortunately, California ranks second in the nation for dog bite fatalities. DogsBite.org reports that out of an 8-year period from 2005 to 2008, 28 people were killed by dogs in our state. 82 percent of the attacks were by pit bulls.
While many pit bulls have made good pets, there have been enough dog attacks by the breed to prompt laws in San Francisco that require owners to sterilize their pit bulls, according to SF Gate. This is in an attempt to protect the public, as well as reduce the number of pit bulls in animal control shelters in the area and to reduce aggression in male dogs. Animal control authorities hope this law will result in fewer pets being abandoned, as well as protecting the most vulnerable members of society from being hurt.
Children are the most at risk from dog attacks
At least half of those receiving medical treatment for dog bites each year in the U.S. are children. Most of these attacks occur while children are playing with dogs they know; in fact, most victims of all dog bites were familiar with the dog, says the American Humane Association.
Last June, a 6-year-old boy who was living with extended family in Union City had been playing with the family dog, a pit bull, with his cousins. Authorities say the boy may have been attempting to climb onto the dog’s back and ride it when he was bitten in the head. The boy died of his wounds. The family said the dog was well socialized and had never had any problems with aggression in the past.
This tragic incident is the reason why it is so important to teach children how to interact with dogs, both those they know and unfamiliar dogs. According to the Humane Society of the United States, adults and children can avoid becoming the victims of dog attacks by:

  • Respecting the dog’s space and not disturbing it while it’s eating, sleeping or caring for puppies.
  • Paying attention to the dog’s body language and not approaching it when it’s growling or seems tense or scared.
  • Never approaching an unfamiliar dog.
  • Not petting any dog without letting it see and sniff you first.
    If a dog seems likely to attack, it’s important not to turn and run - a dog’s natural instinct is to chase prey. Instead, people should remain quiet, keep their hands by their sides and avoid looking the dog in the eye. When possible, back away slowly until the dog is out of sight. If the dog attacks, curl into a ball with hands over ears and try to remain still</b>
    Who is Ultimately Responsible if a Dog Bites Someone?
    If you did something to provoke the dog, whether through accident or by doing something through ignorance, you hold some responsibility for the actions of the dog. Most dogs will not attack unless provoked in some manner, especially if you do something that makes the dog feel threatened. But the ultimate responsibility rests with the dog owner.
    If you own a dog, you will be considered at fault whether it is determined you were negligent or not. California, as one example, classifies dog bites as a strict liability matter - you are considered to be in control of your pet at all times, and if the dog bites someone, all liability rests on you. And if your dog is of a breed that is consider more dangerous than most other breeds, you are responsible for taking extra precautions, even if your dog has never shown aggressive tendencies in the past. Again as regards California, you don’t get a “free dog bite”, and the victim does not have to prove any prior incidents nor “prior knowledge” on your part as to the potential for such an attack.
    Additionally, owning a dog requires that you assume many responsibilities, certainly for feeding and properly caring for your pet, but to have sufficient insurance coverage, whether you are a renter or a homeowner. If you do not, you can be held personally liable for all financial damages suffered by anyone bitten or attacked and harmed by your pet.
    What you should do if a dog bites
    If you or a child has been bitten by a dog, the first thing to do, after receiving medical attention, is to get in touch with animal control authorities. Whether you know the dog’s owner or if the dog is a stray, it will need to be brought under control so other people aren’t hurt. Be sure to insist that these authorities complete and file a full report on the incident, and demand a copy of the incident report for future consideration. You also have a right to know if the dog has had all its vaccinations, especially for rabies. This information may prove crucial for medical personnel to have as treatment for your injuries progresses.
    Remember that dog attacks can cause severe injuries in only a few seconds, and can result in expensive medical bills, and months or even years of recovery, especially when the victim is a child. If you or your loved one has been hurt by someone else’s pet, you may be entitled to compensation. Contact an experienced personal injury attorney to discuss your rights.
    Article provided by The Cartwright Law Firm
923

You hear the same argument with immigration. The thing is, you don’t need to do this overnight. You could just ban the breeding of Pits. Forbid new licensing but leave the existing dogs. You could easily get rid of all of them within a decade or so without taking away anyone’s dog.

You could also do it through insurance. Make it so that people can keep their Pit, but if they move the new house or apt isn’t insurable because of the Pit. That would be more aggressive, as it would require people to choose between their pet and that new job in a different city.

The point is tossing six million dogs into a landfill isn’t the only option.

Honest question: Why get a dog that children cower in fear of? Why not get a friendly dog that kids would want to pet as they walk by?

I’ll never understand the need of people to own these dogs bred for violence. I mean, if you’re a drug dealer or Michael Vick, sure I get it. But for a normal dog owner? Why a Pit?

924

One never knows what children will cower in fear of. When I was in high school, there was a boy next door who was afraid of pretty much everything! Including our cats.

Our Husky mix was very friendly, knocked me over the day she followed us home from school, but you couldn’t tell that to the children who thought she was a wolf.

925

Who said the kids were afraid of the dog? They’re not. (And when I first got him, I used to let kids pet him. Then I thought about it and realized not all parents would appreciate that, so I stopped letting any children pet him.)

926

How do you define a “friendly dog”? Pits are overwhelmingly one of the friendliest breeds of dogs out there - that’s why they score better on temperament tests than many breeds that anti-pit bull people would consider to be “friendly”. And every kid in my neighborhood wants to pet my pit bull when I take her for walks, none of them “cower in fear”, but like a smart owner I don’t let them too close to my dog without their parents being there precisely because there are ignorant kneejerkers out there that believe the rampant anti-pit lies, like the one about pits being “bred for violence”.

What a tired old lie, Pits weren’t “bred for violence”, individual dogs are raised and trained for violence.

927

Nothing makes me crazier than kids thinking it’s ok to pet a dog automatically. No one, and especially no children, should ever approach a dog without checking with the dog’s owner.

I’ll never understand people who refuse to pay the slightest bit of attention to the avalanche of information being put in front of them that makes this an ignorant statement.

Pits that I have met convinced me to get a pit because they are adorable and affectionate and sweet and goofy AND at extremely HIGH RISK for abuse and neglect. So instead of fighting over a Golden Retriever with dozens of other people, I thought I’d open my heart and home to a pit.

Best decision ever, for a bunch of reasons. One very unexpected: my super sweet Rotty/Border Collie plays extremely rough. It’s still just play, but he’s intense. And my pibble girl can totally take it. Doesn’t faze her in the least.

928

That’s one of the things I appreciate about the kids in my neighborhood. While they’re generally not afraid of any kinds of dogs, they do actually ask. I don’t remember having a kid trying to come up to him and pet him out of the blue.

929

How do you explain the completely unexpected attacks on little kids by pits who are family raised, gentle, cuddly, sweet, etc…??? There has to be a genetic flaw in dogs who kill humans. If not, and you say that under the appropriate circumstance, any dog will attack or kill a human…then I’d have to say that no one should be allowed to have dogs anywhere around other people. Want to take a chance with your safety? okay, so what? genepool cleansing, etc. But don’t come anywhere near me or mine. I’m too smart to chance being attacked by a dog or pack of dogs…;):wink:

930

By this reasoning, ALL breeds of dogs are dangerous monsters bred for violence, because gentle, cuddly, sweet dogs of EVERY BREED have unexpectedly attacked little kids.

Just like there has to be a genetic flaw in humans who kill humans…? :dubious:

So you’re a brainless extremist, thanks for that admission at least.

If you’re so damn scared of dogs (“too smart”, what a laugh), you should just stay in your house with your electricity and gas turned off, because there are about a thousand daily things that are more likely to hurt or kill you, than being attacked by a dog. :smack:

931

What a sad little apologist Monster you are, Monster.

932

Well, for me part of the risk analysis goes like this: 6 million pit bulls. Something around 30 deaths attributed to a pit bull. That’s 0.5 per 100,000 pit bulls. (And yes, you should account for serious maulings, but let’s keep it that way for a moment.) I live in Chicago. 2.7 million people, 415 murders. That’s 15 per 100,000 (not accounting for violent crime that does not result in death.) In a dirty analysis, I’m 30 times more likely to get killed by a random Chicagoan than a random pit bull. So is it genepool cleansing for me to choose to live here? Even accounting for neighborhood, in my neighborhood there is usually about a murder or two a year. Since 2007, four of them have been within two blocks (1/4 mile) of my house, one less than 100 yards away. Despite being the most popular dog in my neighborhood, making up 12.5% of the registered population (and who knows how many unregistered), no pit bull deaths yet. The only dog caused fatality that I know of is the labrador mauling from the late 80s, which happened a block away.

So, in the scheme of things, it’s not something I’m particularly risk averse about. The added risk of owning a pit bull is, to me, statistically insignificant. If my life were about minimizing risk, there are a lot of other things that contribute far more risk than owning a pit bull. (And, who knows, maybe the pit bull even slightly minimizes my violent crime risk, for all I know.)

If your calculus is different, that’s fine.

933

Give it up, kids. To quote Barbie, “Math is hard,” and some people would rather live in a bubble of terror than make the effort to understand how little REAL risk these dogs represent. They are stuck, like broken records, and seem incapable of change. Stupid people are like that.

934

I want to delve down a little more with this number. I say “dirty” for a reason. Most murders are not of random victims. So, I looked into it, and it looks like about 15% of murders nationwide are victims who didn’t know the killer. Assuming that the numbers for the city where I live reflect this average, we’re at 2.5 per 100,000, still five times the risk of a pit bull chosen at random of killing anyone in a given year. So, if I want to be more accurate, I could say in any given year, I am 5 times more likely to be killed by somebody I don’t know in Chicago than any given pit bull killing somebody. That is to say, the chances that my pit bull will kill somebody, not necessarily me, just anybody, is 1 in 200,000 just based on pit bull population and deaths attributed to pit bulls. I’m not adjusting for neutering status, upbringing, anything. The chances that I will be murdered by a stranger, given the numbers in Chicago and the national average of victims who don’t know their murderer, is 1 in 40,000.

Now, you might say that I’m crazy for living in Chicago. In a risk analysis case I would say, yes, I am far more likely to die from being murdered in Chicago by a stranger than any given pit bull mauling anybody to death.

935

the random actions of other people, added to the not so random actions of family members (aren’t you still more likely to be killed by a family member if you are a woman?), are things you can’t do too much about; well, you can minimize the risk in various ways.

The actions of animals, particularly those completely unnecessary to the continuation of human life on this plant, CAN be guarded against, simply by getting rid of the animals that might, at some time, kill you.

but, I know the individual risk of being killed or mauled by a pit bull is small. The problem for your reasoning is, the risk of someone, anyone, somebody’s kid being killed by a pit bull (or some other dog) in the course of a month in the USA is just about 100%. Every one of those deaths and maulings and hospitalizations, etc. 5 million a year, is preventable. Every damned one.

I can’t do much about your neighbor, who catches you screwing his wife, and the threat he presents to you; or the drug dealer who mistakes you for the guy who ripped him off; or the cop who decides that anyone with a mental problem is not worth the time to properly tranquilize him, so just kills him instead…

But I can continue to point out that dogs are easily prevented from hurting people – don’t have them. phase them out. neuter them. dont’ let them run free. keep them away from other dogs and cats and people.

I dont’ want you to just kill them. I just want you to provide the absolute best quality care and control of dogs. Do that and lives will be saved, particularly if you realize, finally, that sweet cuddly pit bulls sometimes kill kids.

936

Apparently you’re unfamiliar with to whom you replied. :wink:

937

Nobody is arguing against this, so far as I can see.

938

Well I won’t argue against it, but I will point out that this gross generalization doesn’t account for the fact — which we discussed ad nauseum, oh, about 625 posts ago — that more than 80 percent of the time, deaths by pit bull-type dogs are attributed to at least four out of a list of seven preventable circumstances, such as keeping male dogs intact, keeping these dogs as property dogs and not indoor pets, leaving defenseless children alone with them, etc. Meaning, **but for the owner’s poor judgment/behavior/treatment of the animal, etc., ** those deaths would not have occurred. Put another way, that’s like blaming murders that are committed with guns, on the guns, and not the person who pulled the trigger.

Nuns Adopt A 9-Year-Old Pit Bull ‘Because Nobody Else Is Going To Want Her’

Good thing G-d isn’t as willfully ignorant as some of the people here.

939

I know it doesn’t make sense to you, or you wouldn’t be defending dogs or pit bulls in particular…but I just have to say…why do we need to have animals around us that should be, or must be, neutered, away from children, kept indoor, trained by experts, etc, etc.??? Surely you realize that not all such animals are going to be controlled in that way. Are not going to be as lucky as to have owners who are willing to follow all the rules…

Why don’t we just ‘make do’ with other animals who we can cuddle, lick, pet, feed, clean up after, etc. who don’t present any threat of killing us or other folk’s pets, or our kids?

940

Of course it doesn’t make sense to me because it’s stupid.

Anyone with a brain knows non-neutered male dogs of any breed are more aggressive than their neutered counterparts. Period. We educate people, we don’t impede their right to own dogs. But there will always be some subset of stupid people. Just like there are stupid people who leave loaded guns where children can kill themselves and others with them.

Anyone with a brain knows you don’t leave young children alone with large, strong dogs of any breed, any more than you should leave young children alone next to a half-filled 5-gallon bucket of water or in a bathtub with even just a few inches of water in it. But there will always be some subset of stupid people whose children die from drowning in their homes, including in buckets.

You want to ban buckets and bathtubs now, too, considering the high incidence of children drowning compared to the risk of children begin killed by pit bull-type dogs?

Anyone with a brain knows you don’t tie a dog up on a chain in a yard and leave them there with next to no human interaction, let alone affection and attention. But there will always be some subset of people stupid enough to do this to their animals. The answer isn’t to prevent everyone from having these dogs, but to remove the dogs from these particular people.

And no one said experts are required to train these dogs; they’re perfectly disposed to learning commands from their owners, as my two have. These dogs will come to a sudden and full stop on my verbal command alone now, no expert necessary.