Letters to the Editor
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Check your facts, JClarkd
Head to the cdc.gov and look for dog bite stats. Looks like Chihuahuas are more guilty of giving injury than pit bulls, with Chows and German Shepards topping the fatality list. I don't see anyone calling for the restriction of those breeds. I currently own a pit bull, and I have owned one in the past. They are sweet, gentle dogs when loved and properly socialized -- just like any breed. The immoral scum that abuse dogs for entertainment and income deserve serious punishment. The dogs are indeed innocent.
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I oppose breed bans, but
it is naive to believe that dogs often characterized as "pit bulls" and other bully breeds do not cause problems sometimes. It is nonsense to imply that there is no breed characteristic aggression.
Some dogs are more people aggressive and some dogs are more dog aggressive. People should not have breeds that they are not prepared to handle or at least hire trainers who can help them handle their dogs.
Some dogs that can be dog aggressive are: Malamutes, Chihuahuas, almost all bully breeds, many German Shepherds, Belgian Sheepdogs (and their similar cousins).
Some dogs that can be people aggressive are almost all dogs used in protective police work and many used for guarding, such as mastiffs, Pressas and Corsos, and Giant Schnauzers.
Other dogs can be quite erratic: Several bite lists have Golden Retrievers at the top.
Even within a breed there is a wide variety of behavior. That is one of the main reasons breed bans are stupid.
There are last I checked, only about 500 registered American Staffordshire terriers. They are not causing the problem. Their numbers are simply not that great.
The problem is the sport of dog fighting, and the fact that many gangsters (human aggressive creatures) are now choosing pits and making them aggressive by cruel and abusive means, and worst of all, people who let their dogs loose, especially in packs, to wander at night.
Prosecute the abusive people. Don't ban the breed! Even "pits" are more abused than dangerous.
When I walk my Shepherd in the evening the dog we have to be most afraid of is a black Chihuahua that is allowed out sometimes by his owners. He is utterly frenzied and vicious. He bites at my Shepherd's feet and hocks and sometimes even lunges at me, barking like a maniac the whole time. It has taken a bit of training to get my Shepherd to step over this monster and ignore him, although he had never offered before to bite small dogs. This is not fair to my dog! I am on the verge of filing a complaint.
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All dogs can do damage.
My sister was mauled by a chow. A chow that had been raised from puppyhood by a little old lady who coddled the dog ceaselessly. It got out of its owner's yard, ran down the street, into our yard, and dragged my sister off the porch, chewing her to pieces. Why? We never did figure it out (because my rural stepfather handled it the old school way. He shot it.)
My best friend had her cocker spaniel, which she'd had for 9 years, suddenly latched onto her hand one morning, sending her to the ER for 30 stitches. Why?
I live in a city where pit bull rescue is very strong. I see pits everywhere. There's the cowardly one that is scared of my greyhound. There are several in my park. They are sweet, well-trained, friendly animals. I'm not scared of them. They're good-natured, beautiful dogs.
However, as demonstrated by my anecdotal evidence above, any dog can snap at any time for no reason at all (or reasons we can't fathom). A large dog will do more damage than a small one. For that reason, I won't have a dog that is big enough to eat me (greyhound notwithstanding).
Spay and neuter laws should not be breed-specific. For a variety of reasons they should encompass ALL breeds, and both dogs and cats. Singling out pits (or rotties, or great danes, or whatever scare of the moment is) does no one any good, the dogs themselves least of all.
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I too have been bitten by a golden retriever
Wow, less than 20 letters already and two of us have been bitten by golden retrievers.
I still love goldens and I love pit bulls. There are some mean ones out there but that's the culture these days, it used to be German Shepherds and Rottweilers, now the Pit Bull is the dog of choice for people who want to train their dog to be mean.
There are no meaningful statistics on dog bites. Before you can really understand which breeds are most likely to bite you'd need to know a) how many of each breed make up the general dog population, including mixed-breed dogs; b) how many of each breed have been involved in dog bite incidents; c) what percentage of unneutered male dogs are of each breed. Why unneutered males? Because they make up 70% of reported dog bites.
It would also be useful to do some research on bite reporting because I never reported that Golden Retirever that bit me. Would I (or anybody) have been more likely to report it, if it were a Pit Bull? Perhaps. That's something to look at.
Before any further bans are passed, it would be good to have some real information to work with.
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A fighting breed
As a young child I walked past my next door neighbor's front door with my new puppy. Their pit bull, an animal I had known for over two years, broke through the front screen door and came after me. I was an eight year old kid, so I did the worst thing I could have done. I picked up my puppy and held it over my head. I still have the scars from the incident. A young man was driving by and he was able to beat the dog off of me using a chain.
A pit bull is an animal who has been bred to fight. Your dog will attack a smaller animal. Your dog could under the circumstances described in the previous paragraph attack a child.
I knew the dog who attacked me. I watched it give birth to it's litter. But, when it came after my dog and I got in the way I almost died.
Do you really think you can control your dog? If so, you are kidding yourself. My neighbors felt the same way that you do. They never thought their dog could do what it did to me.