Another Pitbull attack victim as a patient, this one a 10 year old. The dogs involved in the attack were family pets. The kid was in the back yard when the two dogs decided to attack, the mother heard a commotion, and went outside. They drove the kid past the hospital that was 5 minutes from their house, and came to mine, which is located 30 minutes further away.
The child’s mother told me that this isn’t the first time these dogs have bitten a family member. While working on the report to animal control (which we are required to file for all animal bites) no one in the family could remember their address. They all claimed to not know it because they had just moved. Out of the four adults and 7 children who lived in the house, not one of them knew their address.
When we went to administer the nasal Versed to begin the stitches, the kid refused and fought us. The mother told us that the kid has a right to refuse, and told us to do it with just a local. So we started. We did the stitches in one arm, and the kid screamed and thrashed the entire time, with me holding down the arm. It took 12 stitches and a good amount of Lidocaine. There were still bites to the other arm, a leg, the neck, and the fact that a 6 inch wide segment of his scalp had been mostly ripped off to deal with.
It was at that point that I told the Doctor that we needed to do moderate sedation. She agreed, and I told her that it would take me 5 or 10 minutes to get all of the prep work done. There is paperwork, consents, an IV that needs to be obtained, and calling respiratory therapy to get done. While all of that was going on, I called CFS and reported the family. Too many red flags, and I didn’t think it was safe for the kid at home. Nurses are mandatory reporters. CFS told me that the family had a thick file, filled with stories of drug abuse, neglect, and physical abuse. I have no problems making a call to protect kids. Any comment to this that takes me to task for making that call will go into the trash bin.
In all, it took more than 80 stitches and 30 staples to put this kid back together. When the family found out that I had called CFS, they were furious and began making threats.
Pitbulls are vicious, dangerous animals. Every animal bite that I have ever treated where the damage was more than a puncture or two has been a Pitbull. Every one. This is my second patient this month who has been attacked by one of those dogs. I know that there are readers of this blog who tell you “Not my pittie. It’s all in how you raise them, mine is a gentle sweetheart.” They mostly are, until they aren’t. Then you have a mutilated kid. It’s a living thing, it has a mind of its own, and pitbulls are known to be vicious.
The facts are what they are: despite being only 6% of the dog population, Pitbulls are responsible for 69% of fatalities caused by dogs.
- During the 15-year period of 2005 to 2019, canines killed 521 Americans. Two dog breeds, pit bulls (346) and rottweilers (51), contributed to 76% (397) of these deaths. 35 different dog breeds were involved in the remaining fatal dog maulings.
- In 2019, pit bulls (33) accounted for 69% of all dog bite-related deaths.
- Mixed-breeds had the second highest death rate in 2019, involved in 6 deaths; with 50% of these being pit bull mixes.
In a move that makes me feel like I am working on a scholarly paper for an evidence based medicine project at work instead of a blog, there are demands that I provide scholarly sources. I hope no one minds that they are not in APA format:
- On average, roughly 30 to 50 people die from dog bites each year in the United States, according to the National Library of Medicine.
- 27% of ED visits for animal bites are due to Pitbull Terriers
- Of the animal bites that are caused by dogs, Pitbulls were the dog 47.5% of the time
- There is no official breed called a “Pitbull” which makes it tough to compile statistics on this phenomenon. The American Pit Bull Terrier and the American Staffordshire Terrier are the breeds at the core of the “original” pit bull.
- In the case, American Dog Owners Ass’n v. City of Lynn, the court noted there was no scientific means by blood, enzyme, or otherwise to determine whether a dog belongs to a particular breed- not just “Pitbull,” but ANY breed
“Unlike an ordinance which generally prohibits the keeping of a ‘vicious dog,’ enforcement of which involves questions of fact whether the particular dog is vicious or known by its owner to be vicious,” the
breed-specific ordinance in question relies “on the subjective understanding of . . . officers of the appearance of an ill-defined ‘breed,’ leaving dog owners to guess” at the prohibited appearance, breed, or conduct.”
- It is this confusion that allows Pitbull enthusiasts to cloud the issue.
- In American Dog Owners Ass’n v. Dade County, the court settled on breed standards being descriptions of the ideal phenotype or physical appearance of a dog and that the American Kennel Club (AKC) breed “standards at issue describe the pit bull dog” (or rather the American Staffordshire Terrier or Staffordshire Bull Terrier) “as well as words can do.”
- For the above reasons, the legal definition can be vague: Pit bull means a Pit Bull Terrier, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, an American Staffordshire Terrier, and American Pit Bull Terrier or a member of a class of dogs that have an appearance and physical characteristics that are substantially similar to dogs referred to in this definition.
- However, we all know what a Pitbull is.
- Dog fatality statistics were obtained from the CDC Wonder Database.
- Breed Specific information was obtained here
- There is also a Forbes article
- Incidence of Dog Bite Injuries Treated in Emergency Departments, From JAMA 1998
- There are also my anecdotal observations that EVERY dog bite in the ED that I have seen over the past 30+ years that resulted in serious injury has involved a Pitbull
41 Comments
Lori G · August 27, 2024 at 9:21 am
You are correct about pit bulls. My brother had two females; a male jumped into their yard to breed and they killed him. When my brother passed away, those dogs would snarl when you just looked at them, so I had them put down before they killed someone, and they would have. You can’t trust that breed.
J J · August 27, 2024 at 9:53 am
Nothing but praise from me for your calling CPS. Children deserve to be protected from the stupidity and ignorance of their parents/family.
People believe what they want to believe, regardless of what the facts prove. Whether its a particular dog breed or two that are the cause of most dog attack deaths or that a certain minority overwhelmingly commits most of the violent crime in this country (and others).
foot in the forest · August 27, 2024 at 10:14 am
Good job on the call. Love me some dogs have 2. HUMANS are not on the menu for any breed, period. Will not own a pitt I do not need the trouble of owning a breed of dog that is prone to going nuts.
Southernborne · August 27, 2024 at 10:51 am
Seems they have much in common with that group of Canadians in our country that cause so many problems.
SiG · August 27, 2024 at 10:53 am
The mind-boggling statistic you provide, that 6% of dog population is causing 69% of the fatalities, shows they’re a problem. Do the statistics cover injuries like you describe?
This is one of those “your right to swing your arm stops when you touch me” moments. People should have the right to have whatever breed dog they choose until that choice hurts someone other than them. If your dog kills you, that’s your survivor’s problem. If that dog attacks or kills someone else, you should be held liable.
Perhaps financial incentives might work, like insurance companies refusing to pay for medical treatments caused by the breed, or having a much higher deductible for those.
I am loathe to give any government that power, but if willing sellers and buyers of insurance agree to higher costs, that’s their choice.
Divemedic · August 27, 2024 at 12:52 pm
That’s only for fatal attacks
It's just Boris · August 27, 2024 at 2:29 pm
Interesting idea. I suspect, though, that many of the owners in question will just ignore the insurance mandate, just as do many drivers. Driving without insurance is illegal, but unless the actual repercussions of doing so outweigh the benefits, people will keep doing it. And as with uninsured motorists, is guess the more likely a person is to not have insurance, the less likely they have assets that would even come close to restitution.
Divemedic · August 27, 2024 at 3:41 pm
Of course not. If you don’t have assets in need of protection, insurance is a waste of money.
Stealth Spaniel · August 27, 2024 at 11:22 am
Yes, some Pitties are very sweet. However, I never trust them. These dogs were bred (first) in England to rip bears apart and then to fight anything. It’s in their DNA. The Rottweiler we know today descends from mastiffs that lived in the Roman Empire more than 2,000 years ago. ALL large dogs are descended from the Roman War Dogs. (Imagine a dweeby Great Dane only vicious).The Romans frequently stopped in what is now Rottweil, Germany, (modern name),a significant center for livestock trade. It was known as Arae Flaviae. A controllable dog, as the Romans used dogs for everything we do today
People are just stupid and that is the problem.
I have cockers-they are sweet, love to eat, can snatch a small bird in mid air, and are velvety soft. They will also have squabbles that are mostly noise or an occasional snarl, don’t forgive cruel treatment, and will steal food from any and everywhere. Know your damned dog!!
These “parents” should be neutered or jailed or maybe both. It made the hospital staff’s jobs impossible and exacerbated the child’s trauma. Good on calling CPS.
greg · August 27, 2024 at 11:29 am
I brought Marco the Lab over a friends house who had to Rhodesian Ridgebacks. For 4hrs the dogs were just fine together until the guy’s wife went out into the yard. Freaking crazy dog snapped and attacked Marco instantly. 80lb Marco didn’t stand a change against 120lb Ridgeback. At the ER the vet asked if he was mauled by a Pit since the injuries were consistent with what killer dog breeds are capable of. 900$ worth of stiches to sew him back up. Marco never even broke the skin on the killer dog defending himself. If owners of vicious breeds were punished severely for not being able to control a dangerous animals there’d be alot less of these sad stories.
Dan D. · August 27, 2024 at 11:50 am
“I have no problems making a call to protect kids.”
Your entire job is to protect people. I find your depth of resilience amazing. It encourages me to strive harder.
You got the solar rigged up, the robot death mower running and like I suggested last year, its time to write the book. Royalties, my man.
Don Curton · August 27, 2024 at 11:51 am
The facts are what they are: despite being only 6% of the dog population, Pitbulls are responsible for 69% of fatalities caused by dogs.
Hmmm. Reminds me of another statistic about being only 13% of the population, but responsible for over 50% of the violent crimes.
Big Ruckus D · August 27, 2024 at 9:21 pm
Yes, it keeps coming back to this little nugget of reality, doesn’t it. And then too, the perennial deniers who claim “not all pitbulls are like that” are doing exactly as all the bleeding heart white liberals who will make endless excuses for the 13/50’s who exhibit the exact same tendency towards impulsive and unconstrained violence on a hair trigger. I’m a realist, and the stats bear out reality. Verifiable data sets are not stereotypes, they are warnings to take notice of a fucking problem and act on it to protect against outsized risk.
What the hell do these people think (yeah I know, they really don’t) insurance companies utilize actuarial tables for? The very same reason I seek to avoid interaction with “he wuz a good boy and dindunuffin” Americans, and pitbulls, to the greatest extent possible. Sure, I’ve run into pits that were friendly enough, but I never trust them, and seek to distance myself from their presence as quickly as possible. And I’m great with dogs, rarely meeting one I can’t be immediate buddies with.
Bottom line: bad risks are to be avoided, and quite often they even reveal themselves to those who can and will actually take notice, instead of being an idiot pussy and making excuses for why the realists are wrong (and racists, too). Pattern recognition is one the of the most fundamental aspects of human intelligence, and there has been a long time concerted effort to breed it out of as many people as possible. Fuck that noise, call out the garbage and insist it be properly dealt with.
I don’t know what the proper solution is to pitbulls is, since imposing particular insurance requirements and greater liability on those who choose to keep them isn’t all that effective. And the notion of giving gov’t yet more power to ban something just enrages me. But continuing to allow people – be they stupid assholes or otherwise – to keep these things around at great risk to others is something that pisses me off, and does concern me as someone who works in others homes, and runs into pitbulls as pets with some regularity.
One detail in the story I missed is how you finally got the correct home address. Did that come from CPS, or by some other means? And any explanation for why they bypassed the closer hospital?
Divemedic · August 28, 2024 at 5:16 am
There are answers to your questions, but I try to keep the stories here vague for security reasons
Big Ruckus D · August 28, 2024 at 8:00 am
Fair enough, was just curious.
Don Curton · August 28, 2024 at 11:30 am
I would assume the family was “known” at the closer hospital, so they elected to travel further in order to avoid any CPS and/or dog confiscation issues.
Unknownsailor · August 27, 2024 at 11:27 pm
> “Reminds me of another statistic about being only 13% of the population, but responsible for over 50% of the violent crimes.”
It is worse than that, it is really more like 3% (males 15-39) commit 56% of all violent crime. Since 2021 or so the FBI UCR hasn’t had decent stats on this (gee, I wonder why?) because the agency changed their reporting system, and some big city police departments no longer provide their data. This is the reason the liars in media are claiming that crime is down, and they never tell their audience that the UCR stats no longer accurately reflects the actual crime rate due to incomplete participation.
IcyReaper · August 27, 2024 at 12:32 pm
I concur also. I’ve seen those dogs go from sweet and big babies to a killer tearing apart a gentle irish setter that had been around him for years for no reason. Its onlt a question of when for those dogs. My question would be what did CFS do if anything about this. Sounds like its been going on for a while. Were the threats given to LEO’s to cover you in case of future issues?
Skyler the Weird · August 27, 2024 at 1:42 pm
Despite being 6℅ of the population….
I’ve heard of another such argument somewhere else.
There was an attack by a family dog around here last week. People pulled out Guns and started shooting at it.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article291352235.html.
Sigp6 · August 27, 2024 at 2:14 pm
Bernese Mountain Dog for me. %1000 teddy bear.
Xzebek · August 27, 2024 at 10:51 pm
Pugs!! They are only a danger to the occasional Sasquatch!
Ragin' Dave · August 27, 2024 at 6:06 pm
I’m calling bullshit on the “family pets” angle. Oh, they might be considered pets, but I’m willing to bet my next paycheck that those dogs were trained to be mean.
Aesop · August 27, 2024 at 6:18 pm
I see the same kinds of cases you do.
I also watched a pit bull owned by an airhead teen twat rip an 8-year-old’s kitten in half (watching two halves of a kitten torn apart flying around must be a special lifetime memory for that child) in front of her in a common courtyard, because the owner couldn’t hold it back, and the dog was 3 pounds of trigger pressure from not being a problem anymore if it didn’t stop with the kitten.
Then the owner bitchsplained to everyone that it was the kitten’s fault, because the palm-sized 8 oz. kitten was a threat to the 35 pound pit bull.
Then I wanted to simply shoot the owner and stop years of future dog problems.
I had to settle for seeing animal control collect and destroy the dog.
I’ve also been chased on public roads by loose and stray ones. They should be permitted to be shot on sight, no questions asked, in all 50 states, and the entire breed should be declared irredeemably dangerous and vicious, and eradicated. Period.
The canus species could stand a little purge like that.
Georgiaboy61 · August 28, 2024 at 2:38 am
Years ago, when I was in graduate school working on my masters, I took a chemistry lab taught by a very capable TA from the chemistry dept., a very good teacher and great guy as well. We went our separate ways for the summer, and when we came back the following fall, we were told that this particular grad student had been killed by a pit bull when he was out jogging in a rural area. The pit bull had gotten loose and attacked him, and the poor man hemorrhaged to death before he could get help. This was in the mid-late 1980s so cell phones were not yet common. Pit bulls are dangerous and every since hearing of that horrible incident, I don’t trust them, regardless of what their owners may claim.
oldvet50 · August 28, 2024 at 6:30 am
As an old USAF security dog handler, I am the first to agree that certain breeds are too dangerous to be around. In the 1960s, the military stopped using Dobermann Pinschers due to their unpredictable behavior. It’s such a shame that it’s usually the children of those people that love that breed are the ones to suffer.
sailorcurt · August 28, 2024 at 7:13 am
I’d like to see the source of your statistics because I’m pretty sure they’re utter BS.
As a wise man once said, there are Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
I’m old enough to remember back when it was German Shepherds that were the boogie man dog breed. Then Doberman Pinschers. Then Rottweilers.
There always seems to be some breed of dog that has the Karens up in arms “they should be illegal…”
When dogs are taught to be mean and/or aren’t taught NOT to be mean, they are mean. Pit Bulls aren’t the most aggressive breed of dog, they aren’t the biggest, the strongest or have the strongest bite. They’re just above or about the middle of the pack (so to speak) on all those traits.
Some of it stems from a “snowball effect” No idea where it started, but Pit Bulls got a reputation as a dangerous dog, so thugs and idiots who want to be seen as “dangerous” get them. Those just happen to be the people who WANT their dogs to act vicious and don’t know how to train and treat them properly, so of course the dogs become vicious…a freaking beagle would be vicious if it were mistrated and raised to be so…you just don’t see many gang bangers with beagles chained up in their yards with logging chains and big spiked collars on their necks.
Incidentally, that same phenomenon happened back when all those other “boogie man” breeds I mentioned above were in their phase.
Secondly, and I have no data to back this up, so it’s just a suspicion at this point, but it’s the same principle as the press reporting every shooting with a rifle as being an AR-15: Because Pit Bulls have such a reputation right now, I’d be willing to bet that when a dog attack happens, the witnesses and victim will swear it was a pit bull even if they really have no idea what kind of dog it was.
In short…unless you can provide some documentary proof of the breed of the dogs committing all these attacks, I don’t believe the statistics any more than I did back when it was Shepherds, Dobies or Rotties that people were trying to ban.
Divemedic · August 28, 2024 at 8:37 am
I added sources. You are invited to provide evidence to refute them. Since I showed my work, you are asked to do the same in refutation.
Sailorcurt · August 28, 2024 at 9:44 am
I’ll need some time to review your sources and I can’t guarantee I’ll ever get back to this comment thread but I did want to comment on this:
“It is this confusion that allows Pitbull enthusiasts to cloud the issue.”
To be clear, I’m not a “Pitbull enthusiast” in the sense that I favor that breed over others. My wife and I participate in dog rescue activities (fostering, adopting and transport primarily) and we don’t differentiate between the breeds that we work with, but over the years we have rescued many Pit Bulls.
Some have been aggressive and dominant. Some have been submissive and docile…just like every other breed of dog we’ve ever worked with. Actually, that’s not true…there is one breed of dog that in my experience is almost always aggressive and dominant: Chihuahua. Fortunately, they’re so small that they’re more of an annoyance than a hazard.
At any rate, my point is that I don’t have some specific attachment to Pit bulls specifically, I have an attachment to dogs in general and I do not like it when I see animals being blamed for their understandable reaction to mistreatment, neglect and abuse by humans.
Animals don’t have the capability to be evil any more than an AR-15 does. They don’t have the mental capability to have a moral component. They respond based upon instinct and learned behaviors. Period.
In the story you related, you were talking about a family that you suspected neglected and abused their children to the point that you called CPS on them…but you don’t think those same behaviors may have had anything to do with their dog attacking one of the kids? You think maybe if they treat their kids that badly they may not be ideal pet owners either?
One of our current dogs is (confirmed by DNA testing) 50/50 mix of American Pit Bull Terrier and American Staffordshire Terrior…so pretty much 100% pit bull. She was rescued from a 30″ wire frame kennel in someone’s backyard where she was kept out in the weather, living in her own filth and starving.
I won’t go into details, but she’s responded well to proper care and training and she’s extremely well behaved, she’s never met another dog, cat or human she doesn’t get along with and is an integral part of our family.
With that in mind, I want to mention to all the people in the comments who said something along the lines of “shoot them on sight”: My dogs are integral members of my family. I am will armed and well trained and will not hesitate to use deadly force to defend my family.
Food for thought.
Divemedic · August 28, 2024 at 10:04 am
I understand being attached to a dog, but it is not proper to claim that “it’s just a dog without a mind of its own” in one sentence, then claim that you will kill to defend your dog family in another. If you were to do so, you will rightly go to jail for murder.
Dogs are not even close to being the same thing as a firearm like an AR15. The AR15 won’t do anything without a human picking it up and using it. A dog, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of making the decision to attack someone. They understand punishment, they understand risk and reward, even if only to a limited extent.
Yes, chihuahuas are violent, but as you point out, they aren’t large enough to be dangerous. Not so with pitbulls. I look at them with the same suspicion as any other threat- and I won’t hesitate to kill one that shows the slightest bit of aggression.
Sailorcurt · August 28, 2024 at 11:55 am
“If you were to do so, you will rightly go to jail for murder.”
So be it.
“A dog, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of making the decision to attack someone.”
Please, tell me you don’t understand animal behavior without….”
You’re anthropomorphizing. Animals don’t have cognitive “cause and effect” thought patterns like people do. They react to inputs based on instinct and conditioning. If a dog acts aggressively toward you, it’s because they perceive you as a threat.
The answer to these issues isn’t banning breeds…if it weren’t Pit Bulls, the Boogie Man breed would just be something else…the answer is to hold irresponsible dog owners accountable for the actions of their animals and to assess legitimate consequences for animal neglect and mistreatment when it is discovered.
“Not so with pitbulls. I look at them with the same suspicion as any other threat- and I won’t hesitate to kill one that shows the slightest bit of aggression.”
If you are restricting your suspicion to Put Bulls, you are setting yourself up for failure. Your choice. I’ve been attacked by dogs twice in my life and neither were Pit Bulls. You are of course entitled to defend yourself against attack, whether it be by a four legged assailant or two. As I clearly stated, my response was specifically addressed to the “shoot on sight” comments.
Sailorcurt · August 28, 2024 at 1:17 pm
OK…as to your sources.
The number of deaths by dog bite I won’t even bother to review, those numbers seem about right to me, although I will point out that statistically speaking there are many, many much more likely ways for any given individual to die during any given year.
“27% of ED visits for animal bites are due to Pitbull Terriers” refers to a single study of Canadian emergency rooms and the breed information seems to have been obtained from the victims or family members without any apparent verification. The study itself contains this disclaimer: “Although correct identification of pit bull terriers may be difficult, the evidence suggests that larger, more muscular dogs cause the majority of serious dog bites and warrant careful consideration.” I’m pretty sure no one’s arguing about the fact that bigger dogs can cause more severe injuries, the question is was that big dog actually a pit bull, or was that identification nothing more than confirmation bias? No way to verify from this study so the results are not scientifically or statistically reliable.
“Of the animal bites that are caused by dogs, Pitbulls were the dog 47.5% of the time”
Same problem here. I’m not going to pay to read the article, but the abstract indicates they were basically taking the word of the victim or their family members regarding the breed of the dog. Not reliable.
“Breed Specific information was obtained here”
The website of an organization dedicated to the victims of dog attacks. Not exactly an unbiased source and since “Pit Bull” is the current Boogy Man, it doesn’t surprise me they conclude those dogs are bad. They have links to many sources of their information and I just don’t have time to vet them all. They have one section that they post photos of dogs involved in fatalities. Only for a small percentage of attacks were photos available, many of them were obviously not pit bulls, some of them they identified as pit bulls but I’d question their identification based on my interpretation of the picture, and one of them in particular was so blurry you could barely tell it was a dog but they decided it was a pit bull anyway. Let’s just say I’m not entirely confident with the information provided there.
The Forbes article didn’t provide a link to the data it was based on, but stated the source as the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Bite Prevention information. Interestingly, while searching the AVMA website for the source of the data, the results I found in response to “dog bite breed” was this: https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/pet-owners/dog-bite-prevention/why-breed-specific-legislation-not-answer
“The issue of dangerous dogs, dog bites and public safety is a complex one. Any dog can bite, regardless of its breed. It is the dog’s individual history, behavior, general size, number of dogs involved, and the vulnerability of the person bitten that determines the likelihood of biting and whether a dog will cause a serious bite injury. Breed-specific bans are a simplistic answer to a far more complex social problem, and they have the potential to divert attention and resources from more effective approaches.”
The JAMA paper appears to be an actual scientific study on the issue, but the abstract didn’t even mention dog breed, let alone purport to study that aspect of it. Requires an account to download the full report, so I’m going to have to assume that if that wasn’t a part of the abstract, it probably wasn’t part of the study at all.
To counter this, there is a good bit of information available through the National Canine Research Council: https://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/
Including this:
“More recently, a team from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT examined thousands of dog owner questionnaires and sequenced the genomes of more than two thousand of the dogs who were the subjects of the questionnaires. Neither breed nor mix of breeds were found to be reliable predictors of a dog’s agonistic response. 6 Another study published in February of 2023 that surveyed dog owners using two validated psychometric tools found that the breeds evaluated – eight breeds subject to breed-specific regulation and seventeen not subject to breed regulation – did not differ from each other in terms of aggression. They concluded, as did the Broad Institute study, that presumed breed is not a reliable predictor of aggression. 7”
Divemedic · August 28, 2024 at 1:35 pm
You say that you aren’t a Pitbull enthusiast who is intent on muddying the waters, then you go and do that exact thing. There is no way to identify breeds of dogs, except by physical appearance. That’s because breed is a fiction with the purpose of describing the physical characteristics of a dog. Everyone knows what a poodle is, everyone recognizes a Labrador Retriever, yet all of a sudden people can’t recognize that the dog that just attacked them is a Pitbull simply because the AKC hasn’t designated it as a breed. That is a fallacious argument you are putting forth, with the intended purpose of telling all of us that Pitbulls don’t attack people any more than does a Chocolate Lab.
In the case that prompted this post, the dog was known to have bitten people before, yet the family allowed the dog to remain in the house and remain around children. So let’s take your claims at face value-
If the dog doesn’t make its own decisions and is only acting out behaviors impressed upon it by its owners, and the dog is known to have attacked and bitten people before, yet the owners still allow the dog to remain in the house around children, then the owners of the dog are now guilty of aggravated battery upon a child, and should be imprisoned as if they had stabbed the child themselves.
After all, the dog has no more free will than does an AR15, right?
Tree Mike · August 28, 2024 at 3:40 pm
Here’s my dog in the fight.
Very interesting discussion. I’m from the former meth capitol of the U.S., San Diego County, Ca. Bikers, tweekers, white trash, niggers, Mexicans, thugs, lowlifes of every type jumped on the Pit Bull band wagon, thought they would make big bucks breeding and selling them, or for “protection/ego”. If you don’t know what you’re doing or you’re a lowlife you end up with inbred, mixed breed, untrained, miss treated, trained to fight, FUBAR dogs that are certainly a danger to people and other critters. Those conditions will get the same results with lots of breeds, of course, not all.
I love dogs, I like people, as always, use your discernment when sizing up people, critters and situations. The only time I got bit seriously (12 stitches) was by a husky, no warning, I still think that huskies are cool dogs.
Anyway I appreciate your blog, hope Clown World holds together long enough for me to, selfishly, keep following yours and others informative and entertaining sites.
TCK · August 28, 2024 at 5:43 pm
Right, so facts don’t matter, only feelings.
Thanks for clearing up where you stand on the issue.
PS If you don’t care about the actual facts, maybe don’t snidely demand that people provide sources that you aren’t even going to listen to?
Divemedic · August 28, 2024 at 7:24 pm
Facts were provided. They were brushed aside. This thread has run its course and turned into finger pointing.
On one side, there are people who think Pitbulls present an outsized danger, while on the other there are people who think that their pitbulls are sweet little furballs.
Posting on this topic is closed.
Salty SeaDog · August 28, 2024 at 8:01 am
Meanwhile over here in the UK, Pit Bulls are banned, period. Mainly because of the number of deaths they caused, so I tend to believe the numbers.
Tsgt Joe · August 28, 2024 at 12:26 pm
My son, when he was a paramedic, caught hell from his supervisor for reporting a child neglect situation. I praised him for doing it and he replied; with mom being protective service and you being foster care, I thought I might not be allowed home if I didnt.
Tsgt Joe · August 28, 2024 at 12:46 pm
Sailorcurt. I too remember when german shephards and dobermans were considered to be too dangerous. That was long before I ever heard of pitbulls. Without getting into whether pits are worse than other dogs, I have a question. If we can breed animals for various physical characteristics why cant we breed for aggression? Dogs have been successfully bred to herd, retrieve, seek and a myriad of other characteristics. It doesnt strike me as farfetched that a dog, bred for strength and aggression for generations might be a bit more inclined to attack than perhaps one of the more easy going breeds. For the record the only dog to bite me bad enough for stitches was a cockerpoo.
T Town · August 28, 2024 at 2:02 pm
I no longer own a dog. However, when I did, the dog had to meet certain requirements. The #1 requirement was that it had to be one that would not grow any taller than my knee. That way I knew if the dog ever turned on me or another member of my family that I would likely be able to restrain the dog with my bare hands if needed.
Ralph · August 28, 2024 at 2:43 pm
Nature/ nurture. Works for people, works for dogs. Dogs have been bred for centuries for certain roles. Their nature can be reduced by their upbringing but not erased. Instinct is a very powerful motivator.
Noway2 · August 28, 2024 at 5:15 pm
The local sheriff’s animal control officer used to refer to them as “bully” breeds to get around the not a true “Pitt bull” canard.
The one time I actually drew a gun in self defense was against the neighbor’s bully dog.it came into my yard, crouched down and started snarling at me. It wouldn’t obey commands to leave but if I moved towards the house or car, it would advance. Finally, the neighbor noticed what was happening, probably hearing my wife yell, “don’t shoot the dog”, opened the door, called it, and it went home. I had a small j-frame revolver and I kept thinking of the backstop, potentially being the road (ricochet) and what if I missed. Had it gotten much closer or charged I would have. Had I had a semiautomatic that I was more comfortable with, I very well may have dispatched the animal.
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