Free Republic

Bethany Lynn Stephens had been gone for about a day since she left to walk her dogs. So her father went out to look for her at the area she frequented. There, authorities say, he found her two dogs, guarding what he first thought was an animal carcass. “Much to his horror, discovered that it was not,” Goochland County Sheriff Jim Agnew told reporters at a news conference Friday. Investigators in Goochland, Va., a rural community about 30 miles outside of Richmond, say the petite, 5-foot-1 young woman, who weighed a little more than 100 pounds, was mauled to death by her dogs, which...

Tonya Irizarry was uneducated about pit bulls when she saved Buster from certain death. The dog's owners had abandoned him at a local shelter a few years ago in the middle of a divorce. Worried over his fate, Irizarry rescued him with the intention of fostering him until a permanent home could be found. When no one stepped forward, Irizarry, a volunteer with the Henrico Humane Society, decided to keep him. Within a few weeks, she said, she forgot everything she had heard about pit bulls. "Before I got Buster, I thought the same thing everyone else thinks about pit...

In the 27 years that Al Chille has been with the Niagara County SPCA, many dogs have had their day. Lately, it’s been the pit bull’s turn to be notorious. Between local incidents like the July 8 attack on a toddler, and national cases like the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal, pit bulls have been in the headlines a lot lately. “We’re getting all kinds of negative national publicity (for pit bulls),” Chille, SPCA executive director, said. Chille said he’s very selective about whom he lets adopt pit bulls — though if someone was looking to adopt a pit bull for...