Posted on 07/21/2018 11:35:48 PM PDT by Norski
James Strickland, the Army veteran who shot and killed a pit bull, shared his story with Action News Jax.
The owner of the pit bull Strickland killed, Moustapha Ba, spoke to us as well.
The men share love of their dogs and the pain of Wednesday morning.
“There wasn’t anything I had to do in many, many, years harder than take that dog’s life,” said Strickland.
Strickland said he regrets being in that position, but doesn’t regret his decision to fatally shoot the pit bull.
He said doing so may have saved his dog’s life.
Ba is asking what could have been done differently.
“He’s part of my family so I’m mourning him right now,” said Ba.
Strickland said he was walking his service dog, a Weimaraner named Betty Boop, in the parking lot of the clinic when Ba's pit bull Dozier, charged them.
A witness named in the police report obtained by Action News Jax claims he saw Dozier "moving aggressively toward Strickland and his dog” and heard Strickland tell the owner to get the dog back or he would shoot it.
The witness said Ba held on to Dozier but only for a moment.
“He was down on the ground, struggling with the dog so hard that his shoes came off,” said Strickland.
The report states Strickland pulled out his .38 revolver while the dogs were separated.
It states he gave a second warning that he would shoot if Dozier got away again.
"When he pulled the weapon, that’s when I panicked and let the dog go," said Ba.
The witness said Dozier attacked again, prompting Strickland to fire.
“The dog didn’t really respond to that, attacked me and my dog again, and I shot him the second time it killed him,” said Strickland. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at actionnewsjax.com ...
GD pitbulls are a menace.
Semi-related question...
Does a lock-jawed pit respond to sticking a finger up its ass?
Yes. There is one less now.
Today’s partial mauling count excerpts can be seen here:
https://www.nationalpitbullvictimawareness.org/
Included in today’s count are Police officers having pit bull owner set the dogs on them while responding to a domestic call, a mail carrier attacked and leg ripped open, a “Pit and Run” by owners who stood by watching their dog attack a man and his dog in Spokane, and a homeless man’s pit bull attacked his girlfriend and another woman in a Target parking lot in Manteca, CA.
There have been anecdotal reports of this, yes. Some on FR, but one would need to read the threads for the last two or three months to find the reference.
Okay, thanks.
Waiting to hear more about how the pit “sleep with my 3 y.o. daughter” and “was the most loving gentle dog he ever knew”.. I don’t need anymore “its not the dog, Its the owners” b.s. If Ba had a schnauser this would have played out VERY different.
Any dog can become violent.
The most vicious dog I ever encountered in my life was a Golden Retriever named Bella who attacked my German Shepherd.
My dog was leashed while being walked, the Retriever was playing fetch in its front yard with its owner.
The dog ran up two houses to initiate the attack. The owner did nothing to stop the attack. The only reason I know the dogs name is because the police told me the name. The owner never even called the dog back.
I had to beat the crap out of Bella, because Bella wanted blood. She got her ass kicked real good. Neither dog suffered any severe injury, the owner tried to have me arrested for beating her dog.
All that being said, I do not trust Pit Bulls at all, I never want to own one, I’d never have one around children or seniors, and I also know that German Shepherds can be dangerous, I have met two male and two female Shepherds that are not safe to be around even when muzzled with heavy duty gear.
I feel sorry for both these men and both dogs. Sad situation.
No. But there is a weak point in any domestic canine’s cranium. Hit there with sufficient force, and it will kill or incapacitate the animal.
I had a strange incident between my GSD and a pit bull.
I was walking my GSD late at night. A young lady was walking her pit bull across the street. The pit bull somehow slipped its leash and charged running at my dog. I screamed at the owner to get her dog.
Because a pit bull once charged my GSD from a garage, I had taken to carrying a Spyderco knife with about a 4-inch blade. For the life of me, I do not recall that knife getting into my hand and flipping open. All I know is that without conscious action, the knife was in my hand and at the ready to kill that pit bull if it attacked my German Shepherd.
The dogs engaged each other with lots of barking. I could see little in the darkness away from the street light. I was yelling at the pit to back away and I started kicking it with all my might.
Then I started screaming at the young lady to come and get her dog or I was going to kill it before it could kill my Shepherd. I think I terrified her with my screaming and knife brandishing, because she just stood well outside of the circle of me, my dog, and the pit bull, and she was crying and screaming. I mean, really screaming in fear that I would kill her dog.
I kicked the snot out of that thing but never had the heart to kill it. For whatever reason, I just could not muster the will to stab the pit bull with my knife, even as both dogs were engaged, circling, bouncing, and barking between my legs with my dogs leash almost tripping me up.
Eventually the pit bull disengaged and the young lady charged in and grabbed him and ran off. She went through a nightmare but at least I hadn’t killed her dog. The only question in my mind was how badly the dogs hurt each other and did I need to immediately take my dog to a Vet. I couldn’t see a thing throughout the melee and just assumed the dogs were going at each other and assumed my dog had got the worst of it, but hoping he at least got a few good licks in himself. German Shepherds go down fighting.
I petted the fur on his neck expecting to feel it full of wet blood. Nothing. Bone dry.
The dogs had just been playing. They had been barking, and bouncing and rough housing each other in play. I couldn’t see and had already convinced myself the pit bull was charging to “attack” my dog and the possibility never once occurred to me that the pit bull was just anxious to play with another dog. The way he slipped his leash and charged my German Shepherd, it just seemed he was in “attack” mode.
I could not have been more wrong. Man, I kicked the hell out of that dog’s ribs. Fortunately I’m a pretty weak old man and I know I didn’t do any permanent damage. I could tell I was not getting any real kicks in. The dogs were underfoot and I couldn’t really wind up my leg to land a good blow with my soft shoe. So it was a really meager attempt kicking the thing, but boy I was kicking as fast and hard as I could under the circumstances.
Long story short, I am SO GLAD I did not kill that young lady’s pet. Neither dog had bitten the other. My dog nips other dogs to herd them and that is probably all he did to the pit bull.
The point of my long winded story is, you can’t tell the intent of a dog charging you, and while the victim in the story had every right to shoot the “attacking” dog charging him, it could very well be like in my situation, the pit bull was charging his dog to play, not to attack.
We will never know. Had he waited to see if the pit was truly attacking his dog before firing, then we would know one way or the other. Such a shame as it is possible he killed a dog just playing. I won’t judge him. I don’t blame him. He had every right to do what he did. I will just always wonder if that pit was attacking or playing as in what I experienced.
We will never know.
My mom was attacked by a border collie that had jumped its fence. Dog was one of those the owners had tired of and just left in the yard by itself all the time; neighborhood kids would tease it. So it hated everyone.
I had to beat and jab it back with a prop pole from our clothes line until my dad came out with a shovel. Talk about a hard dog to aim for, the thing writhed like a snake and I couldn’t lay a solid strike on him.
Dad got a couple licks in to his shoulder and head and the dog fled; Dad then went and pounded on the owner’ door and told her if she didn’t get rid of the dog he would kill it right in front of her. She got rid of the dog.
There was another dog in the neighborhood a lab mix that used to go after kids on bikes and try to pull them off; he got out one time while everyone was horsing around with a tennis ball cannon and someone got the bright idea of aiming for the dog after he started it again. The tennis ball, to everyone’s surprise, actually hit the target in the ribs about where his heart would have been and I guess the concussion was enough to stop the dog’s heart because he dropped and rolled to a stop, dead. All the kids cheered but scattered because they were afraid the owner would find out. We didn’t care if the owner found out and didn’t know who he was anyway... but we had a lot more respect for a Polack cannon after that and were much more careful with them.
Some guy’s lab took after my pet ground hog which he saw from 3 or 4 doors away; when he charged, I scooped up the woodchuck and stuck it in our tree to keep it out of reach and grabbed my handy shovel to see if the dog was going to stop or not... it didn’t and shovel met dog forehead. It kind of wobbled a bit in surprise and by then the neighbor was able to call it back.
I thought I was really going to get it one day when playing with some kittens in my front yard- a guy came up the road on a bike with his big German Shepherd trotting along beside him and the Shepherd saw the kittens. I saw the shepherd coming in like a dive bomber when the owner’s cry for it to stop alerted me, but could tell it wasn’t focused on me at all it just wanted to kill the kittens so I tried to get between them, about that time my momma cat who used to be a semi-feral barn cat comes flying out from wherever she’d been lounging around and you could just about hear her claws click into place as she headed to intercept the shepherd at the curb; he saw her and started putting on the brakes but too late, she clawed him across the nose and muzzle and he yelped and turned to run away just as the owner arrived to see his courageous shepherd tuck tail and run with the momma cat in hot pursuit.
I was hoping the cat would come back but she chased the dog down the street and he yowled all the way like he was getting mauled by a mountain lion until his voice faded in the distance, and then after awhile as they rounded the street and returned up another one the yelping got louder and here comes the dog from the other direction, a tired momma cat way behind. The embarrassed owner took off apologetically to catch his dog as it sailed by while I busted a gut laughing and thanked God that my fears didn’t come true.
I’m just glad I grew up in time before pit bulls became popular or things would have been a lot different.
Please see my post 10. Are you sure the Golden Retriever was out for blood or is there any possibility it was not? I am not questioning what you know about your incident. I was just SO sure the charging pit bull was going to attack and kill my German Shepherd, and when all was said and done, he just wanted to greet my dog and play with him.
Your situatation may have been completely different.
Your hatred of dogs oozes from your every word.
Do you post this crap on DU too?
Are you crying or frothing at the mouth like a pit bull?
I had a huge German Shepherd I raised from 6 weeks in Mansfield Ohio when I was 24. Over 90 lbs., his nose was at 5’6” with his front paws on my shoulders. A gentle, loving, well-trained & obedient dog that loved children.
One evening walking him in town on a leash, a mutt about 1/3 his size tore out from the porch of his house and tore into my GS and was ripping him to shreds. Or so it looked. My GS tried to defend himself, but just wasn’t as aggressive as the mutt.
Being an ignorant idiot, I tried pulling the mutt off my GS. Huge mistake. If I didn’t have heavy leather gloves on (cold winter day), I would have no right hand.....the mutt saw movement thinking my hand was my dog, and grabbed it. I was stunned at the force of its grip as it was a small dog....I could not get my hand out of its teeth. I had separated the dogs, but now I was the object of the attack. Only by repeatedly kicking the mutt as hard as I could did it eventually release its grip. My hand was bruised and hurt for some time - but no blood drawn.
NEVER try to separate dogs in a fight, regardless of how small.
My GS wasn’t hurt as his fur was incredibly thick with his winter coat.
I was in my front yard with a lab/shepard mix that was pretty tame but would still bark and run to strangers.
Mailman drove up and it took off for him pretty fast. No leash on.
All I had to do in that circumstance was to angrily shout its name as loud as I could, stressing the last syllable, and it stopped dead in its tracks.
If you can’t control your dog w/”voice command”, consider not having one.
Good example. I hear people who say they would to this or that to fend off a dog attack. They seem to have no clue how fast, agile, and athletic your average dog is. How fast it can turn on a dime and circle you and come from a different angle. People will say “just grab its tongue and then it can’t bite down on you. Yes, so much easier said than done. Dogs are really good at what they do. We are just prey without a gun or a knife. You can’t effective beat a dog in hand to hand combat without a weapon.
OK, maybe a trained Navy Seal would go straight for an eye gouge and that would end it. I am not so trained.
I’m not going to mess around with any dog no matter the breed, if it attacks one of my dog’s I will deal with it. The end result of my decision will be entirely the fault of the owner. Under no circumstances should your dog ever be out of your control. If your dog gets lose it’s your fault! If your dog gets off a leash it’s your fault. If your dog is to big or strong for you to handle your a fool if you take it out among others. Two section on the south end of the ranch borders a small community on the nth and east side. I’ve personally killed 11 dogs I’ve found on the ranch and my hands have killed just about as many. They don’t care! they just keep letting their dog’s run lose and keep getting them killed. I’ve got 1400 cows on the ranch that mean allot more to me than those dog’s. Hell the coyotes don’t cause as much of a problem as those dogs. One of my hands killed 3 dogs out of a group of 9 he ran into over 2 miles deep into the ranch.
Boomer ,Every dog attack post you have to show up.. you are like a seagull to a garbage dump. always there ,always annoyingly noisy and always Sh_tting on everything. How about putting up some feel good stories about pit bulls and how they saved a family from a fire. none of the pit bull has a kitten friend crap.
I love your stories!
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