ambrose, do us a favor.... find us a nice heartwarming animal story for a change eh?
Posted on 12/10/2004 3:28:15 PM PST by ambrose
Pit bull goes on attack
By Erin Smith/ Staff Writer
Friday, December 10, 2004
Blood drenched a hallway and one apartment inside a Commonwealth Avenue building last week after an angry pit bull turned on its owner and attacked the owner's friend and a police officer attempting to rescue the pair, police said.
Police Officer Timothy O'Sullivan responded to a call for a dog attack at 1411 Commonwealth Ave. on Dec. 2 at 6:27 p.m., but when he opened the apartment door to rescue the two women inside, a pit bull jumped out and sunk its teeth into his arm, police said.
Nine other police officers, including Allston-Brighton Police Captain William Evans, arrived to assist O'Sullivan and found a 51-year-old Allston woman lying in the hallway outside her third-floor apartment bleeding from dog bites to both her ankles, police said.
The pit bull's owner, who was visiting the Allston woman, was trapped inside the her friend's apartment when the dog entered into a stand-off with police and blocked the doorway, police said.
Police fired a beanbag at the pit bull's left side using a less-than-lethal shotgun, and the dog retreated to the back of the apartment, allowing police to drag the dog owner out of the apartment for medical treatment.
The dog owner, who was bleeding from bites to her arms and legs, was transported to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital along with her friend and O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan and the Allston resident were released from the hospital. The dog owner was still under hospital care and listed in "good condition" on Monday.
O'Sullivan's bite injuries were lessened by his protective leather jacket, although he will be absent from work for a couple of weeks until the swelling in his arm decreases, police said.
The carpeting in the apartment and surrounding hallway were blood-soaked when Boston Animal Control arrived to help police capture the dog, police said.
Animal Control also removed a larger black dog from the apartment that police describe as docile. That dog was not involved in the attack.
"It's just unfortunate the dog snapped," said Evans, who is a self-proclaimed dog lover. "Now, we're just hoping the owner does the right thing."
The right thing would be to put the dog to sleep, said Evans. If the dog turned on its owner, it might also attack an innocent bystander in the future.
Police are unsure of what caused the pit bull to attack.
No charges have been filed against the owner in violation of the city's Pit Bull Ordinance, although there have been questions raised about whether the owner had permission to bring the pit bull into the building, said James Cahill, director of Boston Animal Control. According to city ordinances, dog owners must muzzle pit bulls, except inside their residences or fenced-in areas.
Both dogs are being held at the Boston Animal Control Shelter. Cahill said Boston Animal Control is waiting for the owner to recover from surgery before they ask her to make a decision on the fate of her two dogs. If the dog owner decides to turn over the pit bull to the city, it would probably be destroyed. The second dog may be adopted if the owner releases it to the city.
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ambrose, do us a favor.... find us a nice heartwarming animal story for a change eh?
It's a shame to put her down for that.
Please donate to the "Save Babs Fund"
One might as well wonder what causes the French to surrender.
The Mikulski-Pigshit Bow-Wow Subhuman!
Ownership of these dogs should be illegal.
Do you live in California, by chance? I hear they like to enact all kinds of little laws out there, to govern every tiny facet of a person's life.
How many other little laws would you like to write?
Boy! Me too.
Not to energize the pro- or anti- pitbull debate (I grew up with them so...) but I had an opportunity to get a glimpse of dog bite stats a fews ago.
I work in public health (normally on the enviro side - this was a TDY thing). I had to go over all the reported dog bite stats for my state for like three years. Imagine my horror when my own favorite breed, the Shetland Sheepdog, turned up in something like position number 11!
Now, Shelties can't inflict life threatening damage (I don't think) but they did turn up as biters. Labs were on the top 20 list too.
Essentially, any popular dog breed is going to be responsible for a large number of bites. Pits can just do one heck of a lot more damage.
Of course, statistics are small comfort if it's YOUR arm torn off or YOUR kid in the hospital.
Exactly.... People couldn't probably list more than the 20 most popular identifyable breeds in the country, so it doesn't surprise me that any popular breed ends up somewhere in the top 20. The rate of serious bites to population would be the ~more~ interesting figure.
That said.... The pit bull and it's relatives are still going to be the leader by a long shot in serious and most particularly, ~fatal~ dog attacks.
Absolutely! My data set only included "reportable" bites. That meant anything from a GP who said, "No stitches needed" to fatal attacks. Another interesting statistic would be WHERE the bites were.
I found out that in the course of my research that toy dogs inflicted a disproportional number of facial bites to children. Facial bites are often disfiguring and require numerous surgeries to attain a cosmetic ideal. An equally small chomp on the arm or leg is just an interesting story (eventually).
People make a mistake when they get a small and fragile dog as a pet for toddlers and small kids. True, they are easier for the child to handle. They are also far too easy for careless, and sometimes just plain mean acts of children. I don't have kids, but in my life, the two times my dogs have snapped at kids, they both did no harm, and the kids deserved it. (flamesuit on) But I wouldn't have pit bulls, and I wouldn't allow kids free access to pets unless they were old enough and caring enough to not corner them and poke them with a stick.
Yes, I think small dogs KNOW they are small and are less accepting of rough treatment. My runt Sheltie is the most demanding of "her" space, my over-sized guy is much more tolerant of bumps and rough-housing.
It's not even really that they are less accepting of rough treatment as an attitude, they are more easily more hurt by kids. They get stepped on, kicked or grabbed at by kids, and it hurts. On the other hand, a little kid can not easily hurt my Labrador, no matter how much he is tugged at and sat upon.
Another Pit bull turns on owner!! They never want to admit it that these dogs have a built in attack mode!!
I love my pit-bull....
All dogs do.
Well, that explains everything.
There's a whole lot of snapping going on around here !
When I had a similar situation in Dallas, I'm not sure I would have wanted a beanbag. Probably would have just set the dog off again. As it was, one 9mm round was enough.
Now, if it had been a Rot, I might have wanted a larger caliber.
ME - "these dogs have a built in attack mode"
YOU - [All dogs do.]
Wow, this is an old thread! You must be a Pit Bull owner. They have the EXTREME attack mode and it's in the newspapers almost every day.
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