Posted on 09/16/2006 7:02:39 PM PDT by solosmoke
Tiny Jasmine Rawlings had just finished playing on a trampoline in grandmother Carole White's front garden on Park View, Woodbury, when the dog attacked, biting into her jaw and pinning her down.
Jasmine, who was admitted to hospital after Friday's attack, returned home on Sunday and yesterday had her 85 stitches removed.
Mum Lisa White, 21, pulled the Golden Retriever clear before calling an ambulance and Jasmine's father, Jason Rawlings, who was at home in Exmouth following his shift as night superviser at the Southgate Hotel in Exeter.
"When I saw Jasmine later she was crying and wailing as the dog had torn her skin - as a parent, it was your worst nightmare.
"I watched her sleeping on Sunday and kept thinking I could have done something, or if the dog could have been on a lead. But it was just a freak accident and a real shock as you would not think that a Golden Retriever would do that."
Mr Rawlings expressed concern about people allowing dogs freedom around children, arguing that if a placid breed could attack a child that there was justification for keeping dogs on a lead. He said staff at the hospital had told him incidents involving dogs were a weekly occurrence.
I had a 15 pound Jack Russel that was a biter, so what?
We still don't like pit bulls.
Had to go all the way to the UK to find the Pit Advocate's Holy Grail...A Golden Retreiver mauling.
LOL! I hadn't noticed. Good catch.
I don't care if it's a Golden or a Jack Russell or a Pit, if a dog bites it is no good.
Agree, I put him down for biting.
Pits are banned in many European countries, along with 26 other breeds of dog. And don't think for a second that deaths and attacks have gone away. They were simply replaced by other breeds, as is always the case in places that ban breeds.
So what? 85 stitches is not so what. If it HAD been a pit bull, this thread would be about what gun to use and how owners of such monsters are idiots. Would you like some ignorant with your bias?
How about placing laws in effect that prevent such things from happening, no matter the breed? Like, oh I don't know, pushing the whole responsible ownership thing, and not leaving children alone with dogs, along with getting people to speuter and bring dogs inside with the family where they belong.
I don't know if you have ever had the misfortune of that many stitches, but for a child, it is not exactly a walk in the park. If this is so what to you, I wonder how you feel about the children getting killed by husky crosses in Canada. Hm...come to think of it, Wristpin, I do see a trend here. These stories are coming from other countries, that's for sure. Perhaps it stems from their ability to recognize when a dog is dangerous by its actions and not by its breed. Then again, I am sure it's no big deal that 56 different breeds of dog are responsible for human fatalities across the world because it's somehow less important if it isn't here, and the dog isn't a pit bull.
If it had been a pit bull the child would be dead.
My 'so what' was not for the injured child, it was for the breed of dog. Dogs of all breeds bite, so what?
It is the power strength and stamina of the pit bull that make the difference. Couple with that the history of the pit where was bred to fight to the death.
Some dogs are bred to herd, some to retrieve and some to sit on laps. Any dog can bite but pits were bred to fight and kill other dogs, I know, not humans, but they mess up too often. There instinct is to kill and vets have told me that dogs mistake small children as another animal not as a human. Their little faces are down on the dogs level and the dog attacks.
When any dog does this it's bad but when a pit does it is usually fatal. People get these dogs and expect them to act like Fido they had as a kid and they have instincts that Fido didn't have. Or they get them to show how tough they are.
I don't like them and nothing you can say in their favor is going to change my mind.
"When any dog does this it's bad but when a pit does it is usually fatal"
Where are the stats to back this up? If one to three percent of these dogs ever attack someone at all, and there are four to six million of them, then there should be many more deaths than there are. According to the CDC, the AKC, UKC, ADBA, and HSUS, compared to their population, the percentage of pit bulls that kill humans compared to their population is about 0.000002%, much lower a percentage than that of their attacking, and the same percentage of that of other comparably sized breeds. So no, that is not a correct statement.
Perhaps you would change your mind if you would bother doing research instead of relying on ignorant heresay and flawed media reports. But you won't because it's easier not to bother with such things.
Perhaps that all meat sausage hanging out of her mouth prompted it.
Was the Retriever driving an SUV before the attack?
More laws forcing parents to parent?
Another example of the international media cabal against sweet Pit Bulls:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/806930.stm
"I don't need to read what the Pit Lovers of America have to say about their dog of choice."
Right. You don't need to read anything that goes against your opinion. It doesn't matter that the sources I get my information from are the same ones used by people (who can't bother to read the whole thing) to try and ban these dogs. It doesn't matter that the vast majority of veterinarians disagree with your brother, not to mention the majority of all animal welfare organizations and pretty much any animal behaviorist or trainer that has worked with breeds such as this.
Since your limited personal experience and your veterinarian brother are what you have to go by and my years of research and experience with this breed in shelter and veterinary situations (and many other breeds as well), from hater to advocate are what I have to go by, I would say this is a pretty uneven conversation.
Just for the record, many farmers use pit bull type dogs as catch dogs, herding dogs, and even for pulling heavy items. This is especially true in the southern states, where they are often bred to cattle dogs and catahoulas to make a working hybrid of sorts. Their original purpose, long before dog fighting and bullbaiting, was an all-purpose, all-weather dog. That is perhaps why they have become the favorite of thugs. They can be trained to do almost anything, and are known for mastering other dogs' jobs, and that unfortunately includes the negatives as well. It has never been in their genes to be unpredictable or aggressive towards people, but they are intelligent and willing to please to the extent that it can be dangerous in the wrong hands.
As for your veterinarian brother, that is his opinion, and as you are entitled to yours, so is he. However, veterinarians go through many many years of school to help save the lives of animals and help them to live healthier, more enriched lives through the avenue of medicine and surgery. They are not animal behaviorists, nutritionists, or specific breed specialists. Their specialty is saving lives.
As grateful as I am to these highly educated professionals, I am also aware of their chosen limitations. Don't get me wrong, there are many who decide to specialize in all kinds of facets other than general veterinary work, but for the most part, the behavior part of it is better left to people who have spent their years in school or in the field learning and experiencing just that.
It's funny that you mention your brother having such an opinion because every veterinarian I have encountered thus far (and that is quite a few due to my line of work) has been completely against bsl. In fact, some of the more recent conversations I have had with a few in my town have led me to believe pit bulls are some of their favorite patients. They seem to be great at being handled, given shots, etc. where many other breeds as a whole tend to freak out. It has been my experience while working for veterinarians that the dogs most often muzzled while doing simple procedures are cockers and labs.
Indeed you are a piece of work. I have never said that the media is somehow conspiring against pit bulls. In fact, I specifically remember earlier in the day saying how childish it would be to assume such a thing. Just another example of how your attention to detail is embarrassingly lacking.
Dogs do not "snap". Any behaviorist will tell you there is always a reason for a behavior. Veterinarians are great at saving lives, but they don't know every aspect of the animal. Better to leave the medicine part to them and the behavior part to someone who has spent their years studying that. I would not get psychological advice from a surgeon, as they may know how to save a brain from a tumor, but they certainly aren't experienced in handling depression or abnormal behavior.
As for your stats from the government, you are probably referring to the infamous study done by the Center for Disease Control. This is one that pit bull haters use to show people how dangerous they are. Too bad they didn't bother reading anything but the numbers. The authors of the study go on to say how it is flawed for a number of reasons.
"Although it is not systematically reported, our reading of the fatal bite reports indicates that problem behaviors (of dogs AND owners) have preceeded attacks in a great many cases and should be sufficient evidence for preemptive action."
So much for dogs not having done anything prior. Most people don't want to admit when their dogs are dangerous, and live in denial, ignoring glaring warning signs that the situation needs a remedy. It puts the fault where it belongs, so many people will feign surprise when their dog does something outside the family.
As for this study being fair and unbiased, even the authors could not vouch for it:
"Our search strategy involved scanning the text of newspapers and periodicals for certain words and word combinations likely to represent human DBRF, followed by review of articles containing those terms."
Real scientific. It's a known fact that witnesses make horrible witnesses. The stress and sheer swiftness of the situation leads many to incorporate their own fears into the situation, and sometimes their imaginations will create whatever memories they require to fill the gaps in their own flawed recall abilities. Study after study on this has proven that eyewitnesses are often way off when identifying prominent features of criminals.
"Because identification of a dog's breed may be subjective, DBRF may be differentially ascribed to breeds with a reputation for aggression."
This is where the problem lies. You have a combination of the average person, who probably can't tell the difference between a boxer and a bulldog, witnessing an extremely traumatic event, coupled with a media that thrives on the carnage of whatever dog that particular generation sees as a supernatural threat.
"...to the extent that attacks by one breed are more newsworthy than those by other breeds, our methods may have resulted in differential ascertainment of fatalities by breed."
Another thing to consider about this study is the fact that there are several levels of reporting ethics followed by the media which can alter the breed, people involved, date, time, place, and severity. This is why about 90 deaths were not included in the study at all. The breed information was just not available. Only 72% of all deaths from dog bites were attributed to an actual breed. This could be because the body was found with no dog in sight, or because the witness simply could not identify the dog as any particular breed.
And lastly, and most importantly, you have the actual evidence. In the list, there are many dog breeds that have caused human fatalities. You have Rottweilers, Chows, GSD, Great Danes, Labs, etc. And then you have "pit bull type". Not American Pit Bull Terrier, or even American Staffordshire Terrier. Just "type". That terminology allows for quite a bit of leeway when it comes to breed identification. Notice that there aren't any Bull Terrier statistics, or American Bulldog, or Cane Corso, or Dogo Argentino, or the ten other pure, seperate breeds that were lumped in one to make "pit bull type". This alone should be cause for alarm because it would be naive to assume these dogs weren't responsible for at least a few deaths. Heck, labs and retrievers are on there.
That is unfair to the APBT breed because the statistics make it look like that breed alone is responsible for all those deaths. That is absolutely not true. It would be like combining Huskies, Malamutes, Akitas, Chows, Karelian Bear Dogs, Jindos, Kais, Eurasiers, Chinooks, Laikas, and Elkhounds together and calling them "spitz type". Of course, they would far outnumber other breeds for deaths simply because they would be counting the actions of several and lumping them together to dodge the responsibility of correctly identifying them.
That main fact is the reason why the CDC bashes their own study now and discourages breed specific legislation. Unfortunately, no one bothers to read the study in it's entirety, so they don't even know what the numbers actually represent.
Your joking right?...You've come to this conservative site dozens of times whining about the raw deal that pit bulls get in the media when their attrocities are published.
A perfect example of why ethereal, emotional, self appointed dog experts such as yourself can't be trusted with Public Safety is below. A good read for you since you seem hell bent on placing "At Risk" Pit Bulls into communities.
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1158557680254830.xml&coll=1&thispage=1
On Sept. 7, 2003, Dane Corell opened the door of his Burlington County home to a scene of horror. His girlfriend, Valerie deSwart, lay dead on the floor with bloody wounds to her head and neck.
Lying on a comforter nearby, also covered in blood, was her killer, a 3-year-old Doberman pinscher named Luger. The 67-year-old deSwart had adopted the dog from a Newark shelter 10 days earlier.
But Luger had a violent past, authorities discovered. Three months earlier, he had seriously wounded his previous owner, a North Plainfield woman. The woman paid a shelter to destroy the dog.
How a dangerous animal of nearly 100 pounds ended up in deSwart's Medford home is the subject of two lawsuits pending in Superior Court -- one of which is a whistle-blower suit scheduled for trial in Essex County this month.
The plaintiff, Talib Turner, a former employee of the shelter, operated by Associated Humane Societies, claims in the suit he was fired shortly after telling law enforcement officials and an insurance investigator looking into deSwart's death that the shelter knew the dog had a violent past.
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