Posted on 09/15/2009 8:54:07 PM PDT by Chet 99
Police say a Warner Robins man killed his own pit bull after it attacked his 2-year-old daughter.
That came two days after the dog allegedly tried to attack a woman. A Warner Robins police news release says it happened Monday around 6 p.m. Monday at 200 Peachtree Circle.
Daniel Copeland, age 26, reported that the dog lunged at his daughter and bit her in the face, then became aggressive when he tried to pull it away from her.
Police say Copeland stabbed and killed the dog.
His daughter was taken to an Atlanta hospital with extensive head injuries and is in stable condition, police say.
Tabitha Pugh of Warner Robins police says Copeland had just picked up his dog from the animal shelter after police took it away for two days.
On Saturday, Sept. 12, the dog growled at a woman and tried to charge her, Pugh says.
The dog did not make contact with the woman, but she fell and suffered minor injuries, she says.
Coleman was cited for failing to restrain his animal after that incident, she says
The animal shelter for two days, what does that do?
Aggressive dog of that bread should have been put down the first attack.
“...the dog lunged at his daughter and bit her in the face, then became aggressive when he...”
The dog bites THEN he becomes aggressive. Why do people own these things!
The dog paid the price, but so should the owner.
An all too typical attack. Fix the pits. Mandatory.
This can’t be right...I’ve been told repeatedly that these dogs are loveable little furballs, and it’s the owners who cause them to kill and maim.
yep!
Did this happen in front of that Arkansas Wal-Mart next to that trailer park? (www.peopleofwalmart.com)
I have had Great Danes for about 40 years or so. Formerly called a Boar Hound, these dogs, often owned by the German Barons, would travel in packs of up to 100. Extremely effective in controlling boar populations, some of these Danes were ill tempered,and were BANNED FROM AMERICAN DOG SHOWS around 1900. The past century has greatly improved the breed.
Selective breeding has developed a breed that is often referred to as a gentle giant. Great Danes are generally well-disposed toward other dogs, other non-canine pets and humans.
Pits, on the other hand,are STILL BRED TO FIGHT....Day after day, week after week, year after year......Newspaper reports: Pit Bull Kills, Pit Bull chews off toes of child, etc. etc.
Make sure to feed your Pit, if not, your child may be on the menu!
I commented to her that her Dane's didn't drool as I had seen others and she said there are dry mouth Dane's...anyway the first time we sat down at her house, one of the dogs laid on the floor and did a low growl all the time we were there. Never moved. The other was a lap dog...
I mentioned this to her some days later and she laughed and said did hubby have on a hat? I said yep, he never goes out with it...she said that one dog hated hats..Was the funniest thing I ever heard about a dog..
One time as a kid, a Great Dane charged me, jumped up and knocked me to the ground and licked my face... literally like Marmaduke. They don’t know their own strength. Great dogs though.
““...the dog lunged at his daughter and bit her in the face, then became aggressive when he...”
The dog bites THEN he becomes aggressive. Why do people own these things!”
That is a reporter’s mistake, one people seem to believe because it’s easier than blaming the owner. A bite is an act of aggression. The owner probably didn’t have a clue about dog behavior. Not to mention, who allows a dog that has recently shown aggression to a human being to be around a toddler? If it had been my dog, it would have been pts as soon as it showed it was mentally capable of biting a human.
Dogs of this breed are in the news a lot, but compared to their estimated population, very, very few of them (0.000004%) attack. Literally millions of them never bite anyone. There’s a lot of information available that shows how ridiculous reporters are being with stories on the breed, in addition to the information out there showing that irresponsible ownership is the main reason for attacks from all breeds of dog (I am of course referring to the CDC study which no one reads). Since pit bulls are extremely popular right now, attacks from them are likely to represent a larger percentage of the total than they would have years ago, but there are 13 thousand attacks every day that require hospitalization, and of those, most pit bull attacks at least make it to local news. That leaves a huge chunk that the media won’t touch, and it isn’t because the bites aren’t serious. Media is a business, not a service.
Thank you for your detailed response. I still don’t like the breed; they frighten me a great deal. I was once cornered by one with my kids on a walk.
Terrifying.
For a Pit Bull Terrier, that means nearly as soon as it's born.
The breed was MADE to be aggressive.
There's a reason people don't enter poodles into dog fights.
There's a reason people don't run beagles at dog races.
And there's a reason why people who don't want others to get hurt should NOT keep Pit Bulls around.
It is very alarming that people are afraid to leave the house now because of stray dogs. People are especially afraid of stray dogs of a certain type. However, I do hope you can see that any dog running loose or chained is much more likely to bite than a dog kept at home and socialized with the family. Too often people seem to confuse these, thinking because pit bulls are in the news more often, and they see them on the streets, that the breed must be the problem. But the breed is extremely popular, numbering in the millions. They’re bound to represent a larger percentage of attacks simply because of their numbers.
However, it appears that an extremely small percentage of them actually do attack, and almost every one of those are dogs considered more likely to bite due to the lack of responsible ownership. This information can be viewed at www.cdc.gov, where they have spent quite a bit of effort to find the cause for dangerous dogs. At first glance, it may appear to be a breed specific issue, but they provide not only the table showing which breeds are reported to have taken a human life, but also what circumstances are most likely to create a dangerous situation, dog breed being irrelevant.
I have encountered some vicious dogs on walks, and I feel for you. As I said before, they are statistically more likely to bite if they are running loose, so stray dogs are definitely an issue. But just imagine a place where there aren’t any, and chaining is illegal. Calgary has decided not to ban pit bulls, instead focusing on laws that encourage responsible ownership. They have seen a dramatic reduction in hospitalizations from dog bites, unlike places like Denver, that chose a ban and has had no decline in serious attacks.
Poodles aren’t in dogfights because they don’t have the will to continue past the point of pain, on average. Some probably would be great at it, but it isn’t likely they would win, regardless.
Funny you mention dog races. Greyhounds are notorious for fighting on the track, which is why they wear muzzles. They were never bred for it, but they are dogs, after all.
As for people and pit bulls, it seems the tragedies happen in similar places, with similarly-minded owners. The dogs are not cared for at all. They are left on chains or let outside to run loose. They are intact, in breeding pairs, or in packs (which is two or more dogs, and all dogs change when in packs).
These are the issues that need to be looked at. Calgary did, and now instead of killing innocent dogs that look mean, they have laws that make people more responsible. They have had a reduction in their attack numbers, whereas Denver, who banned pit bulls, has seen no reduction.
Pit bulls were bred similar to all other terriers. They were bred for a job, and a “sport”. Many dog breeds were bred for aggression. We used animal aggression to hunt for food, to reduce vermin, to assist in holding cattle for slaughter. Some still are, unfortunately, such as hunting dogs, racing greyhounds, and herding dogs. This is not the problem.
Irresponsible owners are the problem, and will continue to be, until people can see that a tiny percentage of a breed of millions is causing all of this, and they all should not be punished for it. If they were nearly as bad as you say, there would be millions of attacks from them. Currently, there are 13 thousand attacks every day that require hospitalization. Of those, pit bull attacks are published on at least the local news, whereas all other attacks are, for the most part, ignored or excused.
Merrit-Clifton Dog Bite Study - 2007 (highlights, full study)
One particularly interesting note from the study:
Traditional dog legislation allows "one free bite." On the second bite, the dog is killed. Such laws do not address the threats from pit bulls, rottweilers, and wolf hybrids. In over two-thirds of the logged cases, the life-threatening or fatal attack was the first known dangerous behavior by the animal.(Emphasis added)
CDC: Dogs Involved in Fatal Attacks in the US 79-98 (highlights, full study)
Notable points from this study:
At least 25 breeds of dogs were involved in 238 human dog bite related fatalities during this time span. Pit bulls and rottweilers were involved in over half of these fatalities and from 1997-1998, over 60%.Researchers note that it is extremely unlikely that pit bulls and rottweilers accounted for 60% of dogs in US households during this period thus, there appeared to be a breed-specific problem with fatalities.
I am glad you mentioned those studies, specifically the Merritt-Clifton study. I had been meaning to bring this up here. There have been numerous articles about the flaws in the study, and professionals have dismissed it because the author’s bias was apparent, and because the mistakes/omissions made were too numerous for it to be considered reliable.
The CDC paragraphs you mentioned could be considered against pit bull type dogs, but it is only a tiny part of their data. In fact, if you read the study in its entirety, you will see that their results show how using numbers from the table they provided is counterproductive. They go into great detail about what their information shows to be the cause of aggression in dogs, which is the care of the dog. Many people do tend to use that information to prove that the CDC shows pit bulls to be bad, but there’s so much more in that study that basically contradicts that idea.
Also, I noticed you got this information from Dogsbite.org. I don’t mean to be offensive toward the woman who started it, but she has admitted to having a mental illness that leads her to make irrational judgments. She was also found to be listed under the guise “bitbypit” a year before she claimed to have been attacked. She will not allow anyone to post information to the contrary, even if the source is reliable. I would definitely keep this in mind when reading anything from that site. They do actually have some good studies on there, but I don’t think they read them all the way through, because all of them (except the Merritt-Clifton study) contradict their claims.
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