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‘But, My Pit Bull Would Never Attack’ May Be Wishful Thinking
boston.com ^ | June 24, 2014 | Megan Turchi

Posted on 06/24/2014 10:17:25 PM PDT by ransomnote

click here to read article


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To: Salamander

ha ha ha! You weren’t quick enough, you have to be real quick!


141 posted on 06/26/2014 6:23:19 AM PDT by Ditter
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To: old and tired

When you got to animal shelter’s these days (I’m in California), half or more of the dogs there are pits. They are hard to adopt out and are then euthanized. Since owners say their pit bulls easily escape leashes, collars, kennels, fenced yards, locked houses and cars, the dogs often roam free and mate with other peoples dogs or with other strays, leading to large numbers of pit mix pups that no one wants and these end up in shelters or dead by the side of the road alot. Then pits are the dog most often shot by police to halt attacks on humans. So I think that pits are 6% but many of them aren’t around for long and not in the public eye (shelters). So counting dog licenses and animal control/shelter reports is likely to result in a higher percentage count than observed on a day to day basis.


142 posted on 06/26/2014 9:45:15 AM PDT by ransomnote
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To: kanawa

Thank you for linking the article. It’s ideal for showing people new to this discussion how deep the propaganda goes.
The writer you linked cites a study by the National Canine Research Council. Readers should know that the NCRC has discredited itself by publishing their fake propaganda piece. Time and time again, I’ve seen pit advocates cite fake experts and studies like this one and I’m still disappointed when I discover that some professionals and professional organizations like this one have sold their souls.

I responded to this NCRC study on an earlier thread and will cross post here. Keep in mind, readers, that THIS is an organization willing to deflect attention from the dogs doing the most killing and that they do so at the expense of people maimed or killed by pit bull types.

The post below is a lengthy response to the fake study - if you read nothing beyond this point, note that the “study” only determined the breed of the animal involved in the attack in 45% of the cases studied and that the study cites “co-factors” that are irrelevant in order to detract from the identification of breed involved.
____________________________________
“This report is not hard science. Sorry.
I used to be employed as a scientist and have an educational background in science, stressing the scientific gathering and analysis of data. This “study” or whatever you call it, is full of holes. This is a good indication that it was a propaganda piece by design.
For example, the highest potentially preventable “factor” is “no able bodied person present to intervene.” So all the pit bull owners killed by their own dogs should never have been left alone with their dogs? If dogs can’t be trusted alone, then people living alone must have cats and never dogs (although cat owners will assure us that their pets can kill them). Kinda kills the whole idea of service dogs for the blind - those people are alone with their dogs! I was alone with my dogs quite a bit and was never harmed but then I never had a pit bull.
How about the heart shredding story of the woman and her two beloved pits babysitting for a friend. (excellent essay: http://blog.dogsbite.org/2013/07/beyond-the-interview-essay-of-a-fatal-pit-bull-mauling.html) She was an able bodied person present and she certainly did everything she could to save the baby her own dogs attacked. The dogs attacked her to get to the baby she held in her arms-they disabled the “person present to intervene” first. She was transferring her dogs from a back room, where she kept them to avoid them having contact with the baby, to their dog run. Her own dogs attacked her and, now in shock and using her body to cover the baby, they began to dig under her body to get to the child. In shock and bleeding, she fought her own dogs to try to save the baby. She can’t recall some portions of the fight - too traumatic. The baby was shredded and of course, died.
Pits attack without warning, it often doesn’t help much if others are present - pits don’t stop attacking on command. How about those pit bull owners who advocate “responsible” pit bull owners carrying a “break stick” to pry the jaws of their dog open after it latches onto a person or other dog and refuses to let go? Bet all “responsible basset hound owners” wouldn’t go ANYWHERE without their break stick! No? You know pit owners who refuse to carry a break stick??? So do I.
How about the fact that pit bull owners believe that their dogs are the subject of biased “myths” about their aggression level but still just CAN’T secure their dogs? So many of these attacks are by pits who “got out” “broke out” etc.? Beagles are not notorious for savaging the elderly in their front yards after “getting out.” Nope. Pits just can’t be secured like normal dogs.

I’ve read about pit bulls breaking through a screen door to attack a baby and her grandmother in their living room. It may be hot hot hot weather but whatever you do, don’t play with your grandchild in your living room with the screen door locked - pits can break through that. How much you wanna bet granny and her deceased grandchild were counted among that statistic for “no able bodied person present?” Granny tried to shut the baby in a room away from the dogs but she didn’t have the strength to fight off two pit bulls so I imagine that means she wasn’t able bodied.
I’ve read an account of a 40lb pit bull killing a horse. There ya go - no able bodied person present to intervene! The elderly man working in his yard? Attacked by pits who rips his limbs off and killed him - no able bodied person present. Owners found dead with their pit bull covered in the ownder’s blood...clearly no one was there to help.
Pits can’t be kept secured - pit owners have proven that. They are well aware of the reputation their dogs have but the dogs routinely get out. Now alot of dogs “get out”, but when pits get out, they go hunting. Watch the youtube video of a dog racing through a large 4 way intersection to pull down it’s prey - a child walking with her grandmother. I doubt the authors consider an elderly person “able bodied” but if they do, the presence of an able bodied person didn’t protect the child. In fact, there were other people walking nearby but still the dog attacked the child without warning. A bystander kicked repeatedly and the dog let go (pit bull breeders consider “giving up” a negative and would say the dog is not “game” enough) but the child was still savagely attacked.
The presence of the first “co-occurring” factor (no one present) in this NCRC is virtually proof that they reverse engineered to protect the “Dogs of Peace” and now this junk “science” is going to be earnestly trotted out over and over.

Another trash factor in this NCRC study is “the victim having no familiar relationship with the dog.” Welp, that’s true. The elderly man, a retired military veteran, did not know the pit bulls that attacked and killed him while he was working in his own yard. Many pit victims did not have a familiar relationship with the dogs who maimed or killed them. The baby who was killed by his sitter’s dogs would not have a relationship with the dogs because all adults concerned decided it was best avoided. But owning a pit bull, a breed with the highest kill rate, means that there is zero room for error. The sitter put the baby on her hip (the dogs had licked his face before but that was only one meeting) to keep him out of range of the dogs as she transferred the dogs from the back room to the dog run. It never occurred to her that her dogs would attack her to bring her to the ground to get at the child. You just can’t trust your sweet, loving, well cared for family pit bulls enough to hold a child on your hip while letting them out. That video of a free roaming pit (hey he got out) racing through an intersection to “bring down” a child walking with granny shows yet another example of this fake “factor” - no relationship. I note that this factor was “co-occurring” 85.2 percent of the time.
Say, notice something missing from this NCRC fake study? Well, how much you want to bet that pits were over represented in the attacks in which the dogs DID have an established relationship with the dog? The NCRC didn’t want to collect THAT information, did they? That’s part of the pit horror - the frequency with which they kill or maim owners or family members. Ah but this junk “science” study seems like it was reverse engineered so that kind of analysis will not be allowed! I’ve had dogs for years - none of them would try to kill people if they get out. Pits get out and go hunting, for people or dogs to kill or “just” rip apart for fun - they aren’t guarding their territory, they are big game hunters.
[PS: You know there’s a “study” that purports to “prove that a few small dog species (I think one was llahso Apso) are FAR more likely to bite (and therefore were more dangerous) than pit bulls etc.? Yes, that’s another fake study pit advocates love to cite.]
And the other “study” by a veterinary association that purports to “prove” that pit bulls do not have temperament issues? Yeah if you read and research a little bit you can find problems with their “scientific method.” A critical requirement was that their sample of dogs tested for temperament must represent an objective cross section of the breed - that means that the dogs must be randomly selected and tested. But that “study” asked for volunteers. So owners who felt their pit’s behavior was remarkably good (and they mistakenly pat themselves on the back for that instead of thanking their luck so far) volunteered. Wrong. Biased study. The study shifted from science to propaganda by testing the temperament of only those pit bulls ‘hand picked’ for their unusually “good behavior.” Even that was not enough - one pit bull owner who participated in the study said her dog had a little bit of “trouble” passing the test but noted with approval that the evaluator “understood” he was just having a bad day.
These trash science studies come up against the cold hard data which, without convoluted analysis or reverse engineering and “co-occurring” nonsense, cannot be refuted. The body count for pits is unacceptable, they kill the most people (even though they are not the most common breed) and of all other types of dogs combined, they alone kill more adults in their prime. This study does nothing, absolutely nothing to change the truth about the levels of death and maiming that breed is responsible for.
You know why the NCRC chose the awkward “co-occurring factor” title? Wanna guess? Oh c’mon!
Alright if you won’t guess - here it is. Their “study” could not prove a causal relationship so all they could say that factors were present. This is a critical flaw but it is done by design. When your study fails to prove anything, you can always say 4 out of the factors “occurred”...not “caused” because you can’t prove a causal relationship here....just say they “occurred” together. You want more examples of co-occurring factors? Lots of bleeding and screaming and helpless pleas for mercy while being ripped apart by pit bulls. On the dogsbite.org website, a woman being attacked by her pit bull lay against the door that her rescuer was trying to open. Unable to get the door open, her daughter heard her mother’s horrified scream ‘He’s eating me!’ Yes pits strip flesh off whereas ‘normal’ are far more likely to bite and release. I’ve never read an account of a dog attack that matched the pit for flesh removal. Those agonizing details are not causal either but they are equal in “scientific merit” to this study’s “co-occurring factors.” There are happier factors that occurred at that time too - someone feeling good about getting their garden in order or playing with a grandbaby in the living room right before the fatal attack.
Here’s another worthless co-occurring factor: “a victim’s compromised ability, whether based on age or physical condition, to manage their interactions with the dog” See, there again service dogs are not the most dreaded species with the highest body count. In service dog situations - the dog HELPS the disabled. This throws real mud on the clarity of their worthless “factors” (might as well say observations because they are not causal) because it’s not clear how they would separate out the NCRC’s factor of “no able bodied person present to intervene” (he was alone) from the factor “age or physical condition” (and he was elderly). Just how do you “manage your interaction” (NCRC’s wording) with a dog that you’ve never seen before that wants to kill you? Note that among dog attack fatalities, pits are the only breed to kill adults in their prime. Hey the baby that was killed by the pits who crashed through the locked screen door, the baby that was killed in the care of her sitter, the child that was attacked walking down the street with her grandmother - they were all “unable to manage their interaction” with the attacking pit bull.
I am guessing they threw in the “factor” about people keeping “residential dogs” to imply that doggie was kept in a box or chained to a tree outside. I am guessing that not too many people felt safe letting a pit bull sleep inside at night after it outgrew the adorable puppy stage and started to show aggression. I’m guessing a dog that sleeps outside might be counted among residential dogs (guard) as opposed to pets. Hope not because some dogs sleep outside just for snoring or nighly snack raids on the kitchen garbage.
The NCRC’s stupid “breed was not a factor” fake conclusion is pathetic because they designed their study to obscure breed. “Four or more of these factors were present in 80.5% of cases; breed was not one of those factors.” Except, the NCRC decided not to record the breed of the dog(s) involved in the attack because it’s too hard for them!. How does “I don’t know what the breed was” translate into “breed wasn’t a factor” in the fatalities??? Malevolent junk from pit apologists.
The footnotes of the “study” say that DNA tests are not 100% accurate. What would they accept as evidence that a pit was a pit???? If not DNA evidence, then only dogs registered AKC pit bulls? WEll the AKC does not register pit bulls over a certain size. So the larger pits are not registered pit bulls and DNA evidence isn’t reliable? DId they just count pits owned by pit bull breeders or those few which were under the weight limit for AKC registration?
This nonsense report dilutes whatever credibility the NCRC had to zero and then goes into the negative numbers; it is propaganda. Breed might be the ONLY controllable factor (e.g., there are laws specifying dogs be spayed or neutered and dogs who aren’t are commonly encountered) According to the NCRC, 4 or more factors were present (not causal, they were just “present” like the blood and screaming) - and their own biased statics show that mismanagement or abuse are by far the very least like factor to occur. All they had to do was collect observations, and pad those observations with pointless observations so you dilute breed as a factor. If their study was valid, it would roughly reflect actual damage recorded for actual breeds. A valid study would show some correlation to the number of Americans pits kill every month in the US. You have to look at the literal body count statistics for proof that pits kill the most people (shocking in itself given that pit attacks and killings far exceed the breed’s percentage of all dogs) and are the only breed that kills more people in their prime than the sick and they aged. They are big game hunters, not pets.
So it’s a puppet show - “Don’t control the pits population (ban then) because breed isn’t a factor! Ban “controllable factors” like being killed by a pit when you are alone, by a dog that you don’t know, while being too young old or disabled to fight off a pit attack by a dog that isn’t neutered.” That’s one slimy, manipulative study you got there.
NOTE: This fake science was published by JAVMA (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) which continues to hemorrhage credibility. That’s ok, I’d rather people know who they are dealing with when interacting with the veterinary “establishment.” I wonder how much sooner the pit bull killings and maulings would have been stopped if veterinary associations and other “professionals” had just told the truth about these dogs?


143 posted on 06/26/2014 10:46:46 AM PDT by ransomnote
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To: ransomnote

The above post is a compilation of posts from forum thread: http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3103448/posts


144 posted on 06/26/2014 10:48:21 AM PDT by ransomnote
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To: ransomnote

Thank you for the post.
It’s ideal for showing people new to this discussion how deep your dementia goes.


145 posted on 06/26/2014 11:34:40 AM PDT by kanawa
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Another response to the TIME article

The Truth About Pit Bulls

By Victoria Stilwell

146 posted on 06/26/2014 1:52:23 PM PDT by kanawa
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Ignorance Kills One Million Pit Bulls per Year
By Douglas Anthony Cooper
147 posted on 06/27/2014 4:34:41 AM PDT by kanawa
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Abstract:
Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association December 15, 2013, Vol. 243, No. 12, Pages 1726-1736

148 posted on 06/27/2014 4:49:38 AM PDT by kanawa
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Dog Bite Awareness: Letter carriers, kids at play share risk
149 posted on 06/27/2014 11:00:42 AM PDT by kanawa
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To: Salamander
Ditter omitted the part where you have a second person standing by to apply the tourniquets and to dial 911.

LOL!!! Yeah, I was kind of assuming that.

150 posted on 06/27/2014 8:44:26 PM PDT by rmh47 (Go Kats! - Got eight? NRA Life Member])
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Arlington Police Officer's Response to Pit Bull Call Goes Viral
151 posted on 06/28/2014 6:21:40 AM PDT by kanawa
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You can give the police officer some kudos...here
152 posted on 06/28/2014 6:41:16 AM PDT by kanawa
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"Yeah! Animal Services located Jeffery's owner, Antonio, this morning."
153 posted on 06/28/2014 6:45:30 AM PDT by kanawa
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To: rmh47; kanawa; Joe 6-pack; Slings and Arrows; chrisinoc

I paid for this book and have permission to spread it far and wide.

It was written by the world’s foremost expert on canine hypothyroidism.

She travels the globe lecturing to vets and colleges.

Please download, save, read and share it with all your dog loving friends.

It could save lives.
[dog *and* human]

http://www.walagata.com/w/the-salamander/3160196.pdf


154 posted on 06/29/2014 9:25:45 PM PDT by Salamander (He ain't heavy, he's my Boa.)
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Nice video in this report of the Arlington police handling of a ‘dangerous’ dog...

http://fox43.com/2014/06/30/police-rescue-pit-bull-facebook-post-goes-viral/


155 posted on 07/02/2014 3:33:00 AM PDT by kanawa
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