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In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled Pit bull attack leaves Texas grandmother hospitalized with over 100 stitches, srmanuel wrote:
Substitute the word Pit Bull with Gun and the argument is the same. Should we ban guns when a lunatic shoots up a school ??? Absolutely not, the response is always, it’s not the gun it’s the owner, the exact same thing is true of dogs.
Guns don't run down the beach in pursuit of kite surfers and attack them. Guns don't break through the screen door of a home to attack a baby and her grandmother, and maul the baby to death as Grandma fights to save the baby.
Guns don't jump a fenced yard to attack a retired veteran prune a tree, rip off both of his arms and cause him to bleed to death.
More to the point, I've had dogs for many years of my life and so have my friends and the neighbors. None of us ever had one of our dogs spontaneously hunt humans if they 'got out'. This story, like so many others, starts with 'opened the door and 3 dogs came out'. Okay, dogs got out. The part that's different is hunting people and ripping their flesh.
I watched a video of a pit that 'got out'. It ran down the street, ignoring full sized adults, saw a child and ran diagonally through the intersection to attack the little girl as she was holding her grandmother's hand. Naturally grandma didn't seem to understand this dog was not playing as the puffy winter jackets obscured what was happening to the little girl. But one of the persons interviewed after the attack mumbled that he was in shock...."so much blood." No normal dog goes looking for 'small game' among adults, runs through busy public areas to 'take down' small prey.
Any breed of dog that is not properly socialize and trained will attack when it feels threatened.
No. Normal dogs bark, growl, and maybe bite and release. Pit bulls don't have to be threatened to rip, tear, kill, and eat. A child wandered too close to a big electronic gate to look at the big doggies there. They grabbed his ankles, dragged him under the fence, and the jury watching the footage was traumatized by the sight of the dogs disemboweling the child. Pit bulls never signed the 'pet-human' contract so people are 'fair game' when they want to go hunting. The rest of the time they're said to be sweet, loving, and will 'lick you to death'.
We have a case in our neighborhood where an older lady has a Golden Retriever that has attacked multiple people and dogs, it’s not seriously injured any yet, the association is trying to get the woman to get rid of the dog.
Yes. Other dogs can be agressive and should not be allowed to hurt people. Sounds like the retriever did the bite/release ( multiple times) whereas the pits bite and hold that bite while thrashing their bodies to rip off limbs, jaws, flesh. Retrievers are normally gentle. Pits are the dogs who kill and maim the most. A hospital performed an analysis of dog bite injuries and pits cause the most expensive, ICU/surgery or fatality injuries. There is no comparison between pits and retrievers.
Golden Retrievers are generally the kindest most good-natured dog around, you never hear of one attacking others, they do when they aren’t properly trained and socialized and owned by people that are too old to handle an 80-pound dog.
When I restrain a dog that's barking, it's not because I am trying to prevent it from killing the person it's barking at.
I've read exacting details of the owners who paid close attention and were dedicated to making sure their dog was properly socialized and still it doesn't work when the dogs regress to their inbred desire to attack/kill.
Biden has gone thru multiple dogs in the Whitehouse for exactly the same reason.
No, if Biden had pits there would be disfiguring lifelong injuries or death. I watched a video of someone in ICU mauled by a pit struggling to talk through whole body bandages. She was crying as she said, "It's not fair. I shouldn't have to lose my house because someone's dog attacked me (she had to sell her house to pay for the long series of surgeries and hospital stays ahead).
There's also the trauma - daughter on one side fighting to get the door open where mom has collapsed against it on the other side under attack from a mauling pit bull. Mom screams, "HE'S EATING ME!" as the dog methodically rips flesh from her calves and chews. Or grandma can't get over having seen the family pit jump up, grab the toddlers lower jaw, and detach it from the child's skull.
Emotional trauma, unbearable expenses, death - pit bulls are not domesticated enough to be residential pets. They should require certified cages and permits to own one - they stay in the zoo-type cage 24/7 or they are removed from the neighborhood.
There is a habit of pit advocates finding fault with owners. "She didn't weigh enough" "she opened the door too quickly (made a sound), "he rode his bike which provokes the prey instinct of a pit".
Someone eventually commented that apparently owners of pits must be perfect or people may die. They can never make the slightest human error or others people may be hunted and maimed/killed. This is how animal handlers in zoos have to be vigilant with wild animals, not how normal people have to be with a tame dog.