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Posted on 01/12/2004 8:52:42 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Larry Oliver knew something wasn't right with Roz, his daughter's pit bull. For four years Roz acted like a sweet dog, but suddenly Roz was acting bizarre. She growled for no reason, with a sneer that showed her sharp incisors. She didn't scamper around like the happy-go-lucky dog she had been. A few days after he noticed the change, on a Sunday afternoon two years ago, Roz attacked Oliver. Oliver was outside in the yard when the dog ran out, knocked him to the ground and bit him on the left leg. The puncture wounds drew blood. That's when, Oliver says, Roz went nuts. She tore into his right leg next, ripping through his blue jeans. Then she bit his right arm. Then the dog latched onto his left forearm and chewed so deep, with such viciousness, that Roz ripped tendons and muscles and even snapped bones. Two years later, after thousands of dollars in surgery, and months of physical therapy, Oliver has most of the strength back in his left arm. But half of his thumb is gone. Even when he covers the scars with a long-sleeve shirt, Oliver can't forget. The chill of winter seeps into that arm, giving him a constant, dull pain that will always remind him of that unexpected, unprovoked attack. For two years, Oliver waged a private campaign against pit bulls. He'd tell friends or friends of friends to steer clear of them. If someone had one, he cautioned them with his tale. But after the death of Jennifer Brooke, the Elbert County woman who was mauled to death by three pit bulls in November, Oliver decided that he had to go public. Oliver, 57, of Clifton announced last week that he is poised to launch a signature petition to get a statewide anti-pit bull initiative on the November ballot. He needs 67,829 signatures of registered Colorado voters for Secretary of State Donetta Davidson to approve it. He's going to need a lot of volunteers to get this on the ballot. And a lot of signatures. The city of Denver has a ban on pit bulls, but when owners get caught, they can keep their dog if they move out of the city. So the problem gets moved to suburban and rural communities. Oliver has a point when he says that pit bulls are "walking time bombs." The problem with the breed is there are so many unscrupulous breeders that you don't know what kind of inbreeding is taking place. Since breeding pit bulls is illegal in many cities, it becomes an underground enterprise, and those breeders aren't taking the time to weed out behavioral or temperament problems. They're worse than the "puppy mills" of America, which truck pups to pet shops. Only later do their owners find out that the overpriced dog they purchased has health problems and, worse, behavioral problems. That's because a dog can carry bad behavior genes. It means that even that angel of a pit bull licking your hand today could be that monster who wants to tear it off tomorrow. Just ask Oliver. He lost seven months of work, and even though his health insurance paid the bulk of his bills, he's still making installment payments for $3,000 in bills his insurance didn't pay. "I had one guy who called me and said he had a killer pit bull, and he's trying to change it. I asked him how many kids he had. He said two or three. I told him I don't want to read about it in the paper," Oliver said. Later in our conversation, he said the man admitted the dog had bitten him a few times. There's a lot of talk about how it's not the breed's fault. People who own American Staffordshire terriers or American pit bull terriers say that a few bad dogs raised by unscrupulous owners have ruined their reputations. Yeah, sure, as if I could train my Pomeranian-mix puppy to become an attack dog. There's a reason why some dogs attack viciously and others do not. Remember that after the three pit bulls attacked and killed Brooke, they went on, looking for their next victim. Harlan Williams, a 71-year-old retiree who was friends with Brooke, said it pains him to think for a moment about the way she died. He said Brooke had been a dog control officer when she was in college in Michigan. She was trained to deal with vicious animals, but with three of them at her, she was powerless. She told him that people who suggest they can train them to be safe are fooling themselves, he said, adding, "What you are doing is training them away from what they are trained to do." As soon as he found out about Oliver's ballot proposal, he signed up to help. "I told him I could guarantee him a thousand signatures," Williams said. Now if we could just find 67 other people in the state who could guarantee the same.
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Oh wait. Nevermind.
Actually, you could. However, its bite wouldn't do much to an adult. On the other hand, a Pom once killed an infant in her crib.
I wonder where the defenders are?
I guess the mounting evidence has caused them to change their minds.
They'll be around directly.
Now there lays most the problem, this fine upstanding gentleman is attempting to train an animal and he doesn't even know how many kid's he has. Geesh!!
Think how many people have pit bulls, or even dogs that have been tradionally labeled "dengerous" and how many of these dogs are NOT attacking or biting people. This guy was an idiot, when a dog starts to show agressive behavior it's time to start training again. He got bit because he could not read the "writing on the wall".
I'm tired of this hysterical, reactionary response what happens very rarely.
That's why you need to train more than one as an attack dog. An even dozen will usually work quite nicely.
Been mauled?
Their pit bulls ate them.
Not all of them, although I admit I'm considerably more cautious around them than any other breed.
Dog bites are a big problem in this country (800,000 annually are bitten badly enough to require medical attention) and pit bulls are at the top of the list.
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