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Do you understand that pit bulls as a whole are a product of their owners? It is not fair to say that they all should be shot. My pit is very popular in our community. Everyone knows him, pets him and talks to him. He is in a locked fence. We do this to protect him from others not the other way around. If someone killed my dog simply because he is a pit bull, it would be as if someone murdered my son in cold blood. Think about it!

This is just off the top of my head and I'm perfectly ready to be corrected. I don't mean it to sound hostile.

Do you understand that pit bulls as a whole are a product of their owners?

No I don't. It MAY be so, but there are lots of owners of golden retrievers and I'd guess that somehow even a drug-crazed, trailor-trash, sadistic baddie would have his work cut out for him if he wanted to make a golden as dangerous as a pitty. I'll readily agree that owners contribute to the problem.

I don't think the poster was saying they all should be shot. I think he said just the ones with careless owners.

If someone killed my dog simply because he is a pit bull, it would be as if someone murdered my son in cold blood. You're not suggesting that the law should treat killing dogs the same way it treats killing humans, are you? It would be a very great wrong and a very great grief to you, and I would certainly sympathize and do what I could to bring the perp to justice. But I don't think it would be the same.

It's lovely that you love your dog as much as your son. It's troubling that you love and value your son no more than you love and value your dog.

I admire you and consider you a right-minded dog owner because you take responsibility for your dog. I do not say all pit bulls should be shot -- I say that ones that endanger innocents in the neighborhood because their owners are -- unlike you -- cavalier, should be discreetly dispatched in the same way people dispatch black widows and rattle snakes. I like very much that you take steps to protect your dog from people who think as I do. You're my kind of guy.

As for pit bulls being the products of their owners ... it's a) irrelevant and b) not always true. I've read stories of perfectly amiable and socialized pit bulls surprising their owners and neighbors who know them well by turning on them for no reason anyone could discern. Also, a bad chihuahua like the nasty little critter that belonged to a great auntie of mine is an annoynance, not a potential ticket to the hospital or graveyard.

MOST people's dogs, in my experience, are ill-mannered and badly trained, and with MOST dogs, it's an annoyance I'm willing put up with because I realize and respect that the dogs play important roles in the happiness of their owners. I'd be a heartless chump to see it any other way. But when those ill-mannered, badly-trained dogs are of breeds with proven track records of snapping, mauling, and killing humans, it's someone's duty to dispatch them. When the owner won't rise to that duty, then it falls to someone else.