Posted on 11/21/2008 7:50:03 PM PST by Carling
HAPPY VALLEY -- Jayda Kempas, a 7-year-old who loves to play with Barbie dolls, was twirling on a tire swing and giggling with a friend when Titan leapt up and locked onto her left leg.
The 90-pound pit bull mix yanked, and they both tumbled to the ground.
Jayda's father, Steven Hehr, was smoking a Marlboro outside his friend's home in Happy Valley when he heard screams from the backyard. Titan, who was new to the home, usually stayed in the garage. But this time he had been left outside.
Catching the first glimpse of his daughter, Hehr knew it was bad.
"The dog was out to kill," Hehr said of Wednesday's attack. "It was life and death."
Hehr, a sergeant with the Oregon National Guard who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, didn't have time to think. He ran over and tackled the dog, then tried to pry the jaws open with his hands. At first, Titan wouldn't let go, so Hehr tried to calm him, telling him he was a good boy.
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
A lab is not the same as a pit bull, primarily in brute strength, but let's throw temperament in as well.
Hate to say it, but alot of dogs do that. Its meaningless to your implication.
~~~
They are trying to get over the fence to attack me/yorkie!!!
DUH!
We had to run back in the house a month or so ago when one
got out and charged across the Front yard after us,,,
Cops no help,,,
City no help,,,
Too bad the POS dawgs don’t attack the POS thugs that own them...
OH the humanity!!!!!
It is wise to be leery of neighboring kids.
Friends of mine had a bee-yoo-tiful dog named Max. Only too late did they learn about neighborhood kids coming up to the house to torture him while they were out.
They’d grab hold of him, sometimes on motorbikes/4-wheelers, and yank him into the shock zone of his collar (invisible fence).
Eventually he became inured to the shocks and couldn’t be trusted to stay home. He also might take pre-emptive nips at unsuspecting targets who - I dunno, I guess they reminded him of the people who hurt him. Never broke the skin, but put his owners in danger of lawsuit on several occasions.
Poor guy spent the rest of his life in his pen or on a lunge line. I loved gentleman Max, would have loved to’ve gotten my hands on those kids and their parents.
He was a collie.
Sorry, there are people here that will argue a point like that when it comes to pit bulls.
What’s going on? Today I have seen more pit bull attack threads on Fr that at any other time.
LOL.. yeah, i’ve seen it.
Some people have an apparent agenda to push, and plenty of free time to do so. It's not unlike a few years ago when the media had a report every day on another "veteran gone mad," story, or when a gun bill is coming up in congress and every local shooting makes national headlines.
Dunno. Perhaps more and more people are buying the BS that the pit bull is a harmless, misunderstood breed and are buying them as pets?
Something to chew on...
Yes, that kind of thuggery deserves some sweet justice, like placing those shock collars on the kids and tossing them outside the invisible fence perimeter for awhile. See how they like it (without fur).
Yeah. I can’t imagine being THAT hard up for entertainment.
Talk about a “pack” mentality!
Most kids are both stupid and cruel. Luckily most people grow up enough to fear serious jail time, some actually believe in the golder rule and don’t want their asses kicked or robbed, and others behave because they are neither smart or strong. A few never grow up and don’t give two sh1ts about anyone else and those are the ones we truly have to watch out for - the sociopaths.
The stupidity and cruelness starts breaking down after life deals you a few hard knocks. You’re not invincible anymore. You get your ass handed to you a few times and maybe you figure that ain’t the good life. You start to realize you don’t like being treated like sh1t, you better start treating others better. Or they might take your stuff, mess you up, hurt people you like, and kill your animals. There are no time outs or do-overs if you’re the weak one.
“A lab is not the same as a pit bull, primarily in brute strength, but let’s throw temperament in as well.”
Labs were bred to have a soft bite for retrieving water fowl. Pit bull type dogs were bred for their gripping abilities and “gameness”. Labs could rarely do the same damage, no matter how much they might try. That is not to say that pit bulls have bad temperaments overall.
The American Temperament Test Society rates dog breeds on a yearly basis. American Pit Bull Terriers rated a passing average of 84.3% which was a little higher than Golden Retrievers, and a lot higher than Collies, Chihuahuas, Chows, Weimeraners, and Great Danes, to name a few.
http://www.atts.org/stats4.html
It is everyone’s responsibility to properly care for their pets and children. If leash laws were actually enforced and children were taught how to act around strange dogs, the number of attacks would be dramatically reduced, no matter the breed of dog.
The vet report on this dog came back. It was an American Bulldog, not a pit bull. An acquaintance who lives in Gresham found out about it and shared with another board. He was contacted by the local news station to do an interview after the story aired.
The news station still has not posted the correction, and my guess is that it won’t.
The pit bulls are fairly maligned crowd is here. Don't know about the unfairly group.
I do know that we have been warned by the Mods no pictures of actual victims of pitbulls. So instead, I present this warm fuzzy image of bliss so as not to offend the sensitivities of anyone by presenting the reality of these vicious pitbulls.
Attack poochie.
Disclaimer: This is not a pitbull
An acount of the event that day...
Friends and neighbors rushed to help. William Bahler grabbed an aluminum baseball bat and slammed it into the dog’s back.
Titan (the dog) barely noticed.
Bahler kept swinging, striking with full force the dog’s back and rear.
As Bahler tired, another friend, Alan Clinansmith, took the bat.
“We must have hit the dog at least 40 times,” said Clinansmith, who recently took the dog in while trying to find him a new home. “No human could have survived that.”
Then someone else got a noose around the dog’s neck and pulled it tight. Another person tied a strap around the dog’s hind quarters.
Witnesses said the struggle continued for 20 or 30 minutes. Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office deputies said they arrived at the home on Southeast 172nd Avenue within five minutes of receiving a call.
All the while the dog had the girl in its jaw grip. She will undgo reconstructive surgery while no doubt pitbull lovers on FreeRepublic will write nice things about pitbulls, claiming they are just like other dogs.
The veterinarian that is handling the case has examined the body and determined that the dog is an American Bulldog, which is not a pit bull, no matter how many times you or an “expert” reporter calls it one.
This dog’s temperament was not known, as it was “new to the home”. It should not have been left where it could get around any children or people it hadn’t been introduced to yet without supervision.
Why is it these stories keep running? Because no one seems to know a dingo from a doorknob, and they’re all really excited about spreading the news.
It’s always interesting to see the reactions when confronted with breeds other than pit bulls, like the golden retriever that “ate” the chihuahua and was euthanized for being too aggressive: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2137878/posts
Amazingly, there are people out there that actually believe Golden Retrievers are all good dogs, incapable of doing anything other than wagging their tails and fetching waterfowl. What people seem to misunderstand is that we are talking about dogs, not people. They don’t know what they are. They just react to their environment, and any dog can be vicious. They don’t have morals, and cannot tell the difference between right and wrong like humans can. Many of the frou frou breeds get away with being vicious because they look cute when they bare their teeth.
Shall we define American Bulldog for those confused by your obfuscation?
American Bulldog
which is not a pit bull, no matter how many times you or an expert reporter calls it one.
Pitbull
It should not have been left where it could get around any children or people it hadnt been introduced to yet without supervision.
But it was. It was in a neighborhood with children.
Why is it these stories keep running?
We are not allowed to post pictures on FR to explain why these stories keep running. Do a Google search using the search words "pitbull victim" for your answer.
Because no one seems to know a dingo from a doorknob, and theyre all really excited about spreading the news.
NEWS FLASH - Dingo is not a door knob
Now they know.
Its always interesting to see the reactions when confronted with breeds other than pit bulls, like the golden retriever that ate the chihuahua
What is this person talking about, I never ate a chihuahua!
Amazingly, there are people out there that actually believe Golden Retrievers are all good dogs, incapable of doing anything other than wagging their tails and fetching waterfowl.
They do not maul people to death.
What people seem to misunderstand is that we are talking about dogs...
...We are talking about pitbulls and other viscious breeds...not golden retrievers or chihuahuas, dingos or door knobs.
I guess a husky and a malamute might be hard to tell apart if you are not familiar with them. They’re both sled dogs. If you cannot tell by the pictures, an American Bulldog is a much larger dog. American Pit Bull Terriers should only get to be 60 pounds max. American Bulldogs can be well over a hundred pounds. Both of these can be registered by the UKC, but one will be in the guardian group, and the other, the terrier group— separate breeds.
“We are not allowed to post pictures on FR to explain why these stories keep running. Do a Google search using the search words “pitbull victim” for your answer.”
I did, about 12 years ago, when I found out my friend had four pit bulls. I wanted to prove to him that his dogs were unpredictable and dangerous, and he wasn’t falling for the old “they’re always on the news” line. I went all out. I searched the internet, spoke with local animal control officers, read breed and behavior books about pit bulls-type dogs, and read any published data on the subject in either direction.
Unfortunately, through intensive research I came to find that I had been mistaken. Although there are many articles about these dogs, many of those stories are repeats of the same catastrophe on other stations, and some ended up being an entirely different breed (found out at a later date, corrected by animal control, or a dog whose picture is posted in the article and obviously another breed).
The CDC statistics, while at a glance can appear to support the belief that they are dangerous, upon reading the entire article I found the author’s explanations for ending the study contrary to that. Quite simply, the evidence they had been using was flawed, and their results should not be used as a means to ban an entire breed, for there are other factors (i.e. socialization, isolation, chaining, sterilization, popularity, etc.) that are more important than breed because responsible ownership means safer dogs, period.
From all that I have gathered the 12 years I have been keeping up with this issue, I have found that looking a little further than graphic pictures and catchy titles is a good way to find out what is really going on. The same can be said for this past election and its coverage. The media is not the best source to follow, and they sometimes fail to present facts, rather relying on creative writing to get the story sold. They are not obligated to report the truth. They are corporations that sell a product, and what they want is ratings/sales.
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