Brooklyn(Md) infant is killed in home by family pit bull

Baltimore Sun ^ | August 9, 2003 | Jessica Valdez and Alec MacGillis

[Pukka Puck]

You kicked his most handily. Congratulations!

[rdb3]

I didn't get another pit. This time I got a Presa Canario. It was developed by Canarian farmers to be a farm dog and guardian.

[ChemistCat]

Wasn't that dog with the strange circle around its eye, in the Little Rascals, a pitbull? Obviously they **can** be tractable, agreeable dogs. A dog on a movie set with child actors before PETA and the ASPCA probably had to be very long-suffering, patient, and impossible to provoke.

I think aggressiveness is proven to be more common in some breeds than others, and many people buy these aggressive dogs when they are unfit to adequately train them and too irresponsible to protect other people from them. It's not the animal at fault. Most of us who support banning a breed understand that. We'd RATHER just ban the idiots who can't be trusted to be responsible with the dangerous things they own, to keep them under control. (And I bet the gun control crowd would agree with me--if we could get rid of the idiots who use dangerous stuff improperly, there wouldn't be much of an outcry against guns anymore either!)

At least if my irresponsible neighbors own guns, those guns aren't off roaming the neighborhood and getting into our trash while their owners sprawl drunk or high in front of the TV. Their pit bull terriers, on the other hand, can be and frequently are, roaming the neighborhood scaring the heck out of us. If a mop dog comes ambling down the street, my first instinct isn't to kill it before it kills me, but when a Rott or Pit is running toward me I have to admit that the hindbrain is fully engaged in fight-or-flight responses.

This is what you're up against, and this is why Consort is so adamantly against this breed. Abusing that poster, as some people are doing, is to deny that people have legitimate reasons to fear this breed. There is simply no outcry to ban Chihuahuas (which I think is in general a more disagreeable pet in every other way that counts. YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP. Gah. Turn them all into gloves. At least a pit bull has a USE.)

[Tijeras_Slim]

"It was down on the ground, and they still kept on shooting for no reason."

Amadog Diallo, the latest urban martyr.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Farm dog? Critter looks like he can pull a tractor!

[spunkets]

"In the shooting, some bullet fragments smashed through a nearby car window. The breaking glass injured one of the car's occupants, who was treated at the scene.

Must have been a hell of a fight!

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Looking for a Killer
Fatal Dog Attack Spurs Interest in Powerful Breed

By Dean Schabner


Feb. 7 — Mac Harris hoped to increase the popularity of presa Canario dogs, a breed he has bred and loved since 1993. But now that the rare breed is finally getting some attention, it's been his worst nightmare.

The powerful dogs burst into the national eye last week when one named Bane, a 120-pound brindle male, killed a San Francisco woman in the hallway outside her apartment. An investigation into the incident discovered that Bane was one of two dogs at the center of an alleged scheme by two prison inmates to raise vicious beasts to be sold as guard dogs for illegal drug labs or for dog fights.

Pit bulls on steroids.

Harris, a New York City man who has four of the dogs and says he is responsible for the American Kennel Club recognizing the breed, said in the week since the news broke of the fatal attack he's gotten more calls than ever before about the dogs he loves.

But they're from people he doesn't want to talk to. These people are looking for dogs to be used for fighting — and that's why he quit breeding dogs.

Angelika Morwald, the owner of WereWolf Kennels in Cayuga, Ontario, Canada, has had the same experience. Calls have come in from people saying, "I want one of those dogs that killed that woman," or "I want one of those dogs that did the attack," she said.

"We've always had people that were interested in aggressive, vicious dogs and you had to screen them out," she said. "But now they're just coming out and saying they want dogs that kill."

[Skooz]

Canary Dog! Excellent, but difficult, breed. They require a pretty firm hand but can make fine pets and superb watchdogs. They tend to be one family dogs and wary of strangers

A certain other breed, however, has never met a stranger:

Vicious, ain't he?

[nvcdl]

I have an Amstaff and adopted a Pitbull from the pound.

They are fine dogs - mine aren't agggresive with people unless they are given reason to be.

A baby have been killed by every breed of dog and 5 gal pails - parents need to keep a close eye on infants.

[Dianna]

I think it's an entirely appropriate term to use with a couple who leave a 2 week old alone to go outside to smoke cigarettes.

Oooops! Guess I qualify. What exactly did you expect to happen when smokers started getting vilified for smoking around children? We went outside....now we're blamed for doing that too.

[cubreporter]

God, what a sad situation either way. For the baby and only 2 weeks old....brand new angel wings. :(

[rdb3]

When she's fully grown, she probably could pull a tractor.

[rdb3]

And your point is...?

Here's more info on this breed. The behavior of this breed in your article is extremely atypical. And from the sound of those who want the Presa, those will be dangerously aggressive. But it's natural temperment is not of fighting or viciousness.

[spunkets]

"Calls have come in from people saying, "I want one of those dogs that killed that woman," or "I want one of those dogs that did the attack," she said."

There was a quiet, frail little old lady(no exaggeration) in Chicago that bought one of these things. It was for protection. She lived in one of those neighborhoods that never counts a single republican vote.

She never let the dog out except in her back yard. The postal employees were upset, because it barked and they could see it. One of the postals was a rotund female with a mouth and creative mind. She got together with a network's investigative team CBS, or ABC. They should up to interview the woman on film and have her explain why her dog barks at people.

They show was held in the alley behind her yard. Beats me what this had to do with postals, because the yard's not visable from the front where the mailbax is. Anyway, show starts with the TV jounalists and investigators calling outloud from the alley for her to come out. Blah, blah, blah... She says in a slow, quiet, crackly and frail voice, "go away, or I'll let the dog out."

They keep it up and interject with comments about how the old lady's dog's a menace. Blah, blah, blah... She says again, go away, or I'll let the dog out. She said it at least 4 times if not more.

I was dumbfounded why they were pestering her. The dog never got out, was kept in the house most of the time and the "witnesses" were just trashing the bread anyway and telling the cameras how much they feared them.

The TV folks got impatient, because the old lady wasn't cooperating, so then they entered the yard. The same voice was heard from inside the house, with just a hair increase in tempo. She said, "I told you I was going to let the dog out."

Then you hear this potent WOOF, WOOF from inside the house and a second later BANG, as the screen door flies open and the dog flies out. The thing was like a hornet in flight. w/o a break in stride the thing hopped up and chompped on the rotund postal's bossom and flopped back and forth like a fish. She screamed, shook back and forth with her hands in the air as the men on the crew tried to pull the dog off with all their might. Which wasn't much, but it sure did stretch that bossom out. The dog was annoyed by one of the men, so with a single flop, he turned and latched onto this guys arm and the guy stood there trying to shake him off. Just like the dog on "Little Rascals" he hung on, stiff as a board. He had enough of that guy, so he flopped over back onto the postal that just standing there with a dumb look on her face. The dog only swung back and forth a couple times and an inaudible voice called the dog back in.

In a flash the dog was back accross the yard and the screen door swung open. The old lady never appeared. The folks in the alley were in complete disarray. Cameras shaking, panic, and ended it with some comment like, "what just happened?"

It was the best piece of journalistic film I have ever seen. It showed how these animals are obeydient, loyal, effective and an old lady's friend and hero.

[spunkets]

"At least a pit bull has a USE.

#74

"YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP. Gah."

My brother's family has a Skipperke. I told them when it dies(or somebody kills it), I'll make him and his wife a headmount with an animated mouth and an endless audiotape that plays, "YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP..."

[Skooz]

LOL! Sorry I missed that. They had it coming.

[spunkets]

"They had it coming."

Yea, I felt sorry for the postal getting bit, but not all that much. She was there after all, trying to get the old lady's only protection taken with a mouthful of lies and scare tactics. They were in her yard and were warned on camera multiple times to leave. The other folks in the crowd mostly scattered.

[Catspaw]

My brother's family has a Skipperke. I told them when it dies(or somebody kills it), I'll make him and his wife a headmount with an animated mouth and an endless audiotape that plays, "YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP..."

That would be my Lhasa.

He just went to a new groomer. They gave me a too cute report card about his clip. It wasn't until I got home that I turned it over & found he'd been marked down because he "has some feet handling issues." I spent about a half an hour LMAO, because I *know* what he was like at the previous groomer (she closed her shop because she's pregnant). My Little Precious was wretched when he went there, so bad they kept his leash on him so they could drag him out of his cage without getting chomped. And he didn't have just "feet handling issues." He had *issues* with them clipping him just about anywhere. Or just touching him in general. And that's why I pay them to do it and I don't have to deal with it.

But because of his weasely YAP YAP YAP, he managed to break up a robbery & another incident where some alien invader was pounding on a neighbor's door at 1:30 a.m. And when the creepy nosy theiving neighbor tried to get into our fenced yard without me knowing it, the pup went ballistic. And that's why he stays. That, and he's my buddy.

[libravoter]

utopsy probably hasn't been done yet.

If they did do it, at least they won't get away with it. the trauma of a dog bite on a live person and a dead person (even if very very recently dead) will be very different.