![](http://wpmedia.fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/12/pit_bulls.jpeg?w=620")
Posted on 01/03/2015 9:39:36 PM PST by RBStealth
Last weekend in Saanich, B.C., a 16-day old baby was mauled by her family’s pit bull-Rottweiler mix on the same day as an elderly man was attacked by two pit bull dogs outside a Langley, B.C. dollar store. News like this is reported, but commentary-wise, dog-related public safety is virtually an orphan topic. Which is why I adopted it.
Public-safety regulation is usually linked to what is deemed a critical number of injuries or deaths. Between 1971 and 1980, for example, Ford produced three million Pintos. Due to a peculiarity in the Pinto’s structural design, its fuel tank was prone to puncture in rear-end collisions. Consequently, over Pinto’s 10 years in operation, 26 people died in fires that a better design could have prevented. Ford was forced to retire the model in the interest of public safety.
By coincidence, there are about three million pit bull type dogs in North America today, representing 6% of all breeds. But about 26 people die from pit bull type dogs in the U.S. every year (out of about 40 from all 400 breeds combined). Pit bull type dogs maul, maim, disfigure or dismember hundreds more. By no coincidence, when pit bulls were few in number — 200,00 before 1970, most clustered in marginal districts — dogbite-related fatalities in the general population were freakishly rare. In my youth, when middle-class neighbourhood dogs ran loose, and average families didn’t own fighting dogs, years went by without a single fatality. If pit bull type dogs were cars, they’d be long gone. But unlike car victims, pit bull tragedies don’t arouse public outrage.
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Says about our culture? America has entered into of post Christian era of neo pagan decadence. Drug use, homosexuality, pornography, fornication, earth and celebrity worship are now the norm. The President of the United States celebrates abortion. Animals have more legal right than fetuses.
Nice article but be careful. Someone could use a similar argument for gun control.
That’s what happens when you don’t brush your bulldog’s teeth.
“Drug use, homosexuality, pornography, fornication, earth and celebrity worship are now the norm. The President of the United States celebrates abortion. Animals have more legal right than fetuses.”
And people who have no business owning urban assault dogs buy them and fail to socialize, train or control them. And tragedies happen. And children are scarred for life. And sometimes they are killed. Adults too. And other people’s harmless, loving, socialized dogs.
We’re not allowed to own tigers in our back yards and it makes sense. Pit bulls are the lone wolf jihadists of the dog world, IMHO.
Pure foolishness to put a 16 day old infant near ANY dog unsupervised, let alone a Pit Bull. Some adult dogs of ANY breed do get jealous of the new baby. Some animals get a sensory overload from the smell of an infant, and will impulsively just grab for it. We animal lovers tend to forget just how quickly a dog or cat can grab something, or somebody. There shouldn’t have to be laws created to prevent a common sense mistake, but that day may be coming.
I have noticed that there are always more pit bulls/American bulldogs at animal control. It wasn’t always that way. Do they just have more pups, are people less likely to get this breed fixed? It seems every 3rd kennel holds one. The next most common is the chihuahua or some blend of.
The problem is not the dog, tool, firearm or car, etc. The problem is responsibility for choices and liability in a legal sense. Once upon a time we were a nation with the interactions of social units controlled by rule of law. Those days are over. That people no longer feel obligated to protect themselves from the consequences of their actions is a result of no consequences for their actions.
Agreed. And a lot of stupid unnecessary tragedies happen.
You find a lot in shelters because some of them become more aggressive once they are adults. This may be why some opt to have their dog neutered, before the full impact of hormones has been reached in the animal.
When a gun can get up and do something on its own you might have a correlation.
Wrong. No, because guns don't have free will.
Nice article but be careful. Someone could use a similar argument for gun control.
Problem with pit bulls is they are a bit like Bengal tigers. That is, you may have a really nice one, but if something goes wrong it will do more damage than a poodle.
I like dogs - cats, too. Really. I’ve had two dogs. Lately I was in my favorite little ‘luxury’ kitchen shop and the owner came in with his pit bull, intending it for a night guard dog. The owner seemed a little anxious. I just froze in place, with my hand slightly extended and waited for the dog to come to me. Which she did, and we were good friends.
I have a friend who works at a city animal shelter. Its mostly all pit-bulls, from the ghetto.
I tell him its really just another welfare program, working to clean-up yet another inner-city mess.
Quality English bulldog puppies sell for at least a grand, American bulldogs, for about half that. Both have large heads and breeding is difficult. It is unlikely you are seeing either at the pound.
Helen Keller and Teddy Roosevelt owned Americans. The RCA Victrola dog is an American.
What you are probably seeing at shelters are ‘bully dog’ mixes. Bulldogs are to the dog world what the Irish (or Germans) are to the people world: a lot of us have one or the other, or both. It is unlikely that you are seeing pure-bred bulldogs. All the American bulldog is, is the English bulldog before they started crossing the breed with pugs, after bull baiting was banned in Angleland to make them more docile.
My American is a dog and a half.
Except for slamming gangbangers and dogfighting, let’s lighten up on the “breed-specific” legislation talk. Give it a rest.
As BBell recognizes, it sounds like histrionic lefty talk about guns and it makes our libertarian cousins flinch.
For any neo-cons that afraid of them, carry a gun. Or pick on French poodles. Or head over to DU and vent your spleen there.
But keep in mind, if it isn’t a bulldog it’s just a dog.
Pit bull terrier are like Ford Pintos and Bengal Tigers.
OK, that clears the matter up.
Indeed they could. But as you can see, those who want to punish all pit bull owners for the acts of a few focus on one fact, that being dogs have free will and guns do not. What they refuse to acknowledge is the side of the argument that punishes everyone for the acts of others.
A man goes into a movie theater and shoots it up and the anti-gun crowd uses the incident to try to ban all guns. Someone's pit bull kills someone and they try to use the incident to ban the breed. Both scenarios punish the innocent. But good luck getting an honest debate on the issue. You are more likely to get the "dogs have free will" debate as you have here. It is what it is.
Justice for Puppy Doe who is now the poster dog for abused animals. Puppy doe was a female pit bull.
Yup.
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