The holiday weekend means that a lot of media outlets aren't really spending much time covering news -- so there have been fewer news stories than normal this week. It's interesting to me that a huge percentage of the bites that were in the news this week were from cities that had breed bans in place...yeah, still not working. I have a pretty crazy travel schedule ahead of me for the next couple of weeks, so I'm going to appologize in advance if I'm slow in posting. Onto the roundup:
Cities and Laws
Hays, KS is once again looking at potential breed restrictions. This had reportedly gone away about 2 months ago but has now come back. I'm going to have more on this (I think) later in the week. The city is looking at a lot of different options from bans, to non-breed specific restrictions, to something in between. The city councilors got copies of some "model ordinances" -- which were not very "model".
Themayor of Wilkes Barre, PA has mentioned a desire to change the state law regarding breed restrictions. The state of Pennsylvania has a law that prohibits breed specific legislation. I think many times when city officials are in states without BSL, they are completely unaware of how ineffective the legislation really is at dealing with the problems of dog bites - and that appears to be the case here.
Dog Bites and Attacks
A three year old Vancouver area boy needed 96 stitches after being bitten by a Neopolitan Mastiff.
A six year old Fort Lauderdale girl was bitten while riding her bike by a 'pit bull' that broke lose from its chain.
A Sioux Falls, SD man was bitten this week by a white Husky mix.
A 'pit bull' in Cincinnati got in the middle of a youth tennis camp and began biting at the ankles of a couple of the youth. Also in Cincinnati, a man is accused of ordering his mixed breed dog to attack someone who eneded up requiring medical treatment. Cincinnati has quite a history of failure with their 5 year old breed ban -- because they have been dealing with dogs instead of with owners that either let their dogs roam free, or that owners want to be aggressive and will order to attack someone. And the city will continue to have failure until they focus on the owners and not the dogs.
A guilty pleas was given by an owner of five dogs, four boxers and a dachshund, that got out of their yard and attacked a man while he was out jogging.
A 13 year old Athens, GA boy has admitted that he provoked three dogs that attacked him last week by repeatedly bouncing a basketball off the door of the home where the dogs were staying and eventually ended up breaking the door which led to the dogs (1 pit bull and 2 Fox Terriers) escaping and attacking him.
A 9 year old Austrailian girl was biten at a family barbeque by the family's Shar Pei.
In Omaha, two pit bulls allegedly attacked and killed a small dog. The dogs were running off-leash. "It's just another example of an irreponsible dog owner not having control over his dogs," said Mark Langan of the Humane Society's Field Operations. "We see it way too much." Last fall, Omaha passed an ordinance that required responsible pit bull owners to jump through a series of hoops in order to prevent them from having to adhere to muzzling restrictions and a variety of other restrictions. Instead of creating a series of hoops for responsible owners to get through, they should have focused the legislation on the irresponsible owners that Langan talks about...
UK Dangerous Dogs Act
The UK has one of the worlds oldest and most popular breed bans -- and yet, consistently story after story comes out about the failures of the ordinance -- now on 18 years after it's passing. The stories continue to serve as a reminder that even if you ban several breeds of dogs, there will always be other breeds of dogs that irresponsible owners will flock to because you never addressed the heart of the problem.
A woman in the UK is recovering after a major attack by a Japanese Akita.
A four year old boy received minor injuries after being "attacked" by a Rottweiler.
A UK has now attacked a dog for the 3rd time already this year -- but because its breed wasn't included under the Dangerous Dogs Act, there is little that authorities say they can do.
Media Irresponsibility
As the UK media how focuses on other breeds of dogs other than 'pit bulls', they are now running a few more stories like this one, where a Rottweiler "Attacked" a 2 year old toddler, leaving only 3 teeth marks and never breakin the skin. Not breaking the skin isn't an attack, and certainly not when a large dog is involved with a toddler.
And this folks, is how a breed gets demonized. Two dogs in Mansfield, OH apparently attacked a man. It's the breed idendification that is pretty amazing "They were borderline of a pit and not a pit," said Richland County Dog Warden Dave Jordan. " They had more of a distinct bulldog look, certainly a mix". So in other words, they were unidentifiable mixed breed dogs (like most dogs). There is no such thing as "borderline a pit bull" -- either a dog is or it isn't. And yet, the story runs with the header "Pit bull attack". Nice.
Abuse Cases
Four dogs in one area of the UK have been killed by heat exhaustion after being left alone in vehicles for too long in the hot summer. Folks, be very careful with your dogs in the hot summer because they can overheat in cars very quickly.
Four pit bulls were found dead in Manorville, NJ. Officials say the dogs were pretty badly mutilated and were dumped in the woods.
Three people have been indicted and 49 animals seized on suspicion of dog fighting in the Detroit area.
Animal Shelters
Concerns from the ASPCA in New York about the shelter filling up with dogs after the NYC Housing Authority placed severe restrictions on what dogs are allowed in public housing. ASPCA lawyer Deborah Bresch says there has been a lot of innaccurate and confusing information out there which has led to some confusion about what dogs are or are not allowed.
Miscellanious
A great article worth reading on Saving Bruce -- a dog that may be killed under the UK Dangerous Dogs Act for being a 'pit bull type" dog, even though at least two experts have declared the dog as not a pit bull. By all reports, the dog is not aggressive in any way and poses no danger to the public. The ridiculousness of these laws that are causing court hearings and such for breed idenitifcation for dogs that are friendly is just crazy...and the reason so many of these laws are majorly flawed. This time would much better be spent dealing with actually aggressive dogs.
Have a great week everyone.
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