KC DOG BLOG

Fear Mongering at its finest

Wow.  Just wow.  KCTV5, our "Live, Late Breaking, Investigative" news station did a 4 minute feature on an area neighborhood that is living in terror of 2 'pit bulls'.  There is so much wrong with the story that it's hard to know where to start.  A woman knocks on a neighbor's door, the dogs living inside the house bite the woman causing some wounds that were pretty bad bites, but nothing even remotely close to life-threatening.  Now the entire neighborhood is in such fear of these dogs that one girl refuses to wait at the bus stop, or go outside to play, or even get out of the car with the garage door up.  It's pretty ridiculous the fear that people live in.  To their credit, the owner appears to be completely incompetent and the dogs are definitely un-trained in any way shape or form.  But of course THAT wasn't the news story they focused on...it was the "pit bull" part that call all the headlines.  I'm almost speechless at this one...it's fear mongering at its absolute finest.  Here's the Link.

Mistaken identity week has begun

Well, we're off to the races this week with bad reporting/pit bull hysteria following two reported 'pit bull' attacks that were at the jaws of dogs that weren't 'pit bulls'.

First up, we have a 9-year-old girl named Mariah Carver in Geneva County Alabama that was reportedly attacked by "at least 5 pit bulls".  According to the local authorities "This was not a dog bite.  This was an attack where they literally tried to kill her.  The girl is lucky to be alive." 

This story was picked up by several major media outlets, including a television station in Atlanta.

Interestingly, a later report on the matter, from WTVY news later reported that only one of the 5 dogs was actually responsible for the attack -- and the dog that was responsible was a white English Bulldog. 

A second attack we have a report of a St. Louis Missouri man that was attacked by his borther in law's 'pit bull'.  The story was later changed to "dog" by the Fox News Affiliate in St. Louis (although pit bull remains in the verbage) before the St. Louis Post Dispatch came out this morning with the dogs being American Bulldogs (which based on the photo appears to be a more accurate breed ID than 'pit bull').  This story was picked up in about 7 or 8 news sources as being a 'pit bull', including my local KMBC ABC news affiliate here in Kansas City with only one media source, the Post Dispatch calling it an American Bulldog.  People will believe what they want to believe.

Interestingly, in this story, the owner of the dogs says they've never been aggressive before yet it appears as if the owner went into the house and got a gun and shot his dogs to stop the attacks.  Anyone who has dogs that are well trained (and not aggressive) should have been able to go out and stop the attacks without gunfire. 

So to start off the week, we have two popularly reported 'pit bull' attacks that featured 7 attacking 'pit bulls' that turned out to be three dogs involved in the attacks, none of them pit bulls. 

Do I need further evidence as to why media reports of dog attacks should not be used as scientific information?

Auburn Football Player bitten at game on Saturday

I'm having a tough time getting back into the groove this week.  The holiday weekend and a bummer of a cold have me not feeling up to speed yet.  I'll be up to speed before too awful long.

On that note I'm going to leave you with a highlight of the Auburn/Alabama football game on Saturday in which an Auburn player was bitten by a police dog on the sidelines.  Apparently it's not the first time an Auburn player has had a sidelines runin with a canine.

Enjoy the video.  I'll be back in the swing of things soon I hope.

Weekly Roundup - Thanksgiving Edition

Sort of a slow week this week.  The holiday week kept most city councils from passing any bad laws and the cold weather that blanketed most of the  country kept most people (and dogs) indoors.  But here is a roundup of the top stories from the week.

Great article about Mandatory Spay/Neuter Laws

Here's a well-written article from the Palm Beach Post on some talk about doing what California has done.  Like California, Florida has a state law prohibiting breed specific legislation, but people are talking about doing mandatory spay/neuter down there.  The story does a great job of talking about the pros and cons of MSN laws....which seem to be a great idea in theory, but don't have positive affects in actual practice.

"Dog mauls Lorain (OH) Boy"

First of all the boy sustained a"serious gash"to his arm when the boy reached for a ball at the same time the dog lunged for a ball at the same time and got the boy's arm instead of the ball.  This is not a "mauling" in my book.  Meanwhile, the last paragraph is worth the read:

Mattei (the head of animal control)said it was unfortunate Wednesday’s incident would likely solidify stereotypes on the pit bull breed, which aren’t responsible for most of the dog bite incidents in Lorain. So far this year, about five of 70 dog bites in Lorain were inflicted by pit bulls, Mattei said.

Meanwhile, I'd like to note that there have been about 5 dog bites covered by the Lorain newspaper this year...and all of them have been covering the bites by "pit buls".

Boy scarred for life after dog attack

This one from the UK, where people are supposed to be safer due to the Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991 that banned 4 breeds of dogs that has led to a 40% increase in dog attacks since it's inception.  The dog responsible for this attack was a Weimaraner, a dog not covered by the ban.

Speaking of failed Breed Bans

The Assembly in Belfast (where they recently banned American Pit Bull Terriers) are now deealing with dog fighters and breeders crossing American Pit Bull Terriers (outlawed) with Staffordshire Bull Terreirs (legal) and calling them "Irish Staffordshire Bull Terriers" to circumvent the law.  Does anyone really think that breed specific laws will actual prevent criminal activity?

Mike Vick starts serving prison time

Mike Vick, famous NFL player who is now infamous for his dog fighting ring, went to jail this week starting early on serving his prison sentence even before he was sentenced.  His thinking is, the earlier he can get in jail, the sooner he can get out.  My hope is that all of this hubub will lead to  more awareness of dog fighting and maybe cause some folks to think twice about participating after watching Vick go from huge star to a prison cell in 6 quick months.

Meanwhile, the US is seeking $1 million for the care of Vick's dogs between the time of confiscation and his trial/sentencing.  It's a good thing that HSUS raised millions of dollars for the "care" of Vick's dogs (note the sarcasm).

"Pit Bull Scalps Toddler"

The 1 year old was bitten when his mom was visiting her boyfriend's home to surprise him with Thanksgiving dinner.  The dog's owner (the boyfriend) was not at home when the attack occurred and the 1 year old boy appears to have been left alone with the dog while the mom was fixing dinner.

Loose Dogs make Walks Dangeorus

Interesting letter to the editor from the Toledo Blade. The woman who wrote the letter was concerned aboutt the large number of stray dogs in her area that are proving dangerous on her walks.  This is interesting because Toledo's head of animal control Tom Skeldon leads one of the deadliest breed specific legislation policies that has killed thousands of pit bull type dogs in the area and yet people don't feel safe there because they have allowed stray dogs to roam loose in the city as they have focused on pit bulls vs stray animals.

Ohio Bill would remove state-wide BSL

According to the AKC website, Ohio House Bill 366 would remove Breed Specific Language from the state ordinance regarding dangerous dogs.  The state of Ohio is the only state in the country that has state-wide restrictions on breeds of dogs.  I'm never optimistic about these things, and the state of Ohio is one of the most dog unfriendly areas in the country but I'm glad that people are working on getting this overturned.

Memence City (Illinois) passed breed neutral dangerous dog law

According to Alderman Mark Lesyna the vicious dog definition defines behavior, not breed "they have to earn the name" he said.

McPherson (KS) to reopens dangerous dog discussions

They had looked into restrictions on pit bulls back in 2005, but two city commissioners Tony Fielder and Charles Scharf voted against the ordinance.  They talked about it then when a study noted that 22% of their recorded dog bites came from pit bulls or pit bull mixes.   Now that there are two new council members, the mayor said he wanted the two new commissioners to have a chance to consider the proposed ordinance.  In other words, the mayor is really pushing this.

Caveat has an interesting breakdown of this over there this week if you want more information.

Boy attacked by pit bull in Mississippi

Apparently the dog's owner knew the dog was aggressive and told the neighbors to "not let no kids go into my house".   There is a lot of misunderstanding of what defines an aggressive dog and what doesn't.  Clearly this woman was in denial that her dog was aggressive:

"He's not a vicious dog, he just don't like people just irritating him and everything."

If we could get out of our talks about "pit bulls this" and "pit bulls that" we could maybe make strides to help educate people on what really constitutes a dog being aggressive so we can start getting rid of these behaviors.

Oklahoma City shelter pounded for pit bull policy

Oklahoma has a state law that bans breed specific regulations.  The Oklahoma City shelter did not allow "pit bulls" to be adopted out of their shelters - meaning pretty much every "pit bull" that entered the shelter was killed.  Courts ruled that this policy is against the state law.

I could dedicate a whole post to how wrong it is that a city "shelter" -- that was put in place to help and protect animals --  would need courts to tell them not to kill every square-headed dog that came into the shelter.  But I'll leave that for another day.  For now, bravo to Oklahoma City - this is a step in the right direction.

Camanche City, IA tables "pit bull" ordinance

This story shows a lot of the ignorance that goes behind a lot of cities' decisions to put restrictions on certain breeds of dogs.  Mayor, Jim Robertson, says he thinks the city shoudl pass the ordinance because he thinks the city should be "proactive" instead of "reactive" --- in other words, he's trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist, but may potentially, possibly exist sometime in the future.    Robertson also said the ordinance was being considered ude to the sustantial pound per square inche bite capacity that pit bulls have (which is an urban legend that has been debunked in several scientific studies). 

It was also was noted that there are only about the 5 "pit bull" owners in the city, none of which have had any problems.  City Attorney Tom Lonergan said that while the city's current pit bull owners are responsible, the city was aiming to prevent irresponsible dog owners in the community.  I often think that when people are looking to prevent "irresponsible pit bull owners" from moving to their city, that this often means that they are looking to prevent "non white" people from moving to their city.   Camanche City is 97.6% white, and one has to wonder if they aren't trying to keep it that way.

Woman attacked by dog

This story out of Gibsonville, VT.  The victim's dog's water dish blew into the neighbor's yard.  When she entered the neighbor's yard, the neighbor's dog which was on a tether, lunged and attacked her.  Tethering dogs continues to be a major way to go about getting your dog to attack.

Pit bull and poodle find true love

This is a cute, heartwarming story about a poodle and a pit bull that have become bestest friends.

Other People's Stuff

I'ts a holiday weekend, so I'm making my best attempt to not sit in front of my computer for all of it.  But I might, who knows.

Meanwhile other people have been using their time off to write some pretty good stuff, so I'm going to link to it so you have some good reading material on your day off.

The Pet Connection Blog had a great follow-up to the "debate" between Nathan Winograd and Wayne Parcell.   I think Christie does a great job of pointing out the many holes in the opposition to Winograd's statements.  It's time to stop making excuses and start getting results.

Caveat has apparently figured out the weather is too cold in Canada this time of year to spend much time outside -- so she's been posting a lot of great stuff lately as well.  Here's a great post that she made out of an email from Sonya Dias of the Pit Bull Band out of Denver.  Sonya's group is working to overturn the Pit bull ban in Denver through legal action.  Caveat shares a story from out of Denver that is far too common where the family pet was yanked from the family home and killed because it's head looked too boxy. 

Enjoy...and spend some time with your loving dogs.

Unintended consequences - Springfield, MO

Last week, I read an article about the country of South Africa.   Apparently South Africa has one of the world's most difficult driver's test exams.  The test takes off points for, among other things, failure to check all of your mirrors every 7 seconds.

So one would assume that South Africa would have safer roads, correct?  Well, no actually.  South Africa has a fatality rate per mile driven that is 5x faster than that of the United States.  Apparently, because the test is so difficult, there has  become a huge incentive for people to just buy a license off the black market -- so in essence, they're not taking the driver's exam at all.  So instead of having safer roads due to the difficulty of the driver's exam, they've acutally created the exact opposite affect -- the law of unintended consequences.

So what does this have to do with Springfield, MO, and their new law tightly regulating the ownership of "pit bulls"?

On Saturday, there was an article in the Springfield News Leader about the one year report following the institution of their pit bull ordinance that places strong regulations on all "Pit bull" type dogs.  According to Kevin Gipson, the director of the Greene County Department of Health, the ordinance "appears ot be working".   Here are some quick numbers:

1) The year prior to instituting the ordinance, there were 15 vicious dog attacks in the city, 11 of which involved "pit bulls".  In the first year of the ordinance, there were only 10 vicious dog attacks, 4 by "pit bulls".

2) In the year prior to the ordinance, 500 pit bulls and their mixes were picked up by animal control, only about 350 were picked up in the first year of the ordinance.

3) 115 tickets have been issued for failure to register "pit bulls".

4) About 400 of the city's estimated 3500-4000 pit bulls are registered.

While an initial glance at these numbers seems to indicate that the law is doing it's job - -with a 33% decrease in dog attacks and fewer "pit bulls" found roaming the streets, there are some scary signs here.  Why are only 10-15% of the "pit bulls" licensed?  Why such a large number of tickets for unregistered "pit bulls"?  Why the 50% increase in dog attacks by non-pit bull breeds (although admittedly, the actual number of 2 is probably not statistically significant, nor is the whole number of 10). 

These results are pretty similar to the year 1 results in Council Bluffs, IA and most other places that have instituted BSL.   First year results tend to be pretty good.  Many dogs are moved out of town creating a short-term lowering of the overall dog numbers.  Some dogs are kept in solitary confinement as owners work to hide their dogs from the authorities so they can keep them for as long as possible.  Many dog owners who want aggressive dogs start moving to other non-targeted breeds of dogs. 

Unfortunately, as these dogs that are hidden become less socialized, as the dog population begins to grow back with other breeds of dogs, as owners who desire aggressive dogs switch over to other breeds, the year 2 dog attack numbers tend to go up pretty dramatically and stay up over the long term.  Springfield is showing these same signs.  Their lack of compliance with the law (10-15 registration rate, high pick up rates) has to be a huge concern for their authorities.  The 50% increase in dog bites by "non pit bulls" is also a sign of movement of irresponsible owners to other breeds (or potentially a lack of focus by animal control on dog attacks by other types of dogs). 

If Springfield's law ends up working to make the city safer -- it will be the first.  But the problem signs exist, and the law of unintended consequences appears to be in full affect.  I think the city health official's language "it appears to be working" even shows signs of doubt in his own mind.   I guess we shall see.

Winograd responds to HSUS

Last week, I mentioned a blog posting by Wayne Parcell at HSUS regarding the No-Kill movement. Parcell claimed that HSUS was on the forefront of the no-kill movement.

Today, Nathan Winograd, officially of the No-Kill movement, responded.  Not only did he respond on his blog, but he also wrote a 20 page response going item by item through Parcell's post.

Here are a couple of quotes from Winograd's post and response:

HSUS’ own expert denies that shelters are even killing animals. At HSUS’ national animal sheltering conference in 2006, HSUS held a workshop on killing in which the “expert” stated:

We are not killing them, we are taking their lives, we are ending their lives, we are giving them a good death, we are humanely destroy-, whatever, but we are not killing. And that is why I can’t stand the term No Kill shelters.

HSUS has the potential to lead us toward our inevitable No Kill future. We will get there, even if we have to do what we have always done: fight HSUS every step of the way. But by cooperating with us, rather than working against us, we can get there much more quickly. As a result, HSUS could lessen the body count by millions of animals if they supported, rather than thwarted the effort as they have historically done and continue to do.

HSUS has been at best an enabler of a shelter system that is failing miserably in this country at actually saving the lives of animals.  At worst, they have been encouraging the kiling.  Winograd rightfully bemoans the reality that HSUS has millions of dollars at their disposal and if they would use it to encourage no-kill, they would be able to positively affect the killing in our shelters.  Unfortunately, that seems to be a secondary to moneymaking for HSUS.

Anyway, if you work in the animal welfare world, PLEASE take the time to read Winograds thoughts.  This is very important stuff...and I admire him for taking on the beast head-on.

Weekly Roundup

Columbus Ohio Boy severely injured in dog attack

An 11-year old  Columbus, OH boy was severely injured early this week when a dog that he was walking attacked him.  The dog belonged to a "house guest" and had been in the home for less than 24 hours when the attack occurred.

This is a pretty odd story in some ways, although its not suprising that a dog attack would happen within the first 24 hours of the dog being in an unusual environment around strangers.  I'd love to know more about the circumstances surrounding the attack -- but this is a good note that you should a) do a good job of introducing your dogs to new environments and b) be on guard and aware of dogs that are brought into your home that you don't know how well they'll react to the new environment.

Fort Worth man and his dog attacked by a pit bull

The man and his chow were walking in the neighborhood and the pit bull broke off of its chain and ran up and attacked the man and the dog. Two quick notes on this. 1) This most likely was an attack on the dog, and the man ended up in the way - -that's how these seem to work  2) Anyone who has ever seen any dog chained up in its yard when another dog passes by knows how berzerk they can get out of their frustration of not being able to meet the other dog or from fear they can't get away.  I'm a huge proponent of laws that prohibite unsupervised tethering of your dog to prevent just this type of attack from happening.

46 pit bulls stolen from animal shelter in Memphis

All of the dogs were supposedly confiscated from a dog fighting ring in the area and were being held.  The dogs, 21 adults and 46 puppies were all stolen from the shelter last weekend -- and there is such close supervision on the shelter that authorities couldn't even tell you what day they were stolen.  The future doesn't look very good for these dogs...

Family of dog attack victim fights back to animal control

This story is out of San Antonio.  The family reported that there was an aggressive stray dog in the neighborhood earlier in the day but animal control never came out to deal with the stray dog.  The family's 3 year old girl was attacked later in the day by the same dog.  I'll repeat until my dying day, that if you can staff animal control to deal with stray dogs and animal cruelty and neglect (including unsupervised chaining), you will be able to eliminate the vast majority of attacks by dogs other than the one in your household.  It sounds like the girl is going to be ok, but she got roughed up pretty bad on this one.

South Sioux City appears to be leaning toward a breed neutral ordinance

The final ordinance hasn't been released yet, but it appears that they are leaning toward a breed-neutral ordinance at this point.

Minneapolis looking to revamp its dangerous dog ordinance

Among the changes appears to be a restriction that doesn't allow convicted felons to own a dog over 20 lbs and increased fees.

Merriam Woods, MO passes pit bull restrictions

This is a small community near Springfield, MO and they passed an ordinance similar to Springfield's.  There are a couple of really disturbing things about this story:

1) No one showed up at the public hearing either for or against the ordinance.  So clearly they're passing a law to solve a problem they don't really have (no one for it) or doesn't really affect many people (no one against).

2) The quote by Chief of Police Jerry Pagan really bugs me,  "I would say about 85% of all dog attacks in Merriam Woods have been pit bulls and their mixes" -- adding that not many people have really been bitten.  The "I would say" part really bugs me because either you have the numbers or you don't.   This sounds like he doesn't have them.  As the old saying goes, 92% of all statistics are made up on the spot -- including that one.

3) I'm bugged because BSL is like cancer -- it just keeps spreading and infecting other areas as people continute to pass breed restrictions because someone else did it and they feel like it's the thing to do -- without looking if the ordinance has really worked or not.  Rockaway Beach, a town that has had a run of bad luck due to some other state-wide legislation is now also considering a similar ordinance.

I'm going to provide more thought on the Springfield Ordinance tomorrow...

Abandoned pit bull in Nashville kills Pomeranian

This is an interesting story about a pit bull that was left abandoned behind his home when owners moved away.  If you watch the video you can see the horrible conditions this dog's dog house was in.  The dog was left chained up in his back yard for what sounds like a couple of weeks before it finally broke the chain and ended up attacking and killing the neighbor's small dog. 

Let's repeat together:  If you can enforce cruelty and negelect issues (includind tethering and abandonment), and wrangle stray dogs, the vast majority of your dog bite problems will go away.

Dog attacks cat, cat owner stabs dog

This isn't really much of a story since dogs attack cats quite a lot.  However, apparently MSNBC thought that since a pit bull was involved they would run the story.  This almost makes coverage of Britney Spears by the national news media seem relevant.

Five pit bulls rescued from dog fighting ring in Vicksburg, MS

The five dogs were found on heavy log chains in a wooded area with no food, water or humans around.  The picture is great because you can see the excitement that one of the rescued dogs has over seeing his rescuer.  This is the second dog fighting ring bust in the Vicksburg area this week.   And I'd be slacking if I didn't note the irony of the town name...

Frostburg, TN passes breed neutral Dangerous Dog Ordinance

Creates a differential between nuisance dogs and dangerous dogs and sounds like a pretty solid ordinance.  Hooray for Frostburg.

BSL Alert - McPherson, KS to look into what to do about pit bulls

The locals will tell you that the pronunciation is mc-fur-son -- because "there is no 'fear' in McPherson" - -but that appears to not be true.  Earlier I mentioned that BSL can spread like a cancer and this looks to be the case as this central KS community appears to be following Wichita's lead in looking into pit bull restrictions.  Hopefully they'll follow Wichita's lead and go with a solid breed neutral ordinance as well.

Kansas City Dog Parks

On November 27th, the Dog Park committee appointed by the Kansas City City Council and the KCMO Parks board will begin meeting to provide recommendations for dog parks in Kansas City.   Improved usage of city parks has been on Mayor Funkhouser's agenda from early on in his tenure, and I know that my post recommending increased penetration of dog parks made it on his desk as a possible solution.

Initially, the city parks board passed a policy that would prevent a dog park from going into a park that was smaller than 100 square acres.  However, they waived that policy awaiting the recommendation of the park's board. 

I cannot stress enough how important I think dog parks are for Kansas City.  Our parks are completely underutilized.  About 45% of the people in our city have dogs...and in a city of nearly 600,000 people, we have 1 dog park.  That's not nearly enough.

There is a great story in the Washington Post about dog parks in the Washington DC area (hat tip to Deb Hipp from Woof passing this along).  For many people in other areas of the country, dog parks have become a fabulous meeting ground for the people in the neighborhood.  Single people who are new to town often meet their neighbors, friends (and story mentions several spouses) at their neighborhood dog park.  They've become a popular meeting place.  And as neighbor's meet neighbors, and hang out in the city's parks, they become better neighborhood watchdogs (which brings down crime) and increases satisfaction of living in areas.  There is also anecdotal evidence that points to neighborhood dog parks actually increasing home values significantly as people look for this amenity.

The Post article has a lot of great quotes in it that sum up my thoughts on a lot of the opponent's argurments against the dog parks.

"At first people questioned why we were building parks for dogs", said Tim White, director of the Fairfax County (VA) Park Authority.  "But they're not for dogs.  They're for people.  Saying you're building a dog park for dogs is like saying you're building a golf course for golf balls."

"We realized a long time ago that these parks weren't about the dogs so much but about people coming together and building communities," said Steve Temmermand, division chief for Arlington Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources. "There are potluck supper clubs, book clubs, people exchange movies, all kinds of stuff. It's an entire social network. People have met their boyfriends, girlfriends and spouses at these parks."

In addition to being good for dog owners, well exercised and socialized dogs make people MUCH safer from potential dog bites and attacks.

I've provided a lot of thoughts in the past about what I feel the committee should do, but for the committee, here are a couple of my recommendations:

1) Build a couple of regional-sized dog parks, similar in scope to the one current city dog park at Penn Valley Park.  Using a couple of the city's larger regional parks like Hodge Park, Minor Park, Swope Park and Barkley Riverfront Park would provide large regional dog parks.

2) Get these large parks largely funded through advertising opportunities for businesses.  Sponsorships of certain things like benches, a bulletin board, fencing, trees, etc would be good advertising for animal-related companies and would offset some of the costs of the parks.  Culver City, CA provided a fabulous model for how this might look to offset these costs to the general public.

3) Once these are complete (which should be sooner rather than later), neighborhoods should be allowed to propose neighborhood off-leash areas.  While many of them can be fenced, I don't think fenced off-leash areas are a requirement.  As long as people are able to control their dog and get it to come to them using hand signals or verbal commands, then they should be fine running in an off-leash area without a fence.  These should all be subject to neighborhood approval, but should be open for discussion.

4) One final thought on this is that there are many areas of the city that could be regionally set as dog parks.  Here is an example of a dog park in Toronto  (hat tip Marjorie) that is a seasonal dog park.  During the spring, summer, and early fall, the area of the park is a used for baseball leagues.  However, once the baseball league season is over, the baseball park is completely unused.  So they have put up a temporary snow fence to fence off the area so that for 6 months of the year it can be used as a dog park.  Driving around our city, there are dozens of these softball and baseball fields that get no use from October -March and could be fenced off for use as dog parks.    Just another way of meeting Mayor Funkhouser's goal of increasing usage of the city's park space.

Hopefully our committee that is headed by architect and former city council hopeful Mel Solomon will come up with some good recommendations.  Even more hopefully, our city appointed parks board will listen to their good recommendations and follow through with them. 

It would increase the overall use of parks, provide a service to nearly 1/2 of Kansas Citians, improve neighborhood safety by having more people out and about and increase safety through better exercised and socialized dogs. And should be able to be done with minimal cost from taxpayers.  It's a complete win for everyone.  Let's make it happen.

Some advice for Knox County TN following fatal dog attack

Last week, Jennifer Lowe of Knox County, TN died when she was mauled by two pit bulls on her own front porch.  It's been a horrible story, and one that I have followed pretty closely since it broke last week.

In response to the attack, State Senator Tim Burchett, sent a letter to the Knox County Commission Chairman Scott Moore with a recommendation that Knox County pursue a county wide policy that requires all pit bulls to be spayed and neutered.  This is yet another example of a politician that wants to jump in and save the day without having thoroughly researched the subject and gotten recommendations from animal welfare experts.

After following this story this week, I have some ideas of things that would really help the citizens of Knox County....no mandatory spay/neuter required.

1) Pass an ordinance that allows for dogs to be declared dangerous based on their behavior. Animal Control had visited the home on several occassions but did not make any changes to the way the dogs were kept.  Neighbors have said they feared the dogs because of their aggressive behavior.

2) Hold people accountable for the actions of their dogs.  Charles Smallwood, the owner of the two dogs that killed his roommate, will not face charges for the actions of his dogs.  Investigators say they would have to prove that Smallwood intended to create a dangerous situation.  However, in my opinion, if you create a dangerous situation through pure negilgence, that should also be considered a crime.

3) Make it a policy that all animal control and other emergency response vehicles be fueled up at the end of each shift.  According to this report, the animal control officers had to stop to fill up with gas on their way to the EMERGENCY 9-1-1 call.  There is absolutely no excuse for an emergency response team to have to fill up with gas on route to helping someone who is being severely attacked to the point of dying. 

This horrific attack was completely preventable had animal control done its job in the first place and removed dangerous dogs from the situation.  Once the accident was happening, authorities taking a pit stop on the way is completely inexcusable.  And once the crime is done, pressing no charges is unacceptable.

Let's fix those problems first, and not waste resources on the MSN.