Fatal Dog attack in Louisville

About a year after Louisville went through and passed some crazy legislation that included all kinds of stupid, non-productive legislation like mandatory spay/neuter, a six week old child was attacked and killed by a dog yesterday.

The attacker, a Jack Russell Terrier. 

Apparently the dog was left alone with the child and at some point, attacked it.  Interestingly, the family also owned a "pit bull" that was not involved in the attack.

So let me make a note of a couple of tidbits in how the media reported this.

1) First, of the six media reports on this attack, not a single one of them has put the breed of dog involved in the attack in the headline.

2) Every one of the stories mentions that there was a 'pit bull' that lived in the house that wasn't involved in the attack

3) One, even claims the pit bull was dangerous based on signs in the yard, saying "From the looks of it, the pitbull was dangerous. Signs warn neighbors of what could happen, but it happened to the Mozer's own baby boy, and the culprit was the Jack Russell Terrier." 

4) One calls it a "rare attack by a small breed" based on Merritt Cliffton's useless "statitistics".  Bites by Jack Russells may or may not be all that rare, but the MEDIA ACTUALLY REPORTING ON THEM is quite rare -- THAT'S what Cliffton's numbers show.

The bottom line is that you can't legislate responsible dog ownership. Oh, you can hold people accountable for the actions of their dog (and you should), but you cannot legislate away ignorance (and trust me, if it were possible, I'd be all for it).  People will be ignorant and irresponsible...the only way to combat this is with education...not legislation.

Comments

[Caveat]

Gee, somebody has to comment on this one, may as well be me.

I intend to write to the paper, point out that Clifton's 'statistics' are largely inaccurate, incomplete and unverified - in other words they are ignored by people serious about studying dog bite issues.

As for the 'rare attack' what utter nonsense. There have been lots of JRT bites and even the JRTC club points out that as a working breed, the JRT isn't for everyone. Here in Ontario awhile ago a JRT tore a kid's face, quite a serious incident.

That wasn't surprising, the fact that it was reported was the shocker - guess no 'pit bulls' or 'rottweilers' had done anything noteworthy that day.

People need to understand that it isn't the size or shape -it's the temperament and handling that cause problems.

The thing about tiny infants is that it doesn't take much to cause serious trauma - my Dachshund could work a baby over pretty badly if he were so inclined, especially around the head and neck.

There, somebody commented on this noteworthy item!

[MAC`s GANG]

[quote]People will be ignorant and irresponsible...the only way to combat this is with education...not legislation.[/quote]

Here`s my comment.
How many more times does this need to be repeated?

[MAC`s GANG]

[quote]People will be ignorant and irresponsible...the only way to combat this is with education...not legislation.[/quote]

Here`s my comment.
How many more times does this need to be repeated?

[Caveat]

That's probably enough, Mac! :>)

[Brent]

Jim Crosby posted all of the 2007 US Fatality stats on his blog today. The majority of all fatalities continue to be children...particularly very young children. The reality is that due to their size and inability to read dog behavior they are very vulnerable to dog attacks. And size/stature of the dog doesn't really matter - -as they are vulnerable to dog attacks of both big and small dogs. THAT's what these news stories should be saying. THAT"S what would make people safer. Instead, the media just misses opportunities to educate people on what really happens in a dog attack and these types of things keep occurring. We MUST, MUST, MUST start focusing on the real issues.