Weekly Roundup - week ending 2/1/09

  It's been a pretty crazy week personally for me -- but not a ton of huge news on the dog front this week, so it worked out pretty well.  Thankfully, we got through the week without any major fatality-type stories.Sorry for the light posting. Here' are the top stories from the week that was.

Dog Bites and Attacks

An 8 year-old Jackson, TN boy was attacked by two 'pit bulls' that were running at large.

A Sundriver, OR woman was bitten when she was trying to protect her dog  from three other attacking dogs. The dogs are described as "100 pound pit-bull mixes" -- even though most 'pit bulls' don't get over 60 lb.

A Sheboygan, WI woman was bitten by what is described as a young black lab or black lab mix.

What would the weekly roundup be without at least one attack story from out of the UK, where their breed ban continues to be completely ineffective at dealing with aggressive dogs?  That story involved a Mastiff, however, this one involves a Japanese Akita.   Until the country does something about irresponsible dog ownership, instead of focusing on dog breeds, dogs will continue to be a problem there.

An Indianapolis woman was injured this week when two 'pit bulls' that got out of their fence attacked her. The owner of the dogs announced that he will plead no contest to the charges following the attack.

A 40 year old Sonora, CA woman was bitten by a Lab/Rottweiler mix that came up to her and tried to attack her dog.

Cities and Laws

Wilmington, DE is looking at passing some new dangerous dog legislation with the possibility of it being breed specific following a couple of different attacks in the county over the past year -- all by off-leash animals. His awell-thought-out editorial from NBC in Philadelphia on the matter.

Wichita, KS has once again brought up the idea of a pit bull ban. The city seems to bring it up about every year for discussion. It does not appear that they have the support for an all out ban, but they may have the support on certain bred specific restrictions like limiting the number of 'pit bulls' a person can own and mandatory microchipping. 

Fort Worth Animal control was going door-to-door this week checking for dog violations -- following a fatal attack that happened two weeks ago that happened in the city. In just four days, the department handed out 800 violations.  Ft Worth has had a lot of animal control problems. Last year, the city of 687,000 picked up over 13,000 stray dogs in the community. The city is also doing a full on codes crackdown on the city with the intent to make the neighborhoods safer.

Abbeville, LA has now mentioned that they want to ban pit bulls. They are concerned because one owner, who definitely sounds like a piece of work, has 15 pit bulls, chained, kenneled, chained in kennels, chained in sheds, etc, and residents are concerned about the dogs. From what they describe, I don't doubt that these dogs are potential threats.  However, instead of talking about a breed ban, they should be talking about laws with criteria on how dogs should be properly contained and cared for. It looks as if they are not going to focus on breeds but do hope they look at responsible containment laws.

Greene County, NC has seen a lot of vocal opposition to an ordinance that they are discussing that would mandate the spay/neuter of all dogs.

Logan, IA passed the first reading of an ordinance that would ban pit bulls from their community.

Crote St. Luc (Quebec) is also looking at a potential ordinance that would place restrictions on "pit bulls".

From Bless the Bullies, Campbell, KY has passed a ban on 'pit bulls', Rottweilers, Doberman Pinschers, Chows, Wolf Hybrids and any mix of the banned breeds.

Albany (OR) is looking at an ordinance that would restrict homes to owning no more than two dogs per household. I have no idea cities don't just use nuessance laws (noise, smell, etc) to deal with people who have more dogs than they can properly maintain. If the dogs are not a problem, then why do they care?

Bless the Bullies continues to keep updated contact information for many of the cities that are considering breed specific ordinances.

Abuse Cases

Here in Kansas City, a 'pit bull' was found with its ears having been entire cut off with scissors. One representative of Missouri Pit Bull Rescue said it was one of the worst cases she's ever seen.

An American Bulldog-pit bull mix was found severly burned  along the side of the road in East Providence, RI. In spite of the horrible burns, the dog is described as hving a "great disposition and wagged his tail a lot."

A Johnson County KS man entered into a diversion agreement following charges of 172 mmidemeanors for running a cockfighting operation. All charges will be dismissed if he keeps his nose clean for a year. If we want this type of abuse to stop, we MUST send the message that we feel it is important by punishing those that partake in the activity.  Diversion is not doing that.

A Tulsa man received a five-year prison term monday for video-taping a woman performing sex acts with three dogs.  The woman received no prison time for her role.

A Lamont, IA man is dealing with his dog's recovery after his dog, some type of bulldog-type breed, was brutally attacked with a hatchet. The dog has several very deep wounds, a fractured skull and eye socket, and may lose his left eye. The person responsible for the attack cannot be charged because according to Iowa code, it is "the right and duty" of a person to kill an untagged dog or any dog not wearing a collar with rabies vaccintions tags attached.  Um, can we get THAT law changed please?

The Lawrence (KS) Humane Society is working with dozens of dogs after the Kansas Animal Health Department seized the dogs from two breeders.  The dogs look like they had been in pretty bad shape.  We must continue to crack down on breeding operations that don't treat animals humanely (which is not all of them).

A Pinellas County sheriff's deputy knocked on a woman's door this week and her dog started barking at the officer.  Within moments, the officer pulled his gun and shot the Chow/pit bull mix in the head - killing it. Although the officer said he feared that he would be attacked, the dog's owner and an eye witness said the dog never acted aggressively toward the officer.

Trials

A South Carolina man, Bentley Collins, was found guilty this week of one count of involuntary manslaughter and three counts of not confining dangerous animals. The man will serve 5 years in jail for allowing several of his dogs, described as American Bulldog mixes, were roaming free and attacked and killed 10 year old Matthew Davis in November 2006.

Miscellanious

Here's a good story about a 'pit bull', Elliott Ness, is serving as a canine cop in Chicago.  Elliott's handler has noted that 'pit bulls' are often difficult to train for canine cop work. "The main problem we're finding with pit bulls is that they're too darn nice. All they want to do is just sit at your feet or crawl in your lap. They're very nice dogs," said Deborah Thedos, Cook County K9 Unit.

The Humane League of Lancaster County (PA) is reducing adoption fees by 50% this month in order to cope with the high volume of odgs in their shelter.

A good article from out of Philadelphia on the problems that come with banning certain breeds of dogs. Unfortunately some may just read the headline and not the article.

Here's an article from out of Nashville about the popularity of chihuahuas and their influx into the shelters there.  The article states chihuahuas may be replacing pit bulls as the most popular breeds of dogs in shelters in many parts of the country.

A good story out of Pittsburgh (go Steelers!) noting that dogs really are man's best friend, and that most dog bites are completely avoidable.

Here'sa pretty solid article written to help people pick out a dog at the shelter and what to look for.

Here's a story from Pampa (TX) that tries to stir up concern about dangerous dogs and specifically pit bulls. The head of Pampa Animal Control, Samantha White, says that about 90% of the calls she responds to aren't pit bulls at all.  The general public is notoriously bad at breed identification when it comes to 'pit bulls' which is why most any breed ID taken strictly from newspaper reports is not going tobe accurate.

Have a great week -- and enjoy the big game today.

Comments

[Adam]

Regarding the very first story:

http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200901280520/NEWS01/901280308

Interesting looking pit bull???

[Brent]

Um, yeah. As I noted above, the public isn't very good at Breed Idenification. This would be an excellent "exhibit a".

[Selma]

ROFL! That must be one o' them thar' new double-coated winterized 'pit bulls'.

[Lindsay]

It makes me so mad when I hear about cops shooting dogs at someone's door just because the dog barks or sometimes just because the dog is there. I've heard too many stories about innocent dogs being killed. They aren't even given a chance.

[MichelleD]

You left out the best part of the cock fighters story. He agreed to pay $45,000 to the Johnson County sheriff’s department for the cost of the investigation. HE BOUGHT HIS WAY OUT OF TROUBLE!!! He basicalled paid off the cops - WHAT country do we live in again?

[Doug]

I liked the Fort Worth story, 8oo violations in 4 days. That sounds like a minimum of $40,000 being generated for the city, with all the fines.

If they can keep that pace up through every neighborhood which has pit bulls (kidding) they will not only make the hood safer but they will also justify their jobs with a little ROI on the back end.

[Brent]

Seems more to me like they haven't been even close to doing their jobs over the past couple of years and are making up for lost time.

[Doug]

Agreed......Have you ever seen city employees work?

I was a city employee for one day. The day started with a coffee break, and we had coffe breaks ever 20 minutes.

My dad worked for the City, (I mean the only one who worked), you would not believe the mismanagement involved on the public pay roll.

How hard is if for the dog catcher to say I am going out looking for stray dogs and be gone for 7 hours.

Which is why more dog catchers are not going to solve the problem. You need better laws with more bite, to force people to want to follow the law.

Its obvious that someone lit a fire under someone's ass and that's why they are all of a sudden doing their job.