It's been a pretty rough week. We're at 11 dog attack fatalities on the year, and we're only a quarter of the way through it. The high-profile coverage of several of the attacks (and virtually ignoring other attacks) has caused the media to go into an out of control spiral the past couple of weeks. It's been really frustrating. Hopefully this will all die down soon....and with elections coming up this week throughout Missouri and Kansas, may we hopefully find good candidates who will think rationally about these (and all) topics. Onto the week's top stories:
Cities and Laws
Ogden, UT has decided to postpone talks of potential breed specific regulations after listening to animal welfare experts in their community and elsewhere. "We need to address all dogs that bite," said Councilwoman Dorrene Jeske.
The Florence County (SC) council heard from residents this week on the topic of breed specific legislation in their community. The conversation appears to be fueled by one woman who wants a ban on 'pit bulls'. There have been two attacks that have happened in Florence County this year that have sparked the woman's debate -- the most recent attack involved two bulldogs that would not be covered under the woman's ban. An entire group of students spoke out at the city council meeting against the breed specific proposal.
The state of Alabama has proposed a bil that would require all pets to be sterilized -- a policy that when enacted in other places has been a complete failure.
Manteca, CA continues to look at a similar ordinance that would mandate sterilization of all pets at the age of 6 months of age -- including a sentence of up to 6 months in jail for not altering an animal. Laws like this that are so set on punishing owners have consistently led to more dogs getting confiscated and taken to the shelter. Meanwhile, it appears as if the city may have a feral cat problem that is not even being addressed by this ordinance because they're unowned -- and in reality, will cause many more of these cats to be killed because they are now in violation of the law.
Dog bites/attacks
A 7 year old girl in Seaford, DE, was bitten again this week by a neighbor's dog that is the same dog that had previously bitten her.
There is an interesting story here in the Ft. Collins, Co newspaper -- a woman writes in about her daughter being attacked by a dog. What's interesting about this is that recently, this newspaper spent a fair amount of time covering a story about a 'pit bull' that attacked a cat, but didn't cover a story at all about a girl that was attacked by a dog that's description does not match that of a pit bull. Gee, I wonder why they would cover the pit bull story and not the other one?
A six year old Columbus boy was attacked this week by a Rottweiler that was running loose in the community.
A woman in Riverhead, NY and her German Shepherd were recently attacked by a Maremma -- a sheep protection dog native to the Italian Alps.
An Orlando woman was viciously attacked by two 'pit bulls' this week that somehow got free from their chains. I continue to believe that we need to have serious discussions on chaining as a primary form of animal containment.
A Winterhaven (AZ) man was severely mauled by a pack of 11 stray dogs as he walked along one of the many drainage canals in the Phoenix area. The man faced hospitalization and will have one leg amputated due to the mauling.
A four year old Tyler County TX girl was bitten by a neighbor's "mutt" that was running around off-leash. According to a few of the commenters, there are apparently no leash laws in Tyler County.
A three year old Warren, OH girl, was bitten in the face by a 'pit bull' this week . Apparently the girl's father saw the dog running loose, and trapped it on the front porch, hoping animal control officers would come get the dog. However, due to budget constraints, no one from animal control was able to pick the dog up. Somehow the dog ended up getting inside the house (when the toddler opened the door?) and bit the young girl.
A Washington DC woman was attacked this week by a "pit bull" that was chained up and got loose from the chain and attacked the woman who was walking with her two children in a story that was covered in dozens of media outlets.
An off-leash German Shepherd attacked a woman's horse while she was riding it in Auburn, CA.
There were two dog bites in Chillicothe, OH this week -- one involved a dog of unknown breed that broke off its chain and bit a 10 year old girl. The other involved a German Shepherd that bit a 43 year old woman who was on her walk.
A York, ME man is being charged for keeping a dangerous dog after his German Shepherd and his Golden Retriever rushed a 14 year old boy with the shepherd biting the boy.
Three children in Clarksville, TN were bitten at a bus stop by a black Chow.
Three Dachsunds in Brooksville, FL "attacked" a young girl who was walking a 'pit bull'. The girl just had a scratch on her leg and I have no idea why it was on the news, because there was a 'pit bull' involved at all maybe?
I post all these stories not to imply that dogs are dangerous - they're not. The vast majority of the 76 million dogs in the US are not aggressive and most bites are not severe. However, the point is to show that dogs of all breeds do bite, and that the circumstances behind the bites are similar regardless of the breed of dog involved. If we want to help prevent dog bites, we must focus on the causes of bites, and focus on owner responsibility. If we continue to focus on non-causal factors of bites, like breed, we will never help solve the problems out there.
Abuse cases
A pit bull mix dog in Bucoda, WA was found strangled and tied to a tree. This comes a week after a 'pit bull' mix was dragged and dumped at a Goodwill store in nearby Centralia.
Eleven pit bull puppies in Eden, NC are dead, and another animal is clinging to life after being poisoned by a neighbor. One thing that I don't think gets mentioned enough is that because the media has made 'pit bulls' out to be vicious dogs, often times the owners of these dogs become victimized by people who fear them due to media fueled ignorance.
17 'pit bulls' are in an animal shelter in Louisiana after being seized from a suspected dog fighting operation. Seventeen year old Troy Nesky Hubbard is being charged with animal cruelty.
A Denver Sheriff's deputy was charged last week for animal cruelty for macing a rabbit. Who maces a rabbit?
Irresponsible parenting leads to death
It seems that several of the major attacks recently have been the result of a young child being left unsupervised by an adult. It seems that people are more than willing to blame the dog when this happens but ignore the reality that children end up dying of a variety of causes when parents aren't paying attention...and that we need to focus on parents being responsible, vs on dogs.
Last week, a Dallas area woman mixed of pain killers and wine that caused her to black out before she could bring her 7 month old child in from the car. The child died while left in the car overnight.
Meanwhile, a Baltimore woman is being accused of child abuse when she denied food and water to her 16 month old son because he stopped saying amen at meal times.
Miscellanious
This a great story about Ken Foster and his foundation the Sula Foundation. Foster, the author of the great book The Dogs Who Found Me, is now being called the Patron Saint of New Orleans' pit bulls.
Once Heroes, Now Banned. A good article over at Best Friends about the Pentagon's recent decision to ban several breeds of dogs from military bases.
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