Philadelphia Woman Dead from Dog Attack

A 37 year old Philadelphia woman died yesterday morning from a dog attack. The woman, Christine Staab, had a history of drug addiction and according to her step father, whom she lived with, came home early yesterday morning "high" and got into a fight with her mother. During the altercation with the mother, a lamp got knocked over and broken and one of the 6 dogs that lived in the home (all described as 'pit bulls') attacked Christine.

The family says the dog was just trying to protect the mother during the altercation.

Christine died from the attack.

The attack happened in the historic Fishtown neighborhood in Philadelphia.  The neighborhood is one of many in urban areas around the country that they are becoming more desirable among young professionals, still has areas of high poverty. The zip code where this attack took place has 30% of the population living below the poverty line (nearly 3x the state average) and 12% of the populatin living with income 50% below the poverty line...highlighting our need, again, the need to provide owner education in low-income, lower-educated neighborhoods.

The story has been picked up by 13 media outlets thus far.

Comments

[MDog]

It's hard to tell from watching the video, but it looks like these people loved and probably took decent care of their dogs. At least the dogs lived inside, which is more than you can say about most dogs in lower-income neighborhoods, like where I live.

It's a sad case all around - for the victim, the family and the dogs. But I'd say drugs played a huge part in this woman's death. There are many outcomes possible from getting high, going crazy and attacking someone - and most of them are not good.

[Brent]

Agreed MDog -- on all fronts.

[Doug]

Could you slant this story any more?

What does the Zip code of the area have to to with anything....seeing how you have shot down this argument of mine many times.

[Brent]

Doug, there's no slant in the story - - it is the story as the family says it happened.

As for the zip code piece, it probably doesn't apply as much here because by all accounts, the dogs appeared to be fairly well cared for -- but I've been posting this information in a lot of these stories because it is becoming very clear that a lot of these incidents are happening in low-income neighborhoods.

While you use this information as a reason to try to ban particular types of dogs from certain people, I would say there is reason to believe that we need to be doing more to educate people on how to properly keep and maintain dogs -- particularly in low income (which is usually driven by lower education) neighborhoods.