KC DOG BLOG

Academic Study on dog bites in the Netherlands (and partially why they repealed their breed ban)

A couple of weeks ago, Karen Delise over at the National Canine Research Council pointed out a study that was released by The Veterinary Journal that studied dog bites in the Netherlands. The study was commissioned by the Dutch government -- and as a result of the study, the Dutch government repealed its 15 year old ban on 'pit bulls' in 2008.

You can read the abstract here. I was able to get a copy of the study and I want to share a few of the findings of the study because I think they are extemely important, and frankly this may be the most in-depth reporting on the causes of dog bites I've seen.  I will also note that the study was commissioned by the government, so I'm not inclined to believe there was bias toward trying to achieve particular results.

In total, 1078 dog bite incidents (selected via random sampling) were studied. Of the bit victims, 79% were adults, 21% children under the age of 16.

* 51% of dog bite victims were dog owners even though only about 20% of the people in the Netherlands own dogs -- indicating that dog owners are more likely to be in a position around dogs than those who don't own dogs.

* 28% of the victims were the dog's owner (72% were not but more than 1/2 of these knew the dog's owner) 

*38% of the cases were in a public area (with 52% on the dog's own territory).  Children (75%) were more likely to be bitten in non-public areas than adults (59%)

* 60% of victims cited having intentional interactions with the dog

* 80% of the bites involve either no, or only minor, injuries. Medical attention was more often needed when the bite victim was the non owner than when the bite victim was the owner.

Because the majority of the dog bite incidents were on private property (including 3/4 of the ones involving chidren) the researchers made the following recommendation:

"Mitigation strategies addressing children shoudl focus on teaching the young how to behave around dogs so that their behaviour dos not trigger a dog bite. Since the majority of the child victims bitten at home were unsupervised at te time of the incident, strategies should also include the parents. It should be emphasized that leaving a child unattended with a dog poses a serious risk for the child. Dog bites to children cannot be prevented by measures at the public security level, but should target children and their parents directly."

Regarding adults being bitten by their own dogs:

"To reduce bite incidents involving dog owners and their own dogs it will be necessary to focus on interactions with the dog and understanding 'dog language'.

This then left the group of people, mostly adults, that were attack on public property, more often by dogs they didn't know, and more often requiring medical treatment. The report discusses the need for owner education, and then addressed the breed issue:

"Our findings, liek those from other groups, do not support the use of an attack record in developing mitigation strategies. We found tha all dogs can bite and therefore one should always be careful when interacting with a dog, even a family dog and during play. if we were to use base mitigation strategies on attack records, this would not lead to the establisment of feasible actions to take. Removing the most common biters would also imply removing the most common breeds; for example, we found that the Jack Russell terrer was responsible for approximately 10% fo the bites and 8/10 of the most popular breeds were the most common biters (including the highly polymorphic group of mixed breed/mongrel). Eliminating these breeds is neither practicable nor desirable."

One academic study after another concludes the same thing. In order to affect dog bites, we must focus on education of parents and their children, and dog owners and dog behavior. It's the only way. Focusing on anything else is merely a distraction and leads to the lack of knowledge that causes the problems in the first place.

City/state and international leaders are beginning to take notice of what the experts in the animal welfare community have been saying.  Bravo.

All stats and quotes from Cornelissen, J.M.R., Hopster, H. Dog Bites in The Netherlands: A study of victims, injuries, circumstances and aggressors to support evaluatio of breed specific legislatoin. The Veterinary Journal (2009), doi: 10.1016/j.tvjl.2009.10.001

Petco, Iams, Hoover, Petfinder, and Sergeant's team up to promote adoptions

In this week's Time magazine, Petco, Iams, Hoover, Petfinder and Sergeants team ed up with an 8 page insert titled "A Pet Parent's Guide to Adoption."  The section in addition to advertising promoting the companies, featured a lot of good, practical advice for people who are considering adoptions.

It's a good piece -- that will be distributed to over 3.3 million Time subscribers.

Bravo to these companies for spending to help promote responsible adoptions. Good organizations making the effort to bring adoption to the forfront will continue to make adopting more desireable and more common -- which is a good thing. Bravo.

Hat Tip to KC Dog Advocates via Facebook.

Weekly Roundup - Abbreviated for Week of 8/29/10

I'm not going to have time to get to a complete Weekly Roundup this week. I'll get most of the stories up in next week's roundup, but there are a couple of stories I think are really important from this week that I want to make some comments on. 

CA SB 250 Fails

Last week, SB 250 -- a bill that would mandate the spay/neuter of all dogs and cats in the state of California - thankfully failed in the Senate.  This is great news given that the law is not based on what is good for animals when the state's largest city has tried the law and has failed miserably with it. The final vote was way closer than it should be -- 34 for, 40 against, 4 not voting. If you live in California, contact your Senator. If they voted against the bill, thank them for making a wise decision. If they voted for the bill, contact them and tell them to look at the failure of the law elsewhere and pursuade them to not repeat the mistakes of others.

The law could be resurrected at any time, so please keep and eye on this and work to educate your senator so they realize that even the majority of animal welfare groups oppose this law -- because it doesn't work.

More on the laws in a great blog post from the Pet Connection.

More on the Jerry Lee Southern Conviction

I posted the news about Southern's plea deal on Wednesday, but Donna has a follow  up that is better, and more detailed than mine (which makes sense, she was there after all).  It turns out that the DA accepted Southern's plea deal to a sentence of 90 days because the judge that was hearing the case has a track record of not giving harsh sentences -- and in fact, deferring sentences a lot -- and the DA thought it was worth getting SOME jail time vs no time at all (which sounds like a real possible option).

We must continue to push judges into realizing that harsh sentences are deserved for  severe cruelty cases like this so that abusers like Southern, who was a repeat offender with no remorse, should not be allowed to get free passes for their actions.

Sioux City BSL Continues to fail

Back in 2008, Sioux City, IA passed a ban on 'pit bull' type dogs. The ban has been nothing but headaches for them  since it's passing, including multiple lawsuits, and other problems.

Turns out dog bites are up too.

Last week, a 19 month old boy suffered severe puncture wounds, collapsed lungs, a bruised kidney, a bleeding spleen and stomach and pancreas damage after being attacked by a Husky-type dog that was chained up in the neighbor's yard.   This of course follows a year in which the city focused on breeds of dogs being responsible for attacks, not aggressive dogs regardless of breed, chaining dogs, and unsupervised toddlers wandering up to those dogs.  This story was actually on the front page of the Sioux City Journal on Thursday morning.

Bites are up in Sioux City this year.  The city is already at the same number of dog bites as they recorded in all of last year.  Here are the dog bites over the past several years:

2006 - 88

2007  - 115

2008 - 94

2009 - 81

2010 - 81 (pace 122)

So outside of a very crazy 2007 -- the city averaged 88 dog bites per year- and was on a downward trend. The 2009 numbers (about 2/3 of which had the BSL ordinance) numbers were pretty good -- but 2010 is shaping up to be a complete disaster in terms of dog bites -- in large part because of the ordinance. And as you can see, the severity of the injuries has not decreased.

When cities focus on the wrong things -- like breeds -- instead of the right things like promoting responsible dog ownership, bad things happen. Sioux City is continuing to show their failures with their breed ban - -even though they are stubbornly holding onto the ordinance. 

Denver re-evaluating their breed ban

Last month, the Department of Justice released an official statement about the Americans with Disabilities Act and how all service dogs are protected under the ADA - -and that cities with bans on particular breeds do not trump the ADA. Service dogs are to be welcomed under the ADA regardless of breed (and regardless of what the city thinks of that breed).

So, now  the city of Denver is re-evaluating their breed ban. Well, they have to. At the very least they're going to have to adjust the law to allow for service dogs in the city -- particularly since Denver is currently facing three lawsuits for harrassing people protected under the ADA with 'pit bull' type service dogs under the city's breed ban.

The city is looking for a quick end to the situation given in order to squash the lawsuits and stop the mounting legal fees in a time when the city is facing a major budget deficit.

The city will likely get rid of the breed bans for service dogs (they have to) -- but it is already causing some to ask the question  that if the Department of Justice suggests that breed bans for service dogs are overly broad, why not for all dogs?

At this point, I highly doubt that Denver will really consider a full-on repeal. There doesn't appear to be much support for a full-on repeal at city hall or in the city attorney's office (where the assistant city attorney build his career on the ban and refuses to acknowledge the ban's failure in spite of the numbers and in spite of the reality that the law is causing the city a huge amount of wasted funds).  But I think eventually the ridiculousness of banning dogs that are capable of being service dogs, the huge difficulty of enforcing the ban with the ADA guidelines now impacting Denver, and, well, the fact that the whole law is ignorant an ineffective, will lead to the law being repealed. But it may take some more time. Or not. But the law is crumbling....

An Anniversary - and looking forward by looking back

Four years ago today I typed my first post into this blog.  At the time, I never could have forcasted that I'd still be writing here four years later, or the changes that the animal welfare world would have seen that I've had the privilage to witness and write about.

And I want to thank everyone who has chosen to spend a few minutes of their time every day to read, and to those who have commented. 

I think it's only fitting that on the fourth birthday of my blog, that I reflect a little on where it's been -- because in so many ways it demonstrates where the animal welfare world is going.

And things have changed a lot since when I started writing this blog 4 years ago, and at the risk of sounding like my grandfather talking about 'the good old days'....

Four years ago, there weren't many people out there blogging about legislative issues when it comes to our pets. There were a few, many of whom have long since discontinued their writing. But there weren't many of us.

In the time since, many bloggers have come and gone, but at no point have I seen more people posting more great content than there is right now. Now, my personal RSS feed is filled with great content from aroudn the globe with just fabulous points of view and insights. And that's pretty cool.

Now it is not uncommon for my blog postings to get reposted on facebook, or twitter -- attracting new people to the blog that would otherwise not know about it. That wasn't always the case. In December of 2006, 5 months after I started this blog, Facebook celebrated it's 12 millionth profile being created. That sounds like a lot, until you compare it to the more than 400 million profiles that exist on it today.  Twitter officially launched to the public one month prior to me starting the blog -- and almost no one outside of the founders and a few of their friends were using it yet.

A big traffic day on the blog would be when my blog got started was when it got re-posted on a chatroom -- drawing me 30-40 eyeballs. Now, a repost on the No Kill Nation (which has over 150,000 followers) or other facebook page will literally draw several hundred eyeballs almost instatnly.

It has been pretty crazy to watch how quickly information is passed around on Facebook and Twitter. Information spreads so much faster now than it used to.  And that's a good thing. 

Only a few short years ago it seemed like we were all alone, on an island. Now, we all realize that our problems are all the same, and that there are people all over the country are facing the same struggles as we are -- and achieving great things. Knowing it's possible to achieve success is half the battle.

Four years ago I was yet to hear about the No Kill Movement. Redemption was still a year from being published. Now, an entire movement has surrounded the book -- of people who are eagerly pushing for a better way of working with our companion animals - and finding them homes instead of killing them in the shelters that were originally created to help them.

Four years ago, Michael Vick was just a football player. No one knew he even owned dogs -- now many of his former dogs have graced the pages of popular magazines, including being on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Parade Magazine, and inspired the writing of a book about them.  It seems so long ago now that it was assumed, even among animal welfare people, that dogs from fight busts had to be systematically killed and could not be rehabilitated. But we'd never tried. And the stories of these dogs going from a horrific environment to being in loving homes has told a completely different story about the ability of dogs to adjust to their new environments.

Yeah, a lot has changed in the past four years. We have a movement based on the idea of saving the lives of healthy and treatable animals. We have shown compassion for the victims of horrible animal cruelty situations and dog fighting situations and decided they should each be given the opportunity to live. Animal lovers everywhere have lended their voices to blog postings -- relaying their stories and their experiences. And more people are learning about these stories, these successes and failures, more quicky than ever via social media outlets that barely existed a short time ago.

It's funny to think back to a time when it felt like we were all on individual islands -- almost alone in our fight to make things better. Because now there are literally hundreds of thousands of people involved in the movement to change the status quo and make things better. They're using their voices to educate others on the internet. Success stories are spreading rapidly. And most importantly, it's a movement based on compassion for the animals.

And that's pretty cool.

And as we look to the future, with the fast ability of information -- of true and accurate information, I expect a movement that didn't exist a short time ago, to gain even more momentum and grow in a way that would have been impossible 4 years ago. And I expect all dogs and cats to get a fighting chance.

And THAT's worth celebrating.

Updates: Two dog attack fatalities in one day in separate incidents

For as rare as dog bite fatalities are, this has been a particularly horrible week.

Today, two children were attacked and killed by dogs -- each in its own way completely preventable and each tragic.

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Update: The girl has been identified as Taylor Becker. The dog has been identified as a 5 year old, AKC registered Boxer. The girl apparently received help pretty quickly after the attack but due to the severity of the injuries died fairly quickly from blood loss.  The story has now been picked up by 79 news outlets.

In Iron Ridge, Wisconsin, a 4 year old girl was attacked and killed by a dog that is being described as a Boxer. The girl and her family went to visit some friends and the girl went outside into the yard unattended and up to the dog who was chained in the back yard. It is unclear if the girl and the dog were familiar with each other - but it is very clear that both the girl's parents, and the dog's owner were inside at the time of the attack and the girl and the dog were unsupervised together.

Authorities found the dog running free when they arrived, but authorities think the dog got free after the attack.

Neighbors have noted that they were fearful of the dog and that the dog had show signs of aggression before.

Many of the warning signs were there that could have prevented this attack -- a dog with a history of aggression, chained to a pole in the back yard and an unsupervised four year old girl left alone with that dog.

My heart goes out to the family.

This story has been picked up by 25 news outlets to this point -- and I'll update any new information that is released on the story.

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In the other attack,7 year old Jason Walker was attacked and killed early this morning by up to four free-roaming dogs. The dogs, currently being described as 3 'pit bulls' and a "mixed breed" were running at large in a rural area in central Illinois near the community of Varna. There is no leash law in the area. 

No one witnessed the attack, so it is unclear how many dogs, and which dogs participated in the attack. One of the dogs is reported to have been aggressive on previous occassions.

Dogs with a history of aggression, allowed to run as a pack at large with no supervision (legally) is a pretty bad recipe -- especially when children may be around.

The story has been picked up by 39 news sources at this time.

My heart also goes out to the Walker family as they deal with this tragedy.

It is my hope that through incidents like this people will learn the underlying causes of dog attacks. In each of these cases, the warning signs were there with previous signs of aggression. In one case, the dogs were still let to roam at-large as a pack, and in the other, the dog was left chained to a post and an unsupervised young girl was allowed to just walk up to the dog.

Both were incidents were preventable with owners taking the care to work with their dogs that have known aggression issues and with the owners properly containing their dogs.

Jerry Lee Southern gets 90 days in jail

Yesterday, in a Kay County, OK courtroom, Jerry Lee Southern plead guilty to 5 counts of cruelty to animals.

In December, 2008, more than 100 dogs were found on his property, chained up in an open field with only water bowls and a barrel for shelter (pics are available here). Several were found dead on the property. Southern told officials he was giving the dogs "a handful" of food a day.

Southern was originally charged with 70 counts of animal cruelty (after being arrested on 96 counts) - but plead guilty to only 5. For his plea, Southern was sentenced to 90 days in jail, and has to now pay $10,000 to three rescue organizations that took in many of the dogs from his hoarding operation. 

What makes the light sentencing even worse is that Southern isn't a first-time offender. Five years ago the state of Kansas forbid him from ever owning dogs in the state again as part of his conviction for a similar incident.

While it is very common for many of the national animal welfare organizations to push for more state laws regarding animal cruelty, I don't think more laws are the answer. Under Oklahoma state law, Southern could have received up to 5 years in prison FOR EACH ANIMAL -- but instead, after awaiting a sentencing for 20 months following his arrest, he receive only 3 months total. Laws aren't the problem....but getting judges to prosecute cruelty cases -- particularly for repeat offenders -- is essential if we are to make a dent in animal cruelty and the many problems that come with it.

The good news is that many of the dogs were fortunate enough to be rescued and are living happily in homes. Our (former) foster dog Boomer (pictured) continues to do great with his forever family, and many others are doing great as well.

For more back story on Boomer and the other Kay County Dogs:

Slideshow of the Kay County Dogs - Bad Rap

The Anatomy of a rescue - Bad Rap

Dogs Rescued from Newkirk, OK - KC Dog Blog

Nameless! - KC Dog Blog

Let me officially introduce Boomer - KC Dog Blog

Boomer Update - KC Dog Blog

Boomer's Former Owner Goes to Court - KC Dog Blog

Boom-Dog finds forever home - KC Dog Blog

 

For more -- check out the commentary over at Bad Rap.

Apparent fatal dog attack in California

Calavaras County, CA officials are reporting that 69 year old Jerry Yates was killed in what is presumed to be a dog attack.

Yates, was out on his farm Sunday afternoon near the community of Mountain Ranch, and didn't come back to the house when his family expected him to. So Yates' son went out looking for him and found him dead on the property -- with injuries consistent with a dog attack.

The dogs supsected in the attack are two dogs that are said to be 'pit bull' type dogs that belonged to a woman, Sheryl Sellers, who had recently moved into a trailer on Yates' property. The dogs were found running loose on the property after the attack -- and the dogs had reportedly had previous aggressive incidents.  The dogs were apparently behind a fence that authorities note that a 'reasonable person would not expect that type of enclosure to contain those two dogs."

There are a lot of lacking details in the story at this point, and I will update this post if any more data becomes available. This appears to be yet another tragic incident that was highly preventable with even the most basic of training and containment with the dogs.  Meanwhile, my heart goes out to the Yates family -- all accounts are that Mr. Yates was an incredibly nice man who deserved better than this.

SB 250 Reactivated, and why the California state legislature could learn a lot from Los Angeles

Last week, the California State Legislature revived SB 250 - a bill that would require all pets in the state to be spayed or neutered.

The bill was killed last year by the legislature, and a year later doesn't make it any better of an idea.

Mandatory spay/neuter (MSN) is just an awful idea. While proponents of the law seem to want to say that only breeders are against MSN, the reality is that most mainstream animal welfare organizations oppose it too, including the AVMA, the ASPCA, Best Friends, American Humane Association, and the No Kill Advocacy Center.

MSN is bad on three fronts:

1) It creates blanket policies that doesn't take into the account the best health interests of the individual animal.

2) It often targets feral cat colonies and colony caretakers.

3) It targets low-income households. It has long been known that one of the primary reasons people don't spay/neuter their pet is because of the cost of doing so. This is why low cost spay/neuter options have been very successful in helping minimize the number of unwanted litters and thus, minimizing shetler killing.

And if the state of California needs further evidence of the failures of the legislation, it needs to look no further that its largest city, Los Angeles, which passed MSN 3 years ago and continues to fail.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Daily News ran an article noting that many veterinary clinics have started refusing to honor the city's low-cost vouchers. While the city continues to hand out vouchers so people can comply with the law, but the city has a backlog of paying vets back for the vouchers -- to the tune of $130,000 in backlogged payments -- with some vets having not been paid in over six months.

While the city acknowledges that low-income people are the ones that are having the toughest time complying with the ordinance, they continue to enforce the law. And after making tremendous strides over the past decade in reducing shelter kill rates, the city has seen increases in shelter killing two years in a row following the passing of the MSN law.

This isn't the first time Los Angeles has had a problem with their voucher system.  In March, 2009, the city temporarily discontinued their voucher system because it was not affordable at a time when the city was facing a $500 million budget deficite. The decision to discontinue the voucher system led to public outrage and the program being re-activated.

The new article in the Daily News alludes to many of the problems still remaining in Los Angeles, even after an audit of the department pointed out some much needed improvements. Those improvements have still not been made.  At the time of the audit,Christie keyed in on a couple of the audit's recommendations:

"They went on to suggest programs to improve community relations, provide spay/neuter and animal care information in the languages used in the area the shelter serves, to make alliances with veterinarians instead of alienating them — pretty much every single program and policy that opponents of mandatory spay/neuter have always suggested instead of a law. The very programs and policies espoused by the no-kill movement. The exact approaches that have worked in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of communities across this country, instead of and without mandatory spay/neuter laws.

The irony is, of course, that all those programs and policies will not only work without laws forcing sterilization of owned pets, but will work better that way."

But instead, Los Angeles continues to alienate the veterinary community -- the very people whose help they need the most - by not reimbursing them for their voucher program.

The MSN law in Los Angeles has been financial disaster for the city. It has led to the increase in shelter killing, and continues to alienate the people who are most in a position to help the city succeed in reaching its goal of ending shelter killing.

And based on this, the state seems to want to force this very same law on every other city in the state? 

And here is the State Department of Finance's reaction to the bill (and yes, they think it's a financial disaster in waiting also).

SB 250 remains a bad idea. It's bad for pet owners and it's bad for pets. And the state has to look no further than its largest city to see that demonstrated in every sense.

Weekly Roundup - Week Ending 8/22/10

A lot to discuss this week, so let's dive right in:

Cities/States and Laws

The mayor in Lynn, MA has delayed the final vote on an ordinance that would require owners of 'pit bulls' to fill out a lengthy registration form and muzzle their dogs. The mayor wants to finish legal research to be sure the law is legal before she decides to sign or veto it.  Laws like this in other areas have been deterimined to be unconstitutionally vague and hopefully her staff will point this out to her.

Colerain Township (OH) is looking at updating their dangerous dog law and may make it breed specific. If you live in or around the area, please make them aware of better, more effective options.

Oktibbeha County, MS is looking into changes to their dangerous dog laws. There is no mention of it being breed specific, but if you are in the area, you can sure help them get to a good place with their law. 

Barstow, CA is considering a mandatory spay/neuter law after a consultant recommended it as a way to update its dangerous dog law. MSN has never proven to reduce dog bites and only leads to increased shelter killing.  Hopefull the city of Barstow will look at the actual results of such a law (and hopefully the 'consultant" will too).

The Carver County (MN) council has passed a breed-neutral dangerous dog ordinance that defines a dangerous dog based on its behavior. Similar ordinances in Minneapolis and St. Paul have been very effective there.

Ridgeville, IN tabled an ordinance after hearing concerns about targeting specific breeds. One spokesperson noted that the ordinance was ambiguous and hindered due process.

Prattville, MS has passed a new dangerous dog law that focuses on the behavior of the dog, not the breed. In fact, it specifically calls out that targeting breeds will be illegal.

Dog Bites/Attacks

A Houston-area woman was attacked by up to three dogs that were running at large in the city.  The woman is believed to be homeless.

A five year old Quarryville, PA boy was bitten in the face by a 'pit bull' type dog -- the dog bit another person backin June.

An 8 year old UK girl required 175 stiches after being attacked by an Akita that was with its owners. The girl had asked if the dog was ok to pet, and the owners said yes. The owners had only had the dog a couple of days and apparently didn't recognize any visual cues from the dog. 

Also in the UK, a postman was attacked by a Rottweiler that was able to open the door to the house and get out and bite him. The UK has a ban on four different breeds of dogs - but attacks continue to go up in the country because they are focusing on dog breeds, not responsible ownership.

A Topeka, KS area woman was bitten by a 'German Shepherd-mix' while she was out on her nightly walks. There is apparently no leash law in Shawnee County, so there was apparently no reason the dog couldn't be roaming at large. 

A four year old Indianola, IA boy needed medical attention after being bitten in the face by a bulldog.

Another four year old boy, this one in Omaha, was taken to the hospital after being bitten in the face by a Bullmastiff. The boy went into his friend's home even though he was told not to and was bitten. Omaha has a breed specific ordinance that targets 7 breeds of dogs but it continues to be ineffective at even slowing down the number of these incidents.

In Cincinnati, a dog broke out of its yard and bit several children who were out playing. The dog is being called a "Chow-mix". Cincinnati also has a ban on 'pit bulls' but it has had no impact on dog bites.

Positive Press

A Tampa area rescue group is giving 'pit bulls' a second chance at finding homes in Central Florida.  The article talks to real experts (you know, Vets, behaviorists) to dispell myths perpetuated by people who aren't.

In Port Charlotte, FL,a pit bull saved a woman and a small child who from an attacker. The dog had never met the woman and child, but staved off an attack. The attacker was holding them up at knife point but the dog came at the man growling. When the attacker ran off, the mother and child jumped in the car an waited for police to arrive -- and the dog jumped in the car with them and waited with them for police.

Miscellaneous

Debunking the "Dangerous Breed" Myth - a veterinarian weighs in the myth that some breeds are more dangerous than others (it's about responsible ownership).

Controlling dog bites needn't be difficult - I'm not sure who's writing the editorials for the Foster's Daily Democrat but they've been spot on on their coverage of dog bite issues. This article tackles the failure of the breed ban in the UK and offers to simple options for helping curb the problem in the US.

In a heartbreaking story, a woman in Bremerton, WA suffered a heart attack and died on the sidewalk while she was out walking her 'pit bull'. The dog was reportedly protecting his owner when rescue people arrived because he knew she was vulnerable. Dogs are so impressively loyal....

Better off dead? - The Isthmus Daily Page (WI) tackles the topic of No Kill and whether or not animals really are better off dead (they're usually not).

One Denver city council member says that 80% of her constituents still favor the city's pit bull ban.  I'm sure the councilwoman hasn't revised the wording of her questionaire (it's quesiton 4) -- which is extremely leading.

Abuse Cases

In Memphis, a suspected animal hoarder was found with 8 dead dogs in his home.  11 other animals were found in the home as well, which was filled with feces.  Memphis police have responded to animal complaints at the residence before.

Blog Posts You Should Read

Teaching Bite Inhibition - I've commented on this subject before as it relates to major dog bite incidents but this is a great article on the subject of bite inhibition -- probably the most important thing you can teach your dog.

Saving lives is all about attitude -- from Saving Pets

 Vick dogs gather to thank the woman that gave them a second chance - Change.org

If it bites, it must be a pit bull, right? - From the Pet Connection

Speaking of which, The National Canine Research Council explores the difference between a Rottweiler and a "media Rottweiler" -- with pictures that prove there is a big difference.

Media and onlookers confused about breed....again - For the Pit Bulls comments on a story about a 'pit bull' attack in Cincinnati -and has a picture of the dog involved in the incident -- which is clearly not visually a 'pit bull' type dog.

New Orleans Disaster Shootings: The Aftermath -- Women in Crime Ink comments on police shooting multiple dogs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of those events.

After there-awakening of SB250 in California that would require all pets to be altered in the state, Christie Keith over at the Pet Connection notes why MSN Laws don't work: Follow the Lack of Money.  I plan to do more on this this coming week, but just in case I don't get to it (or even if I do), this is a must read.

SB 250 - Again - Bad Rap weighs in on the bill that will target low-income pet owners.

LA Animal Watch also notes that SB 250 appears to impact feral cat colony managers.

With friends like these, who needs enemies (or, on MSN Laws) - by Fix Austin

The Super Nanny State - Terrierman comments on tail-docking and other animal laws.

Lies, Damn Lise and Cat Statistics -- Christie Keith takes a look at the myth that one unaltered cat can produce 420,000 cats in 5 years. Bad statistics like this continue to infiltrate the animal welfare community -- stunting our ability to make true inroads in solving problems because we perpetuate myths with no factual basis. Humanewatch tracked the origin of the myth to an HSUS Newsletter from 1989.

Credibility (or lack thereof) and how it hurts our ability to save lives -- from Wisconsin Watchdog

Jim Gorant: "The Lost Dogs" - Our Review - Tim over at Bad Rap reviews the new book on the Vick Dogs. I'm very much looking forward to reading this book.

How not to handle a case of Parvo at your shelter -- from YesBiscuit!

The Unwashed masses strike back - part 3 - YesBiscuit! explores more people from the "irresponsible public" stepping up to make the lives of animals better in their community.

Have a great week everyone.

Preventable Tragedy in Macon, GA

On Thursday afternoon, Macon, GA officials found 46 year old Tracey Brazzell Payne dead in the back yard of a home. Autopsy reports confirmed that the woman had been killed by a pack of dogs that were residing at the home. Initial reports are calling all of the dogs "pit bulls".

The night before, another man was bitten by the same pack of dogs.  The dogs apparently belonged to the previous resident of the home, but were left behind when the family moved two weeks ago. However, the man who was bitten didn't bother to report the incident to authorities and even though the dogs were abandoned, and left to fend for themselves, and had bitten someone, were left to remain in the home.

Neighbors have reported that several other people have been bitten by the dogs in the past couple of weeks while they have been on their own.

The attack occurred in the 31206 zip code of Macon -- in which 33% of the residents live below the poverty line -- more than 2 1/2 times the state average.  The zip code also includes 47% renters -- such a high percentage comes with its own set of problems.

Unfortunately, this area, which is obviously suffering from neglect and poverty led people to not call authorities about these dogs -- which were obviously abandoned to fend for themselves at this home.

The tragedy was very avoidable...and yet, tragically was not.

This story has been picked up by about a half dozen local media vehicles at this point.