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« The squirrel never stood a chance | Main | Prop B "changes" moving forward, and the need to replace the current voice against puppy mills »

February 13, 2011

Comments

EmilyS

the power of the human mind to encompass denial, stupidity and cruelty is awesome... (not in a good way)

Team Pit-a-Full

Well written, to the point, with yet a whimsey of personal opinion and sarcasm.

cde

kmk

Good grief.

What is it about municipal government that encourages public servants to check their brains at the door?

Lin

It is because most public servants are like a lot of other people. They give in to fear and false facts and manufacture reasons to keep the awful cruel laws that they enacted. Denver, CO should be ashamed of itself. Aurora, please do not add yourself to the towns who have put themselves on the list of stupidity by their falsely placed hysteria.

Joe

Are all dog bites the same?

Would you rather be bitten by a poodle or a pitbull?

When pitbulls bite you usually end up permanently disfigured or dead. especially children.

When other dogs bite you might end up with a band aid.

PitOwner

Would that be a toy poodle or a standard poodle?

Lis Carey

A Lab, a Golden, or a pit bull all have the ability to do about the same amount of damage, and a standard poodle wouldn't be far behind. And no, that doesn't automatically mean disfigurement or death, because bites differ, not just breeds.

A nip is not the same as a full-on attack, and there's a lot of variation in between those two extremes.

Moreover, Aurora is not the only jurisdiction where banning "dangerous breeds" has had no useful effect or been actively counter-productive in actually reducing dog bites. In order to reduce dog bites, you need to target the dangerous behavior of dog owners, and individual dogs who actually ARE aggressive.

PAMM - People Against Moronic Men

Joe's right. But at least everytime a pit bull bites and angel gets its wings and if you get killed by a pit bull you'll get 76 virgins in Heaven. When a labrador kills someone they don't get squat...

J.M.

"When pitbulls bite you usually end up permanently disfigured or dead. especially children."

Really?

I guess they don`t bite very often Joe.
http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/in-your-state/colorado/dog-bite-fatalities/

"Over the past 45 years (1965-present) there have been nine (9) dog bite-related fatalities in Colorado, an average of less than one (1) fatality every four (4) years.

At least eight (8) different breeds/types of dogs have been reported involved in these nine (9) incidents."


It appears that children would be better off being raised by pit bulls or any dog for that matter.

"According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

In 2007, twenty-eight (28) Colorado children died as a result of maltreatment (abuse, neglect).

In a single year, 2007, 4 times as many Colorado children died as a result of maltreatment than the total of all children killed by dogs in the state over the past 45 years."

Joel

Nobody is going to dispute that a bite from a larger dog is likely to be worse than a bite from a small dog.

But a statement like "When pitbulls bite you usually end up permanently disfigured or dead" has zero basis in fact.

And even if it were true, where is the evidence to show that Denver or Aurora's approach to this "problem" is working?

Brent

I can't help but chuckle when I see comments like Joe's.

Of course the size of the dog matters when it comes to the severity of bites. But let's face it, when cities have dog bite statistics they seldom include bites by very small dogs because no one ever reports them. I know I've never reported any of the bites I've sustained from little yippy dogs.

No, the ones that are reported tend to be larger dogs - and it's worth noting, that on the grand scheme of dogs, 'pit bull' types are much smaller than a lot of other types of dogs.

The comments like "when a pit bull bites you usuually end up disfigured or dead" sounds great in a soundbite or on a pit bull basher's website, but there is zero evidence to support it (and a lot of evidence to the contrary). Meanwhile, as Joel notes, in cases like Denver, or Aurora, Omaha or others, it is also very common to note that bites have gone up but that the severity of bites has gone down...but none of these communities have ever been able to produce statistical information to verify that either. Again, it sounds great as a sound bite, but the actual data never supports it.

kmk

Perhaps "size matters" to some extent but I get sick and tired of idiots on Silly Councils dismissing cat bites! We often hear, "Oh cats are small and can't do much damage". Wow, spoken like a person that has no knowledge of cats and has never known someone that nearly lost a hand or foot to infection from a cat bite.

I had a city councilmember ask me, "what would you rather be bitten by, a German Shepherd or a cat?". I told him I'd take my chances with the German Shepherd.

Years ago Independence, MO tried to pass BSL (the first time). What finally got it stopped dead in its tracks was a senior citizen that attended church with the mayor and owned a pit bull (he slept in an antique baby bed, by the way). This particular pit bull owner was bitten by a stray cat and nearly lost her hand to infection. she spent a week in the hospital. the city councilmember that wanted to ban pit bulls was the one that introduced the ordinance that removed cats from the city's leash law (oopsie).

I was so tired of fighting the BSL and then God gave me a gift - the senior citizen pit bull owner spent the summers in Colorado but she had come back early and I ran into her at City Hell, paying her light bill. I told her what was going on and she went to the next council meeting with her hopital bill from the cat bite! She told the council if they passed BSL and made her put up a fence she did not need she would sue the city.

And that was that!

jennifer

Dogs bite for a reason - why not make it mandatory that this breed be neutered/spade, professionally trained/socialized, and if necessary basket-muzzled in public - there are so many other options much better than euthanizing them.

Lori S.

Jennifer, all breeds can and do bite for a reason -- and it's probably not because they have their reproductive organs. (You may have reports of a correlation between reproductive status and bite stats, but it's just that -- a correlation, NOT a cause/effect relationship.)

Breed specific legislation is in ANY FORM is unnecessary when communities enact breed-neutral, proactive ordinances that allow animal control officials to make special requirements of owners whose dogs BEHAVE aggressively -- no matter WHAT they LOOK like.

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