KC DOG BLOG

A particularly tragic week for dogs and children this week

I've been wanting to write these articles less frequently as with my current time limitations, I'd much rather focus on the positive of dogs, and of things going on at our shelter, than on tragedies. Dogs are such an important part of the lives of many of us and I love celebrating the dogs in our lives.

However, a simple fact remains that the bond between dogs and humans is still broken at times when politicians pass laws based on the hysteria of the moment instead of looking deeper into the causes of high profile fatal attacks. This trend has certainly improved, as many cities are now looking and comprehensive animal control laws and enforcement that are focusing on the behavior of owners and dogs, and not on what dogs look like. This is great news to be sure.

So I'm going to do a little catching up this week, as we had several incidents that should be discussed (plus, I have a couple from early January I'm going to add to the end). The incidents follow the typical story lines and include multiple of the following: unsupervised children, dogs that are resident dogs (vs family dogs) and thus not well-socialized with the family, dogs roaming at large, low-income areas where other social issues exist, and dogs with a history of aggressive actions and have gotten loose from their kenneling before.

Kenneth Santillan, Paterson, NJ

There's still a lot of information that will hopefully come out of this one, but in Paterson, NJ, a 115 lbs Bull Mastiff went after two 13 year old boys. The boys fled in opposite directions -- one boy had a bite on his hand, the other was found dead in a wooded area behind the dog's home. When the dog's owner came out to get the dog while officials were there, the dog bit the owner on the hand also -- and the owner stabbed the dog multiple times before animal control took the dog. 

Neighbor's have reported that the dog had jumped over the fence before and bitten a child previously and that it was often somewhat aggressive. Neighbors report that the dog lived in the back yard of the home and never came indoors except for during Hurricane Sandy, including this winter's freezing temperatures. One neighbor noted that kids would often provoke the dog and try to get it to jump over the fence.

At this point, authorities are not commenting on whether or not the dog was provoked in this case, but it's particularly worth noting that it is important to impart on children the importance of respecting dogs and specifically not to taunt them. It also helps demonstrate that dogs that are left alone in a back yard where they cannon flea from taunting, etc can often become very defensive and  will act out on their own accord. 

Two year old child, Killeen, TX

Not much is known about this one either, so I'll update as more reports come in.

Based on the current media reports, a two year old boy was tragically killed in Killeen, TX. The young toddler was walking home from the park with an 8 year old girl and an 18 year old boy when the dog, described as a bull mastiff, ran from out of a garage and attacked the children. The dog apparently went after the 8 year old girl first, but once people came to help her, the dog turned on the 2 year old and inflicted fatal injuries. 

Four year old child, Tallassee, AL

In Tallassee, AL, a four year old girl was alone outside playing in her own yard when two dogs who were roaming at large attacked the young girl. The girl's grandfather went out to check on her and found one of the dogs, described as a "white german shepherd mix" on top of the young girld. The two dogs fled when the grandfather came outside. The other dog, which may or may not have been involved in the incident is being described as a "lab mix". 

The young girl succumbed to her injuries. 

Neighbors say the owners of the German Shepherd mix tried to keep the dog pinned up, but it often got out.  Other neighbors have reported that the dog had previously eaten their chickens and was known to be aggressive toward people. It's also worth noting that there is no leash law in Tallasee.

Tallassee, AL is an area of very high poverty, with more than 43% of its residents living below the poverty line. I've noted before that in areas with high poverty tend to have significant breakdowns in their social structures and that the dog attacks tend to be a symptom of the struggling social structure. That appears to be the case here, where an inability to be able to maintain proper fencing seems to be an ongoing problem here. 

Braelynn Coulter, High Point, NC

There isn't a lot of information about theis incident, but Braelynn Coulter wa s 3 year old girl that was tragically killed by the family pet. The dog is being described as a "pit bull," and by most reports, appears to have been an indoor family pet (unlike most of the other dogs described here). It is worth noting that one of the major sections of a 10 year dog bite fatality study was that dogs that lived with the family were less likely to be involved in dog attack fatalities than outdoor dogs that lacked the human interaction to properly be able to read human behaviors.

The dog was said to have been aggressive before - -having broken through a fence to attack (and kill) a neighbor's dog. No information about the events that led up to the fatal attack on young Braelynn have been made available. 

Je'veah Mayes, Temple, TX

This story is from a couple of weeks ago, but 2 year old Je'veah Mayes wandered outside the home unattended, and walked up to a dog that was chained in the back yard. The dog, described as a 'pit bull' was being watched for a friend. The toddler walked up to the chained dog (the two do not appear to have been socialized together) and was tragically mauled by the dog.

It is also worth noting that the dog was a momma dog that also had two puppies with her that she may have been trying to protect.

I've often noted that young toddlers do not have the ability to read warning signals given by dogs. Thus, they can be very succeptable to attacks like this, particularly if a dog is chained and has no abilty to flee. 

 Kara Hartrick, Bloomington, IL

This story is from January: 

Four year old Kara Hartrick was being babysat in her home by her grandmother. The young girl told her granmother that one of the three dogs in the home hurt her, so she began to try to separate the dogs from the girl. During that process, the dogs began to become aggressive and directed the aggression toward the young girl and began attacking her. The girl dended up dying from her injuries.

The family owned three dogs, 2 unaltered males, and one unaltered female. Authorities believe it was the two males that were responsible for the attack. All of the dogs are described as "pit bulls". 

This is a truly tragic case where it appears that the person handling the dogs did not really know the dogs well and wasn't able to read particular behaviors well and it ended in tragedy.

Christina Burleson, 43, Houston, TX

This story if from early January:

The 43 year old Burleson was out for an early morning walk when she was tragically attacked by 3 dogs that were roaming at large. When people saw the woman in danger they came to help but unfortunately arrived too late. All three of the dogs were described as "pit bulls" and the owner of at least 2 of the dogs has been identified.

The attack follows the trend that most healthy adults that are involved in fatal incidents tend to be attacked by multiple dogs -- often roaming at large. While a healthy adult can usually defend themselves from a single attacking dog, a large group of dogs would provide significantly more risk.

The incident occurred in the 77061 Zip Code of Houston which has a 26% poverty rate -- nearly double the national average.

 

Fatal Dog Attack in Dayton, OH - on breed, the media, common denomenators, reckless owners and ineffective animal control

Yesterday morning, 57 year old Klonda Richey was killed by her neighbor's two dogs. 

Richey was outside her home when the dogs attacked, and her body was discovered on the sidewalk in front of her home. 

Mark Kumpf, the Animal Resource Center director, says the dogs were mixed breed dogs that he believes are part Cane Corso. Photo evidence would indicate that this is true of at least one of the dogs.

The owners of the two dogs, Andrew Nason and Julie Custer were taken into custody and are being held pending charges of reckless homicide. This is good of course, to hold the owners accountable. It's bad, of course, that it had to get to the point of someone being dead before something was done. 

Turns out that the victim called the authorities many times on these dogs. Authorities have noted that there have been at least 9 complaint calls about the dogs responsible for the woman's death -- at least 5 of those complaints were made by the victim. Several of the complaints are abotu the dogs roaming at large, and one specifically from Richey notes that the "dog is straining to get to water and food that are empty, advised is ongoing". This would indicate ongoing problems, and from the sound of it, a significant amount of time being tethered.

Unfortunately, in none of the cases did animal control do anything and now the dogs are responsible for killing the woman.

This is the 3rd fatal dog attack in just the past 18 months in Dayton. One other also involved a Cane Corso, and another involved the mauling of a 93 year old woman, Elizabeth Hirt, by two Boston Terriers. Of significant note here is that in the incident involving Ms. Hirt in 2012, the media never covered her death, and thus, this incident never showed up in any dog attack fatality reports for the year. I've now added it to mine.

This story is amazingly tragic, and highlights a whole lot of reasons the way we currently look at dangerous dog issues is tragically flawed.

-- A strong, proactive, breed-neutral dangerous dog law would have had a strong likelihood of helping save Ms Richey. The dogs were a known problem. The owners were known to let their dogs roam at-large. These dogs and owners were known problems, and yet, there was nothing that was done to intervene. This is why good, proactive, breed-neutral laws are essential.

-- This incident further reinforces that dogs just don't decide to attack one day. Attacks like this usually follow a series of undesirable and aggressive behaviors over time.

-- This should go without saying, but, competent animal control is also important.

-- Dayton, as a community, has had 3 dog attack fatalities in the past 18 months. There have only been around 50 in that time in the entire nation, so three happening in one relatively small community is pretty amazing. Dayton has a very high poverty level (39%) that is nearly triple the national average. The Crime rate is also nearly double the national average. Dangerous dog issues tend to follow other socio-economic problems and to see a cluster here is not terribly surprising. Treating dangerous dog issues as if they are a dog issue, and not a part of a larger socioeconomic issue is missing a major factor.

-- Since 2008, there have been only 3 fatal dog attacks involving Cane Corsos in the entire US. It's interesting that two of these attacks happened in Ohio - a place that until recently had targeted "pit bulls" as being inherently aggressive. For years, experts have said that if you focus on breeds, or types of dogs, that irresponsible owners, or people who want aggressive dogs, will turn to other breeds. It's a small sample size, but it seems that that is what happened in Ohio when they targeted specific breeds.

-- It's also interesting to note that the tragic death of Elizabeth Hirt went virtually unnoticed by the media until it was mentioned briefly in one of the articles yesterday. It shows exactly how some of these "studies" based solely on media reports are not comprehensive, nor statistically relevant. This is why listening to experts on the topic of dangerous dog issues is essentialy instead of basing information off of the ramblings a of a handful of non-experts with webpages.