Great Moments in pit bull history - December 2010 (updated)

What could be a more worthy cause? The man is unjustly threatening to kill the service dog of a wounded Iraq combat veteran, fabricating trumped up charges and generally making life miserable for a distinguished war hero.

The reaction from the Ft Worth Weekly was both shrill and eloquent.

Pit bull activists immediately went on the attack without doing any fact checking - condemning, accusing and threatening those responsible if the pit bull was not saved and returned intact to Mr Woods. Online communities rallied to the cause, word spread, and $17,000 was raised to save the pit bull.

But as it turns out, not only was Mr Woods not injured in Iraq, he never served in Iraq. The pit bull breeder had served briefly in the Arkansas national guard but had never been deployed outside the country. Armed only with his fabricated story, he easily garnered support for his cause, i.e. to allow him to keep a so-called "PTSD service dog", in actuality an ordinary pit bull which had attacked several individuals in the past. The fraud was soon discovered:

Durango Texas blog: Steven Woods
Dogsbite blog: Steven Woods fraudulent
Craven Desires blog: Pit grifters
Mauser Girl blog: Steven Woods - Dirtbag

In view of his eloquent yarn about his service in Iraq, his war injuries and PTSD, can we we really take anything he said about his pit bulls at face value? More importantly, what does this whole episode say about those who rally to a fraudulent cause without any hesitation?


Update 20110729 - Steven Woods pit bulls attack again - (thanks to craven desires for bringing this to our attention)

Star

Pit bull advocates often stick two claims together. First is that "pit bulls are the most abused breed." Second is that "they're the most forgiving." Remember that these are the same people who generally frown on breed favoritism and label such things as discrimination.

But look at how the chorus swells for Patrick the pit bull. For in their eyes, almost nothing can compare to his suffering unless it's another abused pit bull.

Meet Star, a mixed breed dog. She was short 40 times with a pellet gun and buried alive with her legs tied with what's presumed to be wire.

Although not seen in the first photo, part of her snout also seems to have been tied in wire at one point. It is not known how long she was under the earth, but the poor dog was horribly withdrawn.

The mixed dog was being fostered and seemed to be making emotional progress as seen by this last known photo of her. Sadly she suffered pancreatic problems and began to vomit. Although surgery was performed, she died soon after.

In my opinion this dog suffered a worse fate than Patrick. It is unknown how long she was being abused by her owner prior to being found, and what makes the situation worse is that not only was she neglected, but she was beat, hog tied, shot multiple times, and buried. She also was never fortunate to know a good life that Patrick know has the pleasure to experience.

Despite all her suffering, she has far less recognition that Patrick has. Accumulating 51% less support on facebook and only receiving .002% commentary and recognition compared to Patrick's plight. A plight that  constantly pushes the agenda of showing how sweet pit bulls are and who misunderstood the breed is. Although keep in mind Star was rescued two months after Patrick.

Amazingly Star did get one mention on Patrick's facebook page. A brief mention overshadowed by over 10 posts of Michael Vick, many pit bull plights, and BSL.

I find it amazing that no other breed advocacy group utilizes and exploits their breed of choice as much as the pit bull community.

Every pit bull rescued in their community becomes an everlasting hero in their eyes. They seem to view them as tally marks as though to say, "see?! This pit bull was abused and turned out just fine!" They do not hold up the dog because it was a dog, they hold it up and exemplify it because it was a pit bull.

It's just amazing to see how almost every rescued pit bull is commercialized to sell anti-BSL propaganda and mythos.

Dog attack report by breed - updated June 2011

The animal people have updated their comprehensive and meticulously researched dog attack report with additional attacks since June 2010. Pit bulls have not only held onto the spot as the number one killer, but are widening their lead over other breeds in this deadly race. The number of people killed by pit bulls and close pit mixes in the US since 1982 has now surpassed 200. 

This represents a sharp increase in violent pit bull attacks over previous decades. Rottweilers are a distant second place with 77 deaths over the same period. The only other breeds responsible for more than 10 deaths over the same time period are Huskies (21), Wolf Hybrids (19) and German Shepherds (11).

Pit bulls also lead in the number of violent attacks with approximately 2000 during the period studied. Rottweilers, with 476 violent attacks, were the only other type of dog with over 100 attacks recorded.


Download the full report (PDF)