Here's her story:
It all started about 10 years ago when I owned a red nose pit. We had gotten Coco when he was 6 weeks old, and he grew up with my small niece. They were always playing together and loved each other. He was a very loved and well socialized pet, and for nearly 4 years he was perfectly well behaved, with a wonderful temperament. Even when we would visit RV parks, people loved him
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| "Proof" that our pit bull was safe with children |
One day my niece came over and wanted to play, so we all went out into the fenced back yard. Coco and my niece were chasing each other, having a wonderful time as they had so often before. As I was attending to the gate, I heard her scream. I immediately struck the dog and was somehow able to grab my niece. She was bleeding badly from her face. We got to the hospital and as we was walking through the door she looked at me and said "Nana am I going to die?". It took everything I had not to cry in front if my baby. I told her no and handed her to the nurse. I hit my knees as they turned away. Not in a million years would I have guessed that big lovable baby would ever do that the the child he loved. Coco was put down, but not before leaving my niece scarred. There hasn't been a day go by that I don't regret not listening to my family when they tried to warn me about these dogs.
To top it off, last year my little 3 year old nephew was playing outside with my 6 year old nephew when all of a sudden the neighbors pit came across the fence and attacked him, biting him in the back. It took my Dad and my 2 sisters to get the dog off of him. I consider myself fortunate to have both of them still alive and healthy.
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| Bite marks on my nephew's back |
Sometimes I'm asked "What would it have taken to change my mind about pit bulls?" at a time when I was was so misinformed. "What could someone have said to you that would have made a difference?"
The fact is, nothing anybody could have said would have changed my mind.
From the start, I was determined that it was all in how they are raised. I believed that, and worse, I trusted those who fed me nanny dog myth. What hurt the most is that I trusted my dog, who I raised from a small puppy with love and affection, and I'd have never in a million years ever thought he would attack my niece. It's clear to me now that no matter what you do or how much you socialize a pit bull, it can turn in the blink of an eye.
Editor: Clearly, one cannot love away or train away the genetic characteristics of purpose bred dogs. It's not about temperament or socialization. A pit bull can pass the ATTS with flying colors and then go home and viscously maul a 2 year old. It's the penchant for sudden, random, unpredictable violence that makes them such a risk.
number one you had your back turned you dont know what that child may have done to the dog .. not saying the dog was right at all but u didnt see what happened before he bit now as for the other child that dog wasnt raised right apparently ... and coco looked to not be full blood and if he was his bloodline was probably inbred several times and lastly you cant judge the whole breed and i mean true breed by these two incedents because true full blooded pitts that have not been crossbred .. inbred .. or mixed do not act like that ... proven fact i have pured bred untampered bloodline in my dogs and they would never turn on a human
ReplyDeleteUh huh. Baloney. Typical dog nutter response to blame the victim. In the following video, so called "Dog Whisperer" James Lech took a dangerous Rotweiler into a restaurant by passing it off as a service dog. The dog attacked and mauled a four year old girl and Mr. Lech attempted to blame it on the actions of the victim. Fortunately, a security camera recorded the whole incident. Turns out this little girl wasn't the first child his so called service dog had attacked. The parents are suing and I would like nothing better than to see this guy Lech behind bars and his animal put down hard.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8arycF8EvMc
Allen. My son to was attacked by my neighbor friends family pit bull. I was standing two feet away from my son who was doing nothing but playing with legos. Then unprovoked and without warning the pit attacked him. And thank God I was only two feet away or my son would be dead. So go take your victim blaming, assumption making, and we all must be liars accusing propaganda out of here.
DeleteAllen, are you for real?
ReplyDeleteLogic and reason don't make it into nutters brains.
DeleteLOL Allen! You seriously came to a story where the author is showing her mistake in falling for the "all in how they are raised" and YOU tell her ITS ALL HOW THEY ARE RAISED?
ReplyDeleteThis woman thought HER (PUREBREED) pit would never do such a thing either! She said the exact same thing YOU did- and she was wrong, like so many others before her.
Kind of like the Rutledges, who had a PUREBRED APBT for 8yrs with zero issues- right up until it decapitated her 2yr old Beau, when she went to the bathroom. Lemme guess- that toddler had it coming, he must have, what, looked at the dog wrong, touched it, like he did everyday? Mean ol toddler, you know a lab would have taken a toddlers head clean off too! ALl dogs bite, yeah?
I guess YOU think you are so special, your pits are super special, amirite???
PLEASE tell me what YOU think this kid did? This kid loved and knew this dog, and knew how to be around this dog, since it was a puppy. You wanna tell me that suddenly, in the 30 seconds her aunts back was turned, this kid did something vicious, that she had never done to a dog before? This kid hurt the dog with her aunt a few feet away?SERIOUSLY???
What could she have done that was so bad the dog had to VICIOUSLY BITE HER FACE OUT OF NOWHERE, without warning. There were no barks preceding the attack. Most dogs warn people before they attack, not pits……
GMAFB
Also-
Pure bred pits are totally dangerous, those ALL come from game bred, fighting lines. In order to be papered with the UKC in the beginning, they had to WIN 3 fights! The foundation and all the rest of the stock are game bred, you idiot.
And no, man biters were NOT culled, Mr Colby, one of the founders of the breed, and a real dogma, talked/wrote at length about his man biters, many of the you national dogs, and much of the future bloodline. If the pit won, it lived. Period. YOU are IGNORANT about the breed YOU claim to love.
GET A FUC**** CLUE.
You are so ignorant.
Amen! Thank you. The breed needs to be banned, all of them need to be euthanised so no one else can get mauled or killed. Murderous monster land sharks. I hate them.
DeleteTo the author,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this, most ex pit owners never share their "dirty secrets"- the cats killed, the other dogs attacked, the people bitten, the escapes made. I am so glad those precious children were not hurt even worse, our killed. Others have learned only after a death, which is just horrible
I also shared my story where I had a much loved, well raised, well bred, pit bull that went berserk out of nowhere. Boy, did I feel stupid for falling for the lies. My family also told me, no, begged me, to get rid of that dog. which I ignored.
People always try to make excuses for the dog, but we know that they are simply dangerous and turn out of nowhere.
That ATTS test that the editor mentions really pisses me off. Basically, all the real world statistics show beyond a doubt that pitbulls are more dangerous than other breeds. So, what to do? Let's use a non-real world test to dispute the real world statistics.
ReplyDeleteI got into this stuff because of my neighbors barking dogs that annoy the hell out of me. I had no idea how often dog attacks happen. I am absolutely shocked and appalled by all the lies about dogs and all the dog owners living in denial.
And like RSM alludes to, the CDC statistics that show over 6000 dog attacks a day in the United States are actually too low, because most attacks are not reported! People lucky enough not to have serious injury rarely report dog attacks. They just move on. Oh, but don't call attacks attacks, they are just bites! Bites aren't attacks right? Dogs aren't capable of attacking, they just bite. That's different.
All right, I'm getting ranty here. I'm going to stop now.
The ATTs is a SCAM as seen here: http://www.thetruthaboutpitbulls.blogspot.com/2010/08/there-are-three-kinds-of-lies-lies.html
DeleteIt's a brave thing to share. Sorry, but that dog is hideous.
ReplyDeleteWe should thank Allen for proving the author's point in this story, when she says:
ReplyDelete"Sometimes I'm asked "What would it have taken to change my mind about pit bulls?" at a time when I was was so misinformed. "What could someone have said to you that would have made a difference?"
The fact is, nothing anybody could have said would have changed my mind."
I get it Allen. You won't understand until it happens to you. Hope your kids and neighbors all survive, and I hope someday you get a clue.
I know I'm not welcome here at McCarthy Central but the problem is people like this "velvet" if she in fact exists. We do accept that there is an agenda on behalf of the contributors here so we just lile to validate their posts is all. I agree, it makes me cringe when people gravitate toward advocacy just because it sounds like a good idea. The worst thing that can happen to good dogs and good dog owners is when well-intentioned but misguided folks jump into the mix. Its like a fly-by-night carpenter who starts building houses with little or no experience. The houses crumble and blow away and all the experienced carpenters pay the price when their insurance triples. Its never good when people stray out of their element on a whim. That's why some people get cats or fish or birds. Dogs are not for everyone. I wish someone had advised her otherwise. Poor kids.
ReplyDeleteMcCarthy Central, eh? And yet here you are, being given a soap box to broadcast your pro pit propaganda. I think I can speak for everyone here when I say that we welcome intelligent discourse, especially constructive ideas about how to stop the torture and killing being done by pit bulls every day. But for you to just do a drive by, reciting pit propaganda talking points and denying that there is any problem isn't actually all that helpful. We've heard it all before. Your arguments all boil down to minimizing or denying the problem, blaming the victims, and attempting to re-write history. We've heard it all before.
DeleteAnd yet, here we are, continuing to humor you...
Careful there crrwites, you are making some pretty serious accusations. I can assure you velvet exists - but why believe me? You act as though a pit bull attack is some strange occurrence that must be viewed with extreme suspicion, when such attacks are actually an everyday occurrence. Go ahead, fire up your search engine of choice and take a peek!
ReplyDeleteAnd just who is this imperial "we"? Do you have a tapeworm?
Your smug little jab at Velvet is noted. You suggest that she is somehow unqualified to own a dog, but you know as well as I do that if it had been any other type of dog, this would not have happened. Are you blaming Velvet for believing the hype you folks spew about pit bulls? (i.e. that they are "just like any other dog" and "it's all in how you raise them")
As always, any worthwhile comment on a current article is accepted, but personal attacks will not be facilitated. We welcome civil discussion, but so far the discussion with you has been all one way. You haven't responded to any of the points that have been made in response to your earlier comments, so it's pretty clear that you're not here to contribute in any meaningful way.
If you want to channel Jane Berkey or Karen Delise, you might want to simply submit a list of URLs and save everyone the time of wading through your manifesto.
You read into things way too much, bro. Your fixation with controlling the direction of this blog (which don't get me wrong is entirely your right for no blog is an unbiased news source) simply ignites a curiosity in me as to what your agenda could possibly be. 17 Barks is either a classic example of Burger-Luckman's Social Construct of Reality or you have either a friend or family member who was attacked by a dog. Maybe your original purpose here has taken on a life of its own and now you've found yourself a celebrity of sorts and must keep the vitriol going (perhaps a page out of the Ed Schultz or Glenn Beck play book of self preservation?) You have followers but like anything, people only watch or read what they agree with, rarely with an attempt to learn more about the opposition. MSNBC apologists won't watch Fox, nor will Fox nutters watch Chris Matthews and his fellow loons. Pro-life/pro-choice, breeders/ARAs, Red Sox/Yankees. It doesn't matter. Both sides over-commit so passionately that they'd just as soon die than admit even a token defeat. That's what we find here. You've taken a stance, likely based on no real life experience but a helluva lot of google searches for "vicious pit bull attack", meanwhile insisting that anyone with a pit bull or background in canine training, behavior, genealogy, or statistical analysis is a nutter because they don't agree with a novice on the matter. If you'd step out of character for a moment you may realize that I'm saying precisely the opposite of your analysis of my position. All dogs are NOT the same. Certain breeds are extremely challenging, too challenging for just any old dog owner. Just as certain cars, tanks, and guns are (someone tried to make this point here earlier). Must come with training, I say. I'm not kidding when I say misguided advocacy, perhaps in the case of velvet, perhaps not, is the worst enemy when it comes to defending my own dogs and thousands like them who thanks to your sloppy swathe of careless characterization get lumped into BSL and other unfair witch hunts. I suppose I should let the witch hunters hunt their witches. The Dobermans survived it when it was their turn as did Newfoundlands and Bloodhounds before them.
ReplyDeleteI just want to be sure the unsuspecting folks on this blog who want more information, get validated anecdotes without comment censorship. I want to be sure that if you are going to spew your hate that "we" even of its just Allen and myself, do what we can to instill some checks and balances. You wouldn't be threatened by honest accounts. This is an open forum after all.
Your quote"Certain breeds are extremely challenging, too challenging for just any old dog owner. Just as certain cars, tanks, and guns are (someone tried to make this point here earlier)". This is exactly why pitbulls need to be banned. You can't discriminate on who owns them and female owned pitbulls that suddenly attack children are becoming a big problem as the owners can't get the dogs to let go. We regulate things that are too much for the average person to handle. Children of any age can legally walk these too much dogs to handle down the street. We regulate cars that are too fast and not street legal so they can only be used on race tracks, we regulate dynamite even though some people could probably use it safely, you are not allowed to drill for your own oil, as it might cause an explosion, and you are not allowed to own many animals as they might be too much for you to handle. This is not careless characterization or hateful witch hunts on pitbulls. It is above love and respect for humans, including young children that are being killed by pitbulls in their front yards, as happened last week in Alabama, and it is about love for the people who believed, like you, that they had a sweet pitbull that was undercontrol, and then the pitbull killed their child. Your references to Dobbies and other breeds are not relative as no other dog has killed, mutilated, and maimed any where near the fraction of people that pitbulls have. It is telling that when dog fighting was legal, no one promoted them as pets and they were not promoted on t.v. What if people like you stopped believing that you are special and a pitbull attack can't happen to you? What if you put the greater good of all before your own wants? What if you considered the fact that we are euthanisizing one million overbred pitbulls a year and there are NO checks and balances on the inhumane blood bath as 70 percent of pitbull owners fail to spay or neuter their dogs. And what if your identity was not wrapped around pitbull ownership? What if you visited the families of pitbull victims and saw the parents cry at Christmas when there child was not there? You have to keep the V word out of your vocab and focus on the dogs don't you? What if you let yourself empathize with other human beings and focused on being part of the solution instead of making excuses for every attack? We can't control who is skilled and devoted enough to "handle" a pitbull and devoted pitbull advocates (like Darla Napora to name one) have showed us that anyone can be educated by a pitbull. This is an open forum after all. What if you decided to own poodles or Beagles? Do you need pitbulls to feel like you belong to the pitbull group? Do you need to own a certain dog breed to feel complete?
DeleteJaloney. As a mother who saved her son from a family pit bull that we knew I want to thank you for your comment. You have explained it better then anyone I have ever heard. Thank you for your insight about why me and so many others fight for regulations.
DeleteWe just need to be careful about regulating the good majority because of the bad minority. Thats when we as a society become conflicted over the greater point.
Delete
DeleteSo, if I understand you correctly, @crrwrites, you are saying that we need to be careful not to regulate the "good" drunk drivers, just because of that minority of drunk drivers that actually kill someone. Instead of proactively regulating the whole concept of drinking and driving, we need to play whack a mole, waiting for each inevitable tragedy and then dealing with each one piecemeal.
It's the same principle, really. Drunk drivers are more likely to be involved in accidents than non drunk drivers, just as pit bulls, because of what they are bred specifically to do, are more likely to launch an unprovoked surprise attack causing significant injury or death.
So, back to the drunk driving analogy, you folks are shouting "punish the accident, not the drunk driver!" (whatever that's supposed to mean) and imparting such gems of wisdom as "any driver can crash, don't single out drunk drivers!" or smarmy anecdotes: "my dad used to drive drunk every night and he never got in an accident! It's all in how you drive!"
We need a modern day equivalent of MADD
"Dobermans survived it when it was their turn", Hello? The Doberman's "turn" came at a time when Dobermans made the news for attacks. Doberman breeders faced the problem, made responsible choices and bred safer dogs. Pit bull advocacy makes no such attempt to create safer dogs, or even fewer dogs. The response to victims is "shut up and take your mauling, I have a right to own what I want to own."
ReplyDeleteIt is not a witch hunt to seek regulation on things that prove dangerous to the public, laws regulate tobacco, alcohol, drugs, who can drive and who cannot, what can be carried onto an airplane, what can be sent through the U.S mail. Legally speaking dogs are property and the courts consistently rule that dogs may be regulated for the purpose of public safety.
ccrwrites, you have attacked an honest account by a former pit bull owner and advocate in an attempt to show how we should not be" threatened by honest accounts." The logic here escapes me.
Between 1930 and 1960 fewer than ONE person a year was killed by dogs in the US. In TWO of those thirty years the culprit was a Doberman; and this was enough to get the Doberman supporters to INSIST on RESPONSIBLE breeding and ownership. Contrast this with pit advocacy which has done NOTHING about excessive backyard breeders and negligent, irresponsible ownership but only seeks to change the IMAGE of the breed.
DeleteJaloney- I'm tired.
ReplyDeleteTo my point about ultracrepidarian responses - How do you know so much about my dogs? Have we met? Or are you extrapolating your assessment of my dogs based on information wholly unrelated to my dogs? To suggest that because I have pit bulls I'm automatically too naive to know how to raise them is illogical. To suggest you know more about them than I do is even worse. I don't raise the pit bulls you see on the news. I raise MY dogs, pit bull or not. Thats why you DON'T see them on the news. Its not a "belief" anymore. It is a validated fact that I raised my pit bull dogs until their natural deaths at 7(cancer) 13, 14, and unfortunately yesterday 15, without "learning" what you claim is inevitable - even once. Once they die you don't get to say "just wait, its a matter of time." Because their time came and went, and you were wrong. Is that not a fact? Its not a googlable statistic so it must not be true. I now have a lone senior @ 13.5 and a puggle 6 (because you know us "nutters"...gotta have the toughest dogs...). Thats 5 pit bulls over a composite 62 years. They've been raised with kids and dogs and cats. No bites, no attacks, no nothing. Is that not enough of a sample size with which to draw a reasonable conclusion that perhaps some of your claims are a bit generic? Are you prepared to suggest that I've simply been "lucky" for 62 years? My dogs and many dogs I know or work with are the vast majority of the breed. Not the minority numbers that grab headlines.
I want the same thing you want. People to stop getting hurt. Until that happens, I can't raise and enjoy my dogs in peace. I remain the silent majority. You may want it for other reasons - public safety, vengeance, what have you. Why won't you take the olive branch I extend and help me help us both by:
1. getting pit bulls out of the hands of criminals and
2. snuff out overreaching advocacy. This "everyone should have a pit bull" bit is bad news.
3. And I'll agree too that responsible advocates need to improve breeding standards as mentioned by scorched. But you have to let us do it goddammit.
I really don't understand what we are fighting about other than your insistence on characterizing me and my dogs because of the 1%.
I'm not sure what the 1% is that you're referring to, but it is a bit disingenuous of you to come here complaining that anybody is characterizing you as anything in particular, since we'd never given you a thought, know nothing about you, and had never heard of you before you made your dramatic entrance here to give us a piece of your mind.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to make of your claims, as there is absolutely no way to verify them, but it's like you live in some sort of bizarro alternate universe where pit bulls were't bred to torture and kill, where they don't attack people every day, and where they don't torture and kill thousands of innocent pets every month.
You can't claim to be interested in a solution if you won't even admit there's a problem.
Herzeleid- Sounds like I need to agree with you entirely or find another board. Is that my choice here?
ReplyDeleteWhat claims did I make? About my own dogs? You don't know me any more than velvet but I'm the db here because I questioned the authenticity of a non-sourced story that was posted? Jake said it was authentic. I believe him. You should believe me. I have and have had pit bulls that do not and have not behaved the way YOU CLAIM they all do. Of course its anecdotal. But I'm the only one - not by a long shot.
The one percent refers to the 1% of bad dogs and bad pet owners who have caused this ugly situation. And that's a number thats been verified by your fellow detractors. (Haters is too strong a word. Hate is disingenuous in way too.)
Jaloney himself said in this very post that we euthanize over 1 million pit bulls a year. Lets not even count the ones we don't euthanize - the ones in our homes that live to be 15 years old although they remain guilty until proven innocent each day of those 15 years. Thats 1 million confirmed pit bulls in existence each year.
Meanwhile, Jake shared a report that in 2013, 2890 "vicious attacks" were at the paws and teeth of pit bulls. Taking the bare minimum 1 million pit bulls per year cited by Jaloney and extracting from them the 2890 vicious attackers cited by Jake, you are correct. Its not 1% at all. It's .00289% Just over 1/4 of a percent. I will even grant you another 1/4% for margin of error - thats 5780 vicious attacks - which we all know is impossibly high because virtually no pit bull attack goes unreported - but lets just say anyway...That leaves 99.5% of the pit bull population NOT attacking people like they are "engineered" to - and those are the ones killed each year. Remember, we've not even included the pit bull pets raised in loving, responsible homes and we're at 99.5%
The greater point for me right now is that 2890 attacks is 2890 too many. It shouldn't happen. 2890 isn't a margin of error, unless you count the human's error in assessing his or her respective dog as "no risk" pet. That 2890 is a margin of a lot of things, all which can be controlled and none of which require the other 99.5% to be banned or killed.
Jake, will you marry me??? LOVED the post, LOVED the analogies, excellent all around!!! Will be passing it along with clear attribution to your authorship. It's all in how you drive!!! Kudos!!
ReplyDeleteSo sick of hearing "my Pitt would never turn, I raised him right" or "blame the deed not the breed" or the biggest fallacy of them all, "they were bred to be nanny dogs." Pitt advocates hate it when you present them with the truth, so they always resort to name-calling and hurling insults. That alone speaks volumes about the types of people who own them. Trash begets trash.
ReplyDeleteMy pit bull would very easily attack someone. That is why I keep him close by. My Black lab would very easily attack someone as well. That is why I keep him close by. He is 30 pounds heavier than my pit bull friend and has whipped him twice. I can easily say if someone breaks into my house they have had a bad day. The dogs are always there when I'm not. I leave the back door open when I'm gone so my boys can come and go as needed. I freely admit my dogs bite. They also keep the riff raff out. A pit bull is a very good friend to have but owning a pit bull comes with great responsibility. People who say their pit bull would never attack someone are living in a fantasy world just like people who say all pit bulls are bad and should be killed are living in a fantasy world. I'm sick of hearing how bad these dogs are. I'm also sick sick of the irresponsible owners who let their dogs into a situation where they can harm someone innocent. Pit bulls are more dog than most people can handle. That doesn't mean they all should be killed. As long as a pit bull owner realizes that this is a very strong dog and asserts his/her authority the dog is well behaved. Would you leave a rattlesnake out for small children to play with? I wouldn't leave my pit bull with small children either. I know what my boy can do and keep him out of situations that would get him into trouble. That is being a responsible owner. That is why not everyone is capable of owning one of these great dogs.
ReplyDeleteYour realism is refreshing, in a world where people try desperately to pretend that pit bull were once "nanny dogs".
DeleteThat said, pit bulls are just a bit too animal aggressive to suit me, and just a bit too unpredictable. I love big dogs, but prefer the types where I don't have to be constantly fighting against their genetics.