Ten years of dog attack data: 2013-2023

 The pit bull problem is only getting worse

Pit bulls: 83.2%
All others: 16.8%

We've crunched the numbers and the results are in. The data for the 10 year period from the end of 2013 through the end of 2023 shows no relief in sight from the pit bull problem. Indeed, 2023 was the worst year so far.

Here is a breakdown of serious and fatal attacks by breed over the ten year period

A note about the attacks from "unidentified" dogs: Adding them to the totals would only obscure the data, since it would have the effect of claiming the attacks were committed by no type of dog. A reasonable assumption would be that the attacks from unknown dogs were of a breed distribution roughly equivalent to the attacks from known dogs.

Thus, 755 of the 908 attacks could be attributed to pit bulls, and 153 of the attacks to all other breeds. Of the 41 deaths, 32 could be attributed to pit bulls and pit mixes, and 9 to all other breeds.

Link to the 2023 final dog attack report by animals24-7 Here

Pit bull propaganda, victim ridicule, and a horrific death

In a typical example of victim-ridicule, pit activist Mark Biancofiore wrote, in a post with pictures of his pit bull to the "I love Staffies" Facebook group:

"This is my boy Junior. absolutely vicious dog, hugs you so tight you cant breathe, smile that makes your heart melt when you see it and kisses that make it all better"

A loving owner, a happy dog. Obviously not abused or mistreated.

Fast forward to July 2019 - this lovingly raised, socialized, well-treated pit bull launched a horrific 45-minute attack on this man's wheelchair bound father, killing him.

This is the common case, as in virtually every pit bull attack, the survivors express complete shock and surprise.

Bottom line: If this man had chosen literally any other breed, his father would be alive today.

Original references - which may disappear at some point
2014 Facebook post about the killer dog
Article - Melbourne man killed by son's pit bull

RIP sweet puppy - one of many pit bull victims

One of many reports on Facebook - 

About 6 years ago i got my babygirl a baby puppy for christmas... a little itty bitty white puppy... who she named Puppy💗 who was her best friend her baby her everything....

& last night he got attacked by a pitbull 😞 so they rushed him to emergency .... & there was nothing they could do for him..  he was hurt internally too bad for them to do anything 😞 so they had to euthanize him ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ my poor babygirl 💔💔


For more info -
FB Group - Our pets were attacked by pit bulls

No animal deserves to die this way

"No animal deserves to die this way. Baby boy, baby boy.. I don't know where to start but no words will describe the love I have and always will have for you.:( 

I was walking my dog on our usual route we have walked for years. We were just a few blocks away from home when 3 pit bulls came out of no where / escaped the kennel they were locked in and attacked him. Watching my entire world get fought over like a chew toy was the most traumatizing thing I have ever experinced. He looked right in to my eyes like he was begging me to get them off of him and I tried. I tried and tried and tried and I wish I would have tried harder because now he is gone and I don't know what to do. He didn't deserve it. He was the best dog I have ever owned. I still can not grasp that he is gone.. 

Rest in peace baby boy. I am not okay with out you right now. I wish I would have known it was our last walk."

Kayla

Tears for the innocent.

Link to news report

We all bear the costs of pit bull advocacy

We came across this article and found the subtitle worthy of note:

"THE ATTACK HOSPITALIZED EMILY RUCKLE FOR 32 DAYS, LED TO 12 SURGERIES OVER TWO YEARS AND CAUSED $3 MILLION IN MEDICAL BILLS."

We've all been bombarded with the smarmy, well known pit bull propaganda talking points, which use faulty logic, non-sequiturs and emotionally charged civil rights terminology in an attempt to make us all feel guilty for not wanting to expose our children or our pets to unpredictable canine IEDs.

To the average man, who doesn't know anything about the bloody and violent genesis and history of the bull-baiting and pit fighting breeds, this may all sound plausible, and invoke some sort of sympathy, but what the narcissistic pit bull activists don't tell us is that we all, as a society, pay the price for their delusion.

This poor girl, one of many innocents whose lives have been touched by pit bull violence, is a solid argument for the need for change in our laws. It's time to start holding the perpetrators strictly accountable.

Do we blame pit bulls for being and doing precisely what they were designed and bred for centuries to be and to do? That's irrelevant. The blame must be placed on those who lie about the facts, who attempt to obfuscate, shift the blame and hide the danger, and traffic pit bulls into unsuspecting neighborhoods.

If we were placed in charge, this would be the policy: In the event of a pit bull attack, the pit bull is to be put down, immediately. If a citizen at the scene of the crime is able to disable or kill the pit bull to save the victim, that citizen shall be held blameless. The pit bull owner or responsible party shall be charged with the attack, and punished accordingly - not token fines, but jail time and/or serious financial penalties.

Feel free to weigh in with your feedback on our thoughts, as well as the article in the link below -

Pit bull mauling launches Newark 8 year old on 2 year trek to save her arm

A dear little friend mauled to death

It breaks our heart to see this sort of thing, but the sad fact of the matter is that pit bulls and their owners are literally getting away with murder on a daily basis. This is a glimpse at just one tragedy among hundreds every day inflicted by purpose bred torturers which are being hyped as family pets.

"Last Friday the 24th, I went out into my garage to find a pit and another dog circling my car. I shooed them away with a push broom and watched their retreat. Several houses down, the pit bull reached down a lifted up the body of a lifeless cat. With no regard for my safety, I ran toward the pit and took the cat away from him. It was my little buddy Sly."

"7 years of companionship and love gone in the instant it took this mindless killer to grab and break his neck. I've enclosed 2 photos. 1 showing how much Sly was loved, the 2nd showing what can happen to our lives when 4 legged killing machines wander from neighborhood to neighborhood. Sly was loved and the pain still hurts."

Bob from Springdale, Arkansas

Kind-hearted Rhona

Her name was Rhona Greve; she was 64 years old, and she will forever be 64 years old. She was a Welsh woman with a good heart, who had brought up her errant grandson, Craig Greve, 24, as though he was her very own son. 

He was to become the deadly instigator of her death.

Banned 3 years ago from EVER keeping another dog again, he decided the law did not apply to him, and he became the owner of an American Bulldog called Solo. On Friday, he paid a visit to his loving grandmother and he took Solo with him. Solo savaged the woman that loved Craig and who had cared for him all of his miserable life, inflicting 16 horrific 'bite injuries' that culminated in her ghastly death.

Since 1999, 4,263 Welsh people have been admitted to hospital suffering from dog attacks. Rhona Greve did not survive her injuries to become one of them.

She is dead. Forever. Her family are said to be distraught, but did any one of them step up and report her grandson who was clearly breaking the law?

A 17 year old youth was also arrested after the killing; is it possible that this sweet woman had yet another errant grandson?

At the scene, Solo the American Bulldog was covered in blood and continuing to be ferocious.

The case has now prompted those in positions of power to be asked to impose more breed specific bans on certain breeds of dogs, and to make ownership of those dogs more difficult, alongside restrictions on who can own them. American Bulldogs and Staffordshire Bull Terriers AND their deadly crossbreeds are LONG overdue for these regulations.

Rhona is dead. And soon, if not already, Solo will also be gone.

But there are other Rhonas, other Craigs, other Solos. A grandmother, a grandson and a dangerous breed of dog. When stars collide and the universe offers up a preventable canine tragedy, we see again and again THE USUAL BREED CULPRITS; the Fighting breed dogs posing as PETS.

Rest in peace, kind-hearted Rhona.

Welsh woman mauled to death

My Rocky

On July 21, my mini schnauzer named Rocky and I were going for our evening walk. Rocky was very happy when I put on his leash. When I opened my patio gate, we were immediately attacked by an off leash pit bull. It happened so fast I couldn't believe it. I beat on the pit bull with my cane, but the dog bit me and continued to attack my Rocky. It was the most horrible thing I ever witnessed. Finally, 2 neighbors were able to get the pit bull off of Rocky. I knew in my heart that Rocky was not going to survive, but I rushed him to the nearest animal hospital. Rocky was in extreme pain for 2 days. He died on July 23. The attack on Rocky broke my heart, and it changed me forever. I cannot believe that my best friend was killed while he was doing the thing he loved the most - taking a walk with me.

I remember you playing with your toys,

I remember you watching cartoons with me,

I remember taking you on walks,

I remember the children calling you Rock Star,

I remember brushing your beautiful fur,

I remember giving you treats,

I remember you sitting on my lap,

I remember how happy you always were,

I remember how much you loved me.

I remember...

Innocent victims of pit bull politics

"The pit bull owner did not face any charges in the attack, as he enjoyed the protections afforded by the new Ohio legislation. It's unfortunate that there was no protection for Zainabou"

Zainabou Drame, forever silenced by the neighbor's pit bulls

The injustice of Ohio's pit bull owner protection law is becoming more apparent as the victims pile up, and people are starting to speak out.

Dick Johnson weighs in - A remedy for Commissioner Philbrook
SRUV was first with the story - SRUV - A Remedy for Commissioner Philbrook
Scorched earth has also been speaking out - Scorched Earth: pit bull roundup

It's a slaughterhouse out there

Update:

The study How many other animals did pit bulls kill last year has been published by animals24-7.org - please follow the link for details

The animal people organization have been collecting and analyzing data on dog attacks against animals in 2013. While the complete report has not yet been published, some statistics have been released, and the sheer number of horrific attacks occurring daily is heartbreaking for any animal lover - nay, to anyone with a heart. Some of the pertinent statistics which have come to light are as follows:

Ann Ziegler's hearing ear dog, brutally massacred by a pit bull

About 31,400 dogs attacked about 61,500 other animals in the U.S. in 2013, killing 43,500 and seriously injuring 18,100. 

The animals killed included about 12,000 dogs, 8,000 cats, 6,000 hooved animals, and 17,000 other small domestic animals, primarily poultry. 

Another victim of pit bull advocacy

The seriously injured included about 12,400 dogs, 4,000 cats, and 1,700 hooved animals. Few small mammals and poultry survived reported dog attacks.

Pit bulls inflicted 99% of the total fatal attacks on other animals (43,000); 96% of the fatal attacks on other dogs (11,520); 95% of the fatal attacks on livestock (5,700) and on small mammals and poultry (16,150); and 94% of the fatal attacks on cats (11,280). 

About 30,000 pit bulls were involved in attacks on other animals, many of them killing multiple other animals. 

There are about 3.2 million pit bulls in the U.S. at any given time, according to the annual ANIMAL PEOPLE surveys of dogs offered for sale or adoption via online classified ads. 

Thus in 2013 about one pit bull in 107 killed or seriously injured another animal, compared with about one dog in 50,000 of other breeds. 

Complete details of the year-long epidemiological survey that produced these estimates will appear in the January/February edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE. 

Merritt Clifton has added the following clarifying comments: The forthcoming ANIMAL PEOPLE study is taking an epidemiological approach to estimating the dog attack & pit bull attack tolls on other animals precisely to address the underreporting factor. Figuring out how to compensate for non-reporting is among the most common problems in epidemiological research, and we have used standard methods for doing it.

More info will posted here as it becomes available. In the meantime, there are many interesting articles to be found at the web site -  Animal People News

For Klonda Richey

This poem was written for Klonda Richey, an animal lover who was brutally mauled to death in her own yard by her neighbor's loose pit bull mixes as documented here

Written for Klonda

'via Blog this'

Inside the minds of pit bull advocates

This article is worth reading if you want to understand what makes pit bull advocates tick.

A few years ago, I experienced a serious pit bull attack that led to countless personal losses, I found myself outraged at the system that had enabled such attacks to occur in the first place. I mean isn’t Government supposed to protect innocent people from such unnecessary brutal and violent assaults? It didn’t take long for me to discover why, I soon learned there was an aggressive and outraged pitbull advocacy movement that had influenced Government and prevented reasonable protective legislation from being implemented. So I turned to social media to interact with these people, only to realize that they felt they were the aggrieved party, even though they had suffered no permanent  physical injury, as I had,  they had not lost the ability to walk or care for themselves for a substantial amount of time, as I had, they had suffered no large financial losses, as I had, they had never faced years of legal wrangling to seek compensation for their losses, as I had and they had not lost their business as I had.  The only loss it appears they had incurred is that people hurt their feelings because they were critical of the breed of dog they had chosen as a companion animal.  And yet their outrage was as if someone had murdered their entire family.  This disproportionate over reaction struck me as incredibly bizarre and until now I hadn’t been able to understand it sufficiently.

Continue reading Max Gold's article here

'via Blog this'

Why not trust a pit bull?

This is an account from about 20 years ago. At the time, the pit bull problem was not as serious as it is now, but the problem's trajectory, so to speak, was visible to those who were paying attention even then. Developments of recent years have underscored the problem, but as this account shows, the nature of the pit bull, formed over hundreds of years of deliberate breeding for merciless violence, was exactly the same then as it is now.

A dog, a pit bull terrier, allegedly killed his female master on September 3, 1992, in Cleveland. There were 180 bite marks on the dead woman's body, according to the Cuyahoga County coroner. I read that news story and revisited the horror my family experienced on Christmas Eve, 1989.

We had a pit bull. He was all white. I named him Chester, after Chester Avenue in Cleveland, where I found him in the middle of the busy street, trapped amid traffic. I could not just drive by. I stopped to shoo him off the roadway. Instead of running off, he got to the tree lawn and rolled over by a belly-rub. He had me by the heartstrings. I took him to a veterinarian for a checkup and neutering that very day.

Chester was not yet one year old, but he was big and well-muscled. He was friendly even with strangers. He spent most of his time in a fenced area with another dog I had taken in, and things went smoothly throughout that fall. When the temperatures turned cold, I brought the two dogs into the heated, finished basement of our country home.

On many occasions I let Chester sleep with my youngest daughter. (She was only three.) Chester was also allowed to mingle with my assorted formerly stray cats, and a rabbit who ran loose in the house. He never paid any attention to the other animals, but he loved the attention he got from my three daughters.

My husband always had reservations about Chester because of his breed. I, on the other hand, got used to the idea of having a pit bull, and I trusted that nothing bad would happen. After all, we were not encouraging aggressiveness. We never roughhoused with Chester. We didn't want a guard dog, and we kept a close eye on him when he was with the children.

I, an animal health technician, former zookeeper, and animal activist, believed that Chester would not be one of those vicious dogs you read about in newspaper headlines. I was wrong.

On Christmas Eve, after a family gift-opening get-together, we returned to our home. My husband was the first to enter the house. I was sleeping in the car when he shook me into reality. "Donna," he said, "it's awful. I wish I could hide this from you. I can't. Come in."

What awaited me in the house was a scene from a horror movie. Chester, greeting me in the kitchen, had long red scratches all over his face. There were streaks of blood here and there on the carpeting throughout the house. The French doors between the basement steps and the living room had been forced open. and there were dead bodies everywhere.

My rabbit was dead on my bed. One cat lay dead in the basement, another under my dresser. Two cats, locked safely in a bedroom, were unscathed. One cat survived atop the refrigerator, but a claw had been ripped from his paw. The fourth survivor was huddled on the top bunk in my daughter's bedroom, wild-eyed and quivering. It took him weeks to return to normal behavior.

My husband reluctantly shot Chester. We then went about placing presents under the tree and stuffing stockings. It was a grim Christmas morning as I watched the sun rise through tears, and I hugged my daughters a little harder that day.

Donna Robb

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1993

[Donna Robb, now a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is a vet tech who was formerly an elephant keeper at the Cleveland MetroPark Zoo.]

Welcome new blogger

Another new blogger has arisen to address the growing epidemic of pit bull violence.

17 Barks welcomes The Canine Game Changer to the community of those who stand for the truth and speak for the victims.

Maul Talk Manual 2.0

A new version of the Maul Talk Manual is out!

All who are considering breed-specific laws should browse this helpful glossary of terms used by pit bull activists, which will provide insight into the reality distortion and psychological warfare tactics employed by pit bull owners, advocates and animal groups.

The pit bull propaganda machine

Access the new maul talk manual and learn more about it here

On pit bulls and their owners

In 2013, there have been 18 canine homicides of which 17 were committed by pit bulls or pit bull mixes. Our dogs are not killing us. Pit bulls are killing us. And although pit bulls attack and kill strangers like Claudia Gallardo, 38 (killed by a pit bull in the front yard of its owner's house in Stockton, California) and Pamela Devitt, 63 (killed by 4 pit bulls running at large as she took a walk in Antelope Valley, California), the usual victims are our children, parents and guests.

I have come to believe that the modern pit bull should not be thought of as a dog at all. A dog is man’s best friend, but this is an animal that will kill the man, his wife, his children, his parents and the guests in his home. Clearly this is not man’s best friend; clearly it is not a “dog” in the sense that we think of a dog. Charles Manson was anatomically a man, sociologically a neighbor, and legally a citizen, but he is spending his life behind bars because he was a deranged individual who orchestrated mayhem and murder. Just because pit bulls look like dogs, they do not have to be thought of like we think about dogs such as golden retrievers and Yorkshire terriers.

In almost all homicides carried out by pit bulls, the owners and neighbors express shock and disbelief because the animal never gave a sign that it wanted to kill anyone. But to me, this is like a drunk driver expressing shock and disbelief that his car could kill. In both types of cases, a person made a choice to do something incredibly reckless, either by getting drunk or by getting the animal that makes headlines because of the frequency and brutality of its killing. We need to stop people from doing these reckless things.

Lawmakers have to stop listening to the nonsense about breed specific laws which is spouted by the owners of bully dogs like pit bulls. Since 2006 there have been 3 psychological studies which focused on the personality and behavioral traits of the owners of pit bulls and other high-risk breeds of dog. A study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence showed a link between ownership of high-risk dog breeds and deviant behaviors, crimes against children and domestic violence. Another study concluded that "vicious dog ownership may be a simple marker of broader social deviance." A third study established that the owners of high-risk breeds of dog displayed more antisocial thinking styles, have an arrest history significantly higher than owners of other dogs, and engage in fighting to a significantly greater degree than other dog owners. They also had higher levels of overall criminal thinking patterns to go with the actual criminal behavior. These people, who are fixated on the animals that kill, maim and terrorize, are not the people that a lawmaker needs in his camp. Reasonable people want fair laws that provide a solution to the obvious problems caused by pit bulls.

Sincerely,

Kenneth M. Phillips
Attorney at Law