Death gets a BAD RAP

In retrospect, the matter was summed up succinctly by one blogger who wrote: "A pit bull killed it's owner. Again. End of story." But as the story broke, the identity of this particular victim made things rather uncomfortable for the pit bull promoters.

On Aug 11, Bad Rap member Darla Napora was mauled to death by her pit bull, "Gunner". The last time Greg Napora had last seen his pregnant wife, she was asleep, in bed with their 2 pit bulls. When he returned home at noon that day, he encountered a grisly scene - his wife, unconscious and bleeding from multiple wounds, on the floor, with the pit bull standing over her. She died shortly thereafter, and the pit bull was shot after escaping from the yard and threatening police officers. 

Greg and Darla Napora

The actions of Darla's husband here seem rather puzzling. His first actions after making the grisly discovery were reportedly to call his wife's employer to let them know she would not be coming to work, to shut down their facebook page which had featured pictures of Darla and the animal that killed her, to secure the services of a lawyer, and to issue a statement, not so much lamenting his deceased wife and child as to praise the animal which had just killed them, and to make a stand in defense of pit bulls in general. His actions offer insight into the mindset of hard core pit bull advocates.

On cue, pit bull activists took to the internet to begin the damage control process. The normal strategy in the aftermath of this type of horrific mauling appears to be to blame the owner, minimize the attack, or claim the animal was not actually a pit bull. In this case however, the owner was one of their own, the deaths of mother and child made the attack rather difficult to minimize, and the dog was a well publicized pit bull.

Pit bull activist Cindy Marabito

Pit activist Cindy Marabito crafted a story alleging that Darla Napora was not killed by her pit bull, but had instead suffered a fatal fall from a ladder, and the pit bull was merely trying to wake her up. This story, with no justification or basis in fact, gained traction and was echoed and amplified by other online pit bull activists such as Melanie Coy.

The coroner's report, however, made it clear that Darla Napora was mauled to death in her home by her pit bull. There was no ladder. The ladder stories have since been removed without explanation.

While pit bull defenders continue to search for some scrap of evidence on which to blame the attack, there does not seem to be any real mystery about it. There is nothing to distinguish this particular attack from any of the other pit bull maulings that have occurred over the past 150 years, aside from the identity of the victim. Given the well documented tendency of pit bulls to attack their owners, it was simply a matter of time before some well known pit bull advocates were maimed or killed by their own animals.

Last month (Aug 2011), 3 different pit bull owners were killed by their own pets. More deaths will follow in future, as surely as day follows night, and some of those deaths will be innocent bystanders who never owned, nor wanted to own, a pit bull. Innocent family pets and beloved personal companions will continue to be killed by pit bulls.

If we can simply get across the point that pit bulls are lethal and unpredictable animals, even to some small fraction of the people who read this, we will have saved lives, and that is why we speak out. For more on this story, dogsbite.org has information here, and  Craven Desires has some good fact-checking  here and here.

Additional links below -

pacifica.patch.com: Pit Bull: 'She Fell Off a Ladder' is PR Spin
truecrimereport.com: Darla Napora, Pregnant Pit Bull Advocate, Mauled to Death By Her Pit Bull

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)

Discussions with the pit bull community: media reporting

Whenever I've spoken to members of the pit bull community about the relatively high number of pit bull attacks compared to other breeds, it always comes down to one of a few standard responses - either flat-out denial, anecdotal non-sequiturs about wonderful pit bulls, or conspiracy theories.

I'm not one to rule out conspiracies, but as a rule of thumb I hesitate to assume a conspiracy when more plausible (and obvious) explanations exist. For instance, consider the oft-heard claim that pit bull attacks are over reported by the media - a media eager to report such attacks, while ignoring attacks by other breeds.

First of all, attacks in general are under reported from what I can see. Several people close to me have been attacked by pit bulls, and none of the attacks ever made the news. You may try in vain to google them, but they are below the radar. It's a fact that not all dog attacks are reported, and that's no evidence for a conspiracy - and it's only natural, for instance, that a life threatening dog attack is more likely to make the news than a nip from an ankle biter.

However, if  someone is killed by a dog - any breed of dog - it makes the news. So we have a level playing field when it comes to fatal dog attacks, because every fatal attack is reported. This affords us an opportunity both timely and unique: to tally the breeds involved in such attacks and find out once and for all which breeds are responsible for the most deaths.

As it turns out, a number of dog attack studies have been done over various time periods. The most comprehensive study to date was done by Clifton Merritt for the animal people, and covered dog attacks in the US over a 28 year period between 1982 and 2010, broken down by breed, type of victim, and severity of attack. We can examine the breed by breed death totals discovered in this study to arrive at a clear picture of the comparative threat posed by various dog types. The full report is available here but the highlights are shown below. Let the facts speak for themselves:

1982-2010 chart: Breed Bodily harm Child Victims Adult Victims Deaths Maimings Pit bull terrier 1552 691 529 166 859 Rottweiler 457 262 118 73 246 Husky 56 36 4 21 14 Wolf hybrid 82 68 4 19 46 Bullmastiff (Presa canario) 58 22 21 9 31 German shepherd 79 52 20 9 50 German shepherd-mix 37 26 8 7 24 Chow 53 35 15 7 35 Pit bull-mix 102 44 21 7 51 Doberman 14 8 6 6 7

*Chart ordered by number of deaths; includes only a portion of breeds listed in report.

Discussion notes: Even if the pit bull category was "split three ways," attacks by pit bulls and their closest relatives would still outnumber attacks by any other breed. Pit bulls are noteworthy for attacking adults almost as frequently as children, a characteristic not shared by any other breed.

Wadena County Humane Society Lies and Blames Victim After Their Pit Bull Attacks

Fellow bloggers, please re-post and cross-post -

While attending a Pet Expo at the County fairgrounds a 7 year old border collie service dog named Cheyanne was attacked by an adoptable pit bull named Lola owned by the Wadena County Humane Society. Someone had to use a stick to pry Lola's jaws off Cheyanne.

Blamed Victim and supposed pit bull harrasser Cheyanne before the accident

Cheyanne was rushed to the veterinary clinic with puncture wounds and possible nerve damage. The Humane Society blamed Cheyanne for the attack claiming that Cheyanne "harrassed" their pit bull despite eyewitnesses who say that Cheyanne was sitting calmly when the pit bull attacked. While the police believe the dog will be put down after 10 days, the Humane Society says they were not told to do so and still have Lola up for adoption - with no warning about "NO DOGS" on her post.

Mauler Lola - still up for adoption to an unsuspecting public

Cheyanne's owner, who says her dog alerts her to seizures, wants compensation for medical costs and possible replacement cost for a service dog and will bring her case before the county board meeting on Wednesday.

Link 1

Link 2

Any suggestions to the Humane Society about honesty, integrity, responsibility, public service, public safety and pit bulls should be directed here:

Wadena County Humane Society 501(c)(3) non-profit

310 Ash Ave NW hwy 10 west

Wadena, MN 56482

Mailing Address:

P.O. Box 248

Wadena, MN 56482

Phone #: (218) 632-5938

Wadena County Board of Commissioners

Pit bull safety: 7 attack triggers

It's no secret that dogs can bite. It also shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that pit bull attacks tend to be the most severe of all. The ongoing study of serious and fatal dog attacks conducted by the animal people organization since 1982 indicates that pit bulls, at around 5% of the dog population in the USA, account for more fatal and disfiguring attacks on humans than the other 95% of dogs combined. Several medical studies have shown that the most severe dog bite trauma seen by ER doctors is nearly always inflicted by pit bulls. A 1986 dog attack study showed that pit bulls are 600% more likely to attack their owner than other dogs - and the pit bull attack statistics have been worsening in recent years.

I won't take a side in the debate about who is responsible - bad dogs or bad owners - for the growing number of pit bull victims. That's a topic that has been debated elsewhere and will continue to be debated for the foreseeable future. What I would like to do is help bolster public safety by raising awareness of the sorts of things that can trigger a pit bull attack. A little knowledge can help avoid these scenarios, and make one less likely to suffer a pit bull attack.

Fortunately for this victim the pit bull that attacked her was only 4 months old

Here are 7 deadly triggers to avoid:

1. Attempting to discipline your pit bull. Really.
2. Attempting to intervene when your pit bull attacks another dog.
3. Slipping and falling on the ice while walking your pit bull. Really.
4. Being trapped under a car that falls on you while you're working on it.
5. Handing out peaches to passing children.
6. Going out to feed the horses.
7. Taking a walk on a Sunday afternoon.

This list of 7 triggers is fairly representative, but by no means complete. For a more comprehensive treatment, please consult this list of it bull attack triggers compiled by the fact checkers at dogsbite.org


References
"Are pit bulls different?" - Randall Lockwood, Kate Rindy
"Mortality, Mauling and Maiming by Vicious Dogs" - Bini et al
Dog attacks, deaths and maimings, US & Canada - Merritt