Dog fighting and animal cruelty

An article appeared today on Craven Desires today which makes a point with heart breaking eloquence, a point which I have pondered for some time, and which must certainly haunt every human being who has the slightest sympathy for animals.

The dog fighters are condemned for having created pit bulls, and for continuing to breed them for their original purpose, which was to engage an animal in a sustained attack and to continue the attack regardless of pain and injury suffered, regardless of what the victim does. When 2 fighting dogs who want nothing more than to tear each other apart are allowed to fight it's a sad commentary on the humans who take pleasure in this, but what's infinitely more cruel is the daily slaughter of the innocents that we're seeing, when these fighting dogs attack, torture, main and kill innocent family pets who have no desire to fight. 

I've long been puzzled by those who are ostensibly motivated by compassion, who are outraged at the idea that pit bulls are pitted against each other, who think of the pit bulls involved as pitiful victims, but when pit bulls, doing what they are wired for, jump out of moving cars or second story windows to savage sweet, docile dogs, miniature ponies, or alpacas in their own yards, they express no outrage, have no compassion for the victims, and make no call to end the suffering? 

One can only conclude that their supposed compassion is some sort of twisted, evil game. 

See the article at Craven Desires for the full story

Pit bull attack on Burnaby Fraser Foreshore Trail

We are posting this report, which occurred in BC, Canada and was originally published on craigslist, as a public service announcement, in the hope that it will be of use in tracking down the sociopaths involved in this attack, and most likely other similar attacks.

Update - 20130509 - an arrest has been made

To follow Finley's story from here on, visit her website at Follow Finley

The original craigslist post:

"Not sure where to post this but my friend and I were walking on this trail (april 22) during our lunch break and we came across a dog fight (although it did not look like much of a fight) A pitbull had attacked this mans poor little mini sheltie dog, this sheltie looked badly injured and was bleeding a lot. The two men were yelling at each other and I was the one that broke the two men up from fighting. 

I am hoping that other people saw this as the man with the pitbull and his girlfriend RAN to get to their black pick-up truck to flee, leaving this poor man and his injured dog. The man with the pitbull was mad at the other for kicking his dog so he would release, clearly his dog deserved it as the other dog was so injured and bleeding it could not walk.

I have pictures of this man and his girlfriend; I also have a picture of their black pickup truck as the girl ran to get the truck while the man took off in a different direction with both of their dogs to get as far away as possible. I would keep your eyes out for this couple, I have been getting many responses about this post and by the sound of it this might not be his first offence.

Male description: White male, shaved bald head, about 5'8-5'10, stocky build and a foul mouth! He was wearing a white tank top and red shorts at the time of the attack. 

Female description: White female (perhaps Italian, had a darker tanned skin tone, or someone that tans a lot) short about 5'2-5'4, slim build. Wearing what looked to be black boy cut underwear a black tank and a large black sweater with large black sunglasses. 

Two dogs: Pitbull - Grey with white markings, looked like staffy size. The second dog looked like a English Bull Dog tan color very short and stalky.

To the man with the pitbull, you do not even deserve to be called a man. People like you are the people that give pitbulls a bad name. Your dog clearly attacked and injured this little dog, and anyone in their right mind would kick a dog that has locked their jaw on another. You are a coward and deserve to be punished. You need to be responsible for the poor upbringing of your dog, you need to own up and pay for this mans vet bills and hopefully his dog survives this horrible attack. There are cameras in the buildings surrounding the area that you ran from, you are on tape so be a decent person and turn yourself in. 

Anyone with any information please help these people. I have been in contact with the owner now and their dog has been through two surgeries and had been back to the hospital many times. This poor little sheltie is fighting for her life. Not to mention the owner of the sheltie had to get ten stitches as the pitbull attacked him as well."

Update - 20130429 - The story has been picked up by globalnews

Update - 20120501 - The search for the pit bull owner intensifies

Update - 20130502 - Helpful summary graphic published

A question for pit bull owners

I've been pondering one of life's little mysteries, and it occurred to me to mention the conundrum here. OK, some background: It's not too difficult to establish the fact that pit bulls are responsible for the vast majority of fatal dog on dog attacks, and while they are said to be "only" animal-aggressive (as if it's OK for pit bulls to kill innocent family pets) it's also a fact that pit bulls injure, maim and kill more human victims than all other types of dogs combined.

As thinking people, we look for patterns and meaning in events.  We tend to notice things like the fact that, of 7 Americans killed by canine so far this year, all 7 were victims of pit bulls (references below). So naturally, one asks, "why is this the case?" or "what factors could account for this disproportionate representation of pit bulls in the statistics on violent attacks, injuries and deaths?"

One might look into the history of the breed (the term "breed" is used loosely here) to see what clues, if any, may be gleaned. Sure enough, we find several hundred years of selective breeding and violent blood sport: A molosser breed, the "bull dog" was bred to torture de-horned bulls or de-clawed, tied up bears in the UK for sport from the 1500s to the 1800s. These canines were bred to be tough, to grip the victim with strong jaws, and hang on to the death, disregarding any pain or injury suffered.

In 1835, "bull baiting" was outlawed, but the sadism of the dog men didn't disappear, but rather sought a new outlet, and "pit fighting" became the new pastime. Two bull dogs would be placed in a fighting pit to battle to the death. Here, the selective breeding continued, tuning the specialized canines to an existence optimized to killing canines in the fighting pit. These pit fighting bull dogs, or "pit bulls" had the normal canine etiquette bred out of them. No warning of an attack was given, and the normal canine language which existed to avoid actual deadly conflict, was stunted. When a pit bull attacked, it didn't matter if the other canine submitted, fought back, or tried to run away, the relentless attack was to continue to the death.

It was soon discovered that breeding the bull dog with the athletic and energetic terrier created a more energetic, relentless attacker, and thus the "bull and terrier" was created. Compact and muscular, tenacious and relentless, with a powerful jaw, no mercy and a freakish insensitivity to pain, the "English Bull Terrier" or "Staffordshire Terrier" became the standard pit fighting dog.

When dog fighters travelled to America, they brought their pit bulls with them, and renamed them the "American Staffordshire Terrier". In any case, pit bull breeding and fighting continued in the colonies, but in no way were the fighting dogs ever generally popular, nor were they ever considered suitable as family pets. The dog men knew better.

The dog fighters continued to breed for "gameness" - the drive to attack, and not to stop the attack no matter what. Dogs that submitted, or didn't want to fight were considered "useless curs" and were cruelly culled. Only the most relentless killers were allowed to breed.

Fun fact: AKC registered "American Staffordshire Terriers" can be registered with the UKC as "American Pit Bull Terriers"

For many decades, pit bull breeding and dog fighting thrived, but began to move underground as disapproval by the general public began to re-shape the legal landscape in favor of curtailing the violent sport. Things began to look grim for the dog fighters as the "sport" was outlawed in more places. Even though law enforcement often looked the other way, it was always easy to spot a dog fighting operation: the presence of pit bulls was a dead giveaway.

During the 1980s, certain organizations began pushing the idea of "rescuing" pit bulls and promoting them as family pets, a brilliant move which, if successful, would provide cover for the dog fighters; if pit bulls began to appear in homes as family pets, the presence of a pit bull would no longer be a reliable indicator of dog fighting operation.

One of the unfortunate side effects of this "rehabilitation" of the pit bull is that normal dogs began to pay the price. As they say, you can take the pit bull out of the fight, but you can't take the fight out of the pit bull. Shelter workers, who had not seen pit bulls before, would mistakenly put a pit bull in the same cage as a normal dog, and come in the next morning to find a dead dog, cruelly torn apart, in the cage with the pit bull. Normal dogs would roll over and submit when the pit bull got the upper hand in a fight, but to a pit bull, this was merely an opportunity to disembowel the poor dog.

Since the 1980s, hundreds of thousand of innocent family pets have been cruelly mauled to death, often in their own yards, sometimes in their own houses, by roaming pit bulls. And another statistic began to appear. Prior to the 1980s, there were maybe 3 deaths a year from dog attack. But once pit bulls started to be placed as family pets, the number of human casualties began to rise sharply. The number of human deaths from dog attack is now 10 times what it was in 1980, and pit bulls are responsible for the majority of the increase. There is really no other factor on the radar. Rottweilers are a distant second, and no other breed is even anywhere near the Rottweilers in the statistics.

So, when one hears the old "first it was the Dobermans, then it was the German Shepherds" it's instructive to keep in mind that even in the "Decade of the Dobermans", the Dobermans never killed anywhere near as many people as pit bulls.

So, I've said all that to say this: it would seem apparent to me that the reason pit bulls are responsible for such a disproportionate number of violent attacks, resulting in serious injuries and deaths, is that they are simply doing what they were bred to do.

"Not so fast!", the pit bull advocates say, "pit bulls are wonderful, loyal, gentle, misunderstood creatures that would never hurt a fly, so loyal that they will fight to the death for their people."

I ponder this, and then have to ask: "If they are so loyal, why do they kill their owners so often?"

The answer comes back from the pit bull advocates: "it's the fault of bad owners!"

"But", I ask, "aren't pit bulls predisposed to violence due to their breeding?"

The pit bull fans respond: "No, pit bulls are absolutely the same as any other dog. All dogs can bite. It's all in how you raise them. When a pit bull attacks, it's only because pit bull owners mistreat their pit bulls, they abuse them and train them to be vicious".

At last, we have the answer. It has nothing to do with the hundreds of years of breeding for sudden, violent attack, the gameness, the uncanny tolerance for pain. It's all because those damned pit bull owners are so evil.

Then the pit bull owners share an interesting fact: "Do you know that pit bulls score higher on the ATTS than any other breed?"

"What is the ATTS?", you might ask. Well, according to the pit bull fans, it's a test that accurately measures the soundness of temperament in a given dog, with a high score indicating a dog that is dependable and reliable, and non-aggressive unless there is a genuine threat. (From what I can see, the test actually measures the boldness of a dog and nothing else, but I digress)

So we think about what the pit bull fans have told us: "pit bulls are exactly the same as any other dog, it's all in how you raise them". So obviously, the reason pit bulls have such high scores in this ATTS thing is due to the fact that pit bulls have such awesome owners, right?

But wait - this is a conundrum. Which is it? Do pit bulls have the worst owners of all dogs, or do they have really great owners? Please enlighten us, enquiring minds want to know!

--
References -

Fatal pitbull attacks
DBO: dog bite fatalities
Staffordshires Online
The nanny dog myth revealed
The bull dog - an abnormal canine monster dog
Animal Experts and the Innate Aggressive Traits of Pit Bulldogs

Google is your friend

Google can definitely be your friend, assuming you actually want to know what's going on out there. A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes, and, a 35 second video can succinctly demonstrate the scope and magnitude of the pit bull problem, for those who are paying attention:



Short and sweet: Thanks Colleen!

N.B. there's no need to take our word for it - anyone can verify these results.

pit bull myths - loyalty

As pit bull fans like to say, pit bulls are special - much more special than any other dogs. (but at other times they claim that pit bulls are exactly the same as any other dogs, leaving one wondering exactly what they really think). When pressed to come up with some particular way in which pit bulls are special, it often boils down to amazement that pit bulls can act like normal dogs. In other words, the things that make pit bulls special are those particular scenarios in which they act like normal dogs - as opposed to killing the cat, scalping the baby, or de-gloving grandma's hand.

A calm pit bull, apprehended after killing its owner

I'm truly puzzled when pit bull fans claim that "pit bulls are the most loyal dogs of all", or that "no breed is more loving with its family" - in view of the bloody record of pit bulls attacking their own family members, one has to question their particular definition of loyalty.

The aftermath of a pit bull attack on its owner

Indeed, pit bulls do enjoy a distinction of sorts, in areas related to loyalty - i.e. suddenly, with zero warning, and apparently at random, attacking, mauling, and (if help is not nearby) killing their owners. After several of the mauling deaths over the past year, investigatiors happened to discover that the deceased had previously been treated for wounds inflicted by their own pit bulls . But the victims kept it quiet and didn't report it, ostensibly to avoid leaking any type of pit bull news that was not positive. The lengths to which some people will go "for the pitties" is remarkable, to put it mildly.

A victim of pit bull attack

On the other hand, if reports are to be believed, the pit bull belonging to Bad Rap activist Darla Napora had never shown any sign of aggression previous to the day it suddenly attacked her. Raised from a puppy with love and care, an indoor pet that slept in bed with her, it turned on her one day with zero warning and mauled her to death. So severe was the attack that Ms. Napora was unable to even dial 911 - a story which we have covered here previously.

Killing the owner is an act completely alien to a normal dog. But in the US, there has been a case of a pit bull killing its owner every few weeks during the past year or so. What's going on? Is it that pit bulls are so big and powerful that a playful bite is deadly? Well, that doesn't seem to add up, because there are for instance livestock guardian breeds which are much larger and much stronger than pit bulls, with higher bite force. But they never kill their human pack, and the flocks under their care are also completely safe - which could be reasonably ascribed to the difference between a type of dog bred to guard and protect livestock, and a type of dog bred to torture livestock.

Livestock Guardian Dog protecting the sheep

No, the problem with pit bulls is not their strength, as we have noted above. They are certainly not the biggest or strongest of all dogs, and they do not have the most powerful jaws. What they do have is a set of genetically determined motor patterns owing to selective breeding over hundreds of years of violent blood sport for those specific qualities which suit them to the business of killing, which amount to a craving for combat. A well-bred, game pit bull will attack the opponent without warning and without mercy, and will continue the attack, ignoring submission signals from the victim, and ignoring pain, regardless of injury suffered. it doesn't matter if the victim submits, tries to run away, or fights back - the pit bull continues the attack to its conclusion, one way or the other. For the pit bull, the act of exercising its characteristic motor patterns is self rewarding.

The forgotten shoe of a badly mauled jogger

This purposeful breeding program has naturally created a number of neurological differences between the pit bull and normal dogs. These differences, not nurture or environment, are the chief factor in the off-the-charts record of serious injuries and deaths to humans from pit bulls as compared to all other types of dogs. A normal dog may bite, but a pit bull doesn't just "bite" - a pit bull engages in a sustained attack which can easily last 20 minutes or more, if help does not come.

For the most up-to-date information, please refer to the article linked below on the subject of pit bulls killing their owners. Whatever your opinion of pit bulls, it should be of interest to see these facts in context, with full source citations.

Without further ado, here is the link - Occupy Maul Street: Darwin attacks

The story of Morgan the boxer

The story below represents an encouraging trend of late, an idea whose time has come, having been forced on us by irresponsible and sociopathic pit bull owners. What we are seeing, in the face of ever worsening pit bull attacks, is a growing willingness of citizens to defend their beloved animal companions with force.

My husband had just returned from Kuwait, and while he had been deployed, our 8 year old Boxer, Morgan, had been my constant companion, my protector and my best friend. My husband and I had taken Morgan for his nightly walk through the neighborhood when for some reason my husband turned around, and noticed a crouching pit bull moving towards us. He yelled "NO! NO! NO!"

Morgan

The owner heard this and came running out to call "Lucy" back. "She just wants to play!" he said. I was shaking and my husband was warily silent. I was actually more worried about him than anything. He had just returned from a two year deployment to Kuwait and still at that hyper-vigilant stage common among warriors returning home. We decided right then and there that we would not leave the house without a weapon of some kind. My husband started carrying a knife from that point onward; Sometimes when we started to go on our walks, he would remember that he hadn't brought the knife, and we would walk back to the house to get it.

Pit Bull

This particular night I was cooking supper and for some reason Morgan could just not wait to go for his walk. So my husband decided to take him while I stayed home and finished cooking. He walked out the door but came right back in - he had forgotten the knife! About 30 minutes later, they came rushing in the front door. “CALL 911! Morgan was attacked by a pit-bull! CALL 911!!” I could also hear people yelling outside. (I later found out it was the pit bull owners family threatening to come back and finish the job!)

The scene of the grisly attack

Morgan and husband were two houses from home when this beast ran up from behind and tackled our 8 year old Boxer. This thing got Morgan on his back and started thrashing his neck! Morgan managed to get up and husband yelled, “Run Morgan run!” Morgan ran to a neighbor’s door trying to seek safety. The pit tackled him again. That’s when husband pulled the knife and started stabbing. He was so afraid he would stab Morgan! Meanwhile the owner is punching my husband and yelling at him to get HIS dog off of hers! Husband said the pit was starting to slow down as the stabs were getting to him and it turned around once and glared at my husband. He later told me he saw the devil in the pit bull's face that night.

After emergency surgery

 So, the police arrived and took our reports, and we took our severely injured Morgan to the animal emergency hospital where he spent several days. The Vet said it was the worst attack she had ever seen. The pit bull that tried to kill Morgan later died at the same hospital. It sickened me that they were in the same room!

Recovering from the attack

It was a long and bumpy road but I am happy to say Morgan has survived and is turning 10 this month (November). He has muscle damage though, and suffers horrible nightmares! Although the judge ordered the owner to reimburse us for our vet bills, she has not done so and there is a warrant for her arrest. We bought a new home and left our rental behind for a beautiful neighborhood where the pet owners appear to be responsible upstanding people.

A much-loved, happy boy, lucky to be alive

We don't leave home without a knife anymore. 

We applaud the courage and compassion demonstrated by citizens who refuse to stand by and watch their beloved pets being mauled to death. Recent events have made it clear that hesitation, passivity or indifference allows innocent animals to be mauled to death, while aggressive defense saves lives. In a society where loose pit bulls are becoming all too common, everyone needs to be aware and prepared. It behooves everyone to get whatever effective type of weapon you can legally have, and make sure you have a plan and the will to do the needful, should the worst happen. It could save your life, as well as the life of your innocent pet.

Dog attack report by breed - November 2012

As a fitting conclusion to pit bull awareness month, it's time to publish another update to the running statistics on serious injuries and deaths from dog attack.

It comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the problem that pit bulls continue to widen their lead over all other breeds in the grisly race of mauling, maiming, and death.

These statistics, going back over 30 years, are compiled and updated on an ongoing basis by the the animal people . Ever since the CDC stopped tracking breed information in 1998, these reports provide the most thorough information available on the subject of serious injuries and deaths from dog attack.

Here are some highlights -

A quick summary of the top 5 breeds in terms of fatalities over the past 30 years shows that Pit bulls lead the second place Rottweilers by a huge margin; attacks from all other breeds are essentially statistical noise in comparison.

At the low end of the scale, statistically safe breeds - which accounted for 1 death or less over the 30 year period - include: Anatolian Shepherd, Pug, Greyhound, Great Pyrenees, and Weimaraner.

Since pit bulls are absolutely off the chart in the statistics, compared to any other breed, pit bull advocacy groups invariably attack these reports, as well as any other reports that mention breed, since they feel that such specific reports reflect badly on pit bulls, and they want the breed information suppressed. Unable to suppress the information, they instead seek to discredit any sources that mention it. They typically attack the credibility, the methodology or competence of the person or organization presenting the information, and often claim that the media is out to get pit bulls. Merritt Clifton answers for the animal people:

"There is a persistent allegation by pit bull terrier advocates that pit bulls are over-represented among reported dog attack deaths and maimings because of misidentifications or because 'pit bull' is, according to them, a generic term covering several similar types of dog. However, the frequency of pit bull attacks among these worst in 10,000 cases is so disproportionate that even if half of the attacks in the pit bull category were misattributed, or 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.

There is also a persistent allegation by pit bull terrier advocates that the use of media accounts as a data source is somehow suspect. Reality is that media coverage incorporates information from police reports, animal control reports, witness accounts, victim accounts in many instances, and hospital reports. Media coverage is, in short, multi-sourced, unlike reports from any single source."

The animal people have been working to benefit animals and to bring the facts to people who care. Please consider sending them a donation.

You can download a copy of the full report here