300 Pit Bulls Guarded 24 Hrs By Police

From Channel 11

But all of the pit bulls brought into the Houston Humane Society are evidence in a multi agency homicide investigation.

They were confiscated after 27-year-old Thomas Weigner Junior was found shot to death in his Liberty County home.

Authorities said he was operating one of the biggest pit bull breeding operations in the state's and perhaps even the nation's history.

"They were treated like wild animals and so they became wild animals. and that's the way the breeder wanted it? Yes, absolutely, that's how you train a dog to become a fighting dog," said Courtney Franks with the Houston Humane Society.

A glimpse of the kennel used to transport one of the dogs says it all.

"He bit his gums completely raw just trying to get out. Get at the humans who are transporting," said Franks.

The pit bulls, valued at up to $1 million will be housed and cared for separately at the shelter. They'll have around the clock security.

Similar situation here in southern Wisconsin, only it's only 50-odd pits and they're part of a drug dealing (and animal cruelty) case.

One chewed open the side of a crate the other day and got loose while his kennel was being cleaned. Luckily he was more interested in the other dogs than in the people (and luckily I wasn't there at the time).

To quote from antiquitiy, People are Assholes.

300 of them....oh my god, I can't even imagine.

Please keep us posted on this Edgar.






Question...

Some people claim that it's the way the pitt bull, rotty, etc are treated, but I'm not sure, isn't some of that aggressiveness in their nature?


I had the scare of my life once, I was a a gf's house, and she had a big male rottweiler. I was telling an animated story, and at one point, I stood up quickly and spread my arms as part of the tale.

She said "DON'T MOVE!!!!" in such a tone I immediatly froze. Turning my head slightly and moving my eyes, the dog was standing in an attack position, and was actually quivering.

Honestly, I never cared for the dog before, just leary....after that, I told her I just couldn't come in there unless he was in another room.

ugh

I've owned rotties and pits, they are aggressive by design. Some of them are very sweet in most situations, but they have a quick trigger and can be unpredictable. I think it's a part of their DNA like huskies pulling a sled or border collies trying to herd sheep. I would never recommend either breed as a family dog, stick to labradors and goldens if you have kids.

I also can't imagine having 300 dogs, of any breed.

Will they all have to be put down after the rearing they've had?

I've been wondering what happens to the dogs. About 326, I think I heard on TV. The films showed them staked in open ground, with just a plastic cover of some kind to protect them from the elements.There are people coming out of the woodwork, trying to gain possession of them.

If I might ask, why did you own them?

My dog is a lab, but she has a touch of pit bull. The lab seems to cancel out the pit bull, in her case. She will lie on the porch and not make a sound when the men are doing something to the neighborhood water pump next door, unless we are home. Then she barks, but not aggressively. When the meter reader comes, she barks until he touches the gate, and then she runs through the doggie door and hides until he leaves.

haahahahahaha! Edgar, that is beautiful! Good dog.

I know that training like these dogs have endured is hard to break. I bet there are people trying to gain custody - pitbulls can be fantastic pets. I hppe it all ends as well as it can...........

They are very good working dogs, both are good for herding larger animals like cattle and pigs (I've worked on various farms). For a while I lived alone in a rather remote spot and found the best protection was a big mean (looking) dog. I also lived with an animal rescue person in NYC at one point, and she was always bring home such dogs that needed to be fostered if they were determined to be gentle enough for pet purposes (some really are just a mush). I actually like both breeds, but I would never say it's nurture and not nature that makes them a possible problem. I also believe a good trainer can control the temperment of these breeds, but few people have the skill or the patience.

I think it helps a lot if they are spayed. Then they don't get that protective mother thing going.

As an ex-meter reader, I can attest to what GW says here. I've had an awful lot of contact with Rottweilers.

I never thought I'd be defending such, but I do feel that upbringing as a puppy has a huge lot to do with how these dogs grow up. Yes, even if trained properly you can have a bad apple, but I've met some incredible friendly Rotts in my time that blew me away.

On the other hand, from my perspective and years of experience (19), it seems to me the vast majority of folks who get these dogs have it in their mind to make them into a "quasi-guard dog". In other words, they are trained poorly, or even worse, not at all.

I have the utmost respect for dog owners who take the time, trouble, and expense to train a dog properly. It's wonderful to see.

In my former life, I've honestly seen it all. Most times, I could quickly size up the property, dog, situation, and owner. You get so you can smell trouble - the vast majority of times.

On the routes that I covered, there was a definite over population of Rottweilers. It seemed the dog by choice. They make bad pets and watch dogs if left to their own devices.

If you ask me...
For what it's worth...
In my humble and biased opinion...
I think Pittbulls and Rottweilers should be bred out of existence. It's not a matter of killing any individual dog; it just a matter of changing their collecdtive DNA, the use of eugenics to protect human life. One hears of too many humans, including children, being mauled, disfigured and killed by these breeds. It's as bad as having hybrid wolves.
So there.

300 pitt bulls? There you have a case of weapons of mass destruction.

I tend to agree with jl. For every few of these breeds that are good pets, there are dozens one cannot trust.

Here here JLN......I total agree with you.

Like you, I wouldn't advocate putting down every pitt and rottie in existance, but I think those who show agressive tendencies should either be put down or in an environment where they can do no harm.

There are other breeds out there who can be excellent guard dogs, but don't display the overall behavior problems of these 2 breeds.

One always here's a story about how someone had a pitt who was a complete doll....I just think that's outweighed by the danger of having your child, or anyone for that matter, mauled.

If someone wants a dog as a pet, there are plenty of other breeds to chose from that you don't have to monitor as closely.

If someone wants a guard dog, there are breeds I feel that can better differentiate when they are on duty and off.

Those who raise them for fighting should be arrested and stopped.

These are 2 breeds that just haven't worked out that well overall. If mankind can breed them, they can unbreed them to.

We have some riends that bought a pit bull and began training it and doing all the right things. The dog ws socialized beautifully and was able to be handled like a big doofus doggie. One day it just snapped and chewed up our friends grandchild. The kid was badly mauled and , in the dogs defense, the kid was pulling on its ears and was just bothgering the dog in a way that made it repond in an attack.

Thats not an excuse because , when our friends bought the dog, I said "ARE YOU NUTS?" A pit bull is a fighting dog, thats its response, all we are able to do is redirect this aggressive behavior in a socially acceptable manner. NEVER should such dogs (pit bulls, tosa Inus Dogo Canariano etc) be "family dogs" unless we need protection and, even then, we must never completely trust the dog.

Let's not forget how rapid a dog's development is, and how small are the windows when they can be made sweet or screwed up for life. Most pits and rotts are born and reared in less-than-ideal circumstances, and if they don't get good human contact by 8 weeks (and especially around 6-8 weeks), they are going to have issues with people. Similarly with other critters -- look how many dogs are utterly sweet except when it comes to cats, with whom they didn't have contact as puppies?

Moreover, recent research in rats suggests that maternal stress (e.g., bad surroundings, insufficient diet, rough and unpredictable handling) shortly before birth result in a litter that has an exaggerated response to stress so lasting that it even effects the later parenting skills of the females. (Interestingly, the physiological effects but not the neuroanatomical effects can be reversed to a great extent by rearing in an "enriched" environment.) Still, imprinting that can occur even before birth can have an effect on stress levels -- which, in turn, should reasonably have some effect on aggressive behavior.

That said, different breeds do have different capabilities. It's NOT just a matter of temperament; I've seen plenty of toys exhibit behavior deemed as tolerable that would get a pit or a rott or a German shepherd put down in a heartbeat. The bigger dogs simply are capable of inflicting more damage if they flip out.

As a strong spay-neuter proponent, the question to me of what breeds shouldn't be bred is moot. With the most conservative estimates saying that 3-4 million (and perhaps upwards of 10 million) dogs and cats are euthanized in the United States every year, it's gotta be snip snip for every animal in remotely questionable circumstances.

Thing is, I've been volunteering and working in animal shelters for years, and I've met a lot of good and bad dogs of just about every breed. (Okay, not a lot of Viszlas find their way into humane societies, but whatcha gonna do?) And I've gotta say, the human element almost always screws the animal up worse than the breed element. I've even seen a couple of labs that can't be handled; I think they might have picked up some brain cells along the way -- something above and beyond the two neurons saying "run around" and "eat" that labs usually get.

So my take is this: if you are seriously considering outlawing particular breeds (as some municipalities* have started to do), you're barking up the wrong damn tree. The people who screw up the pit bulls and the rottweillers are just going to move on to another breed to screw up. If, on the other hand, you put in place anti-cruelty legislation with teeth, if you consistently enforce laws regarding the keeping and care of aggressive dogs, if you grant sheltering agencies with the wherewithal to put large spay-neuter outreach programs in place, you might actually surround the problem and make some progress in solving it.

That's my rant, anyway. Probably too long to be read.



* Denvers anti-pit bull law says any pit bull-like dog. Who determines whether a particular dog is "pit bull-like"? In a mixed breed, how dilute does the pit bull have to be before the dog is all right? Is an American Staffordshire terrier "pit bull-like"? Legislation directed at anything other than demonstrable action on the part of dogs and/or owners is fraught with difficulty in interpretation and enforcement.

No patio dog...that post was very readible and intelligent.

Honestly, it hadn't occured to me, the part that "people will just find another breed to screw up" very true.

My gf with the (now 2) rotties?
We've know each other since high school. I still remember this....We went to go see the Omen together when it first came out. Remember the mastiff or rottweiler in that movie.

Sitting there in the theater, she said "I want one of them"
Later on, I asked her why, she said she liked the idea of having a dog that would make other people leery.

I know, kind of f'd up. This is a well educated, masters degree professional...imagine what a red neck thinks.