Pit bull kills 5-year-old girl.

Well, that was the link I gave, Tico, re the previous long argument thread and the Denver ban. Lot of heavies weighed in there.

Ontario has a breed-specific ban as well.

It's been about a year since anyone was able to breed any dogs that fit the legal definition of pit bull type dogs here. The remaining dogs had to be neutered, and have to be walked muzzled.

I'm not convinced it's the best way to handle the problem, but it is a way to attempt to begin to deal with the problem of bad breeders combined with bad owners, and the inherent dangers of some breeds.

^^


little dogs annoy the **** outta me.


I think, the only solution is that everyone should just be cat people

how many cat bites have you heard of??

Linkat, interesting you posted that re the number of a given breed in certain population.

There was an article in our paper a while back that was trying to make out the PB's really didn't bite that much.

It gave some statistic that over a year or whatevers period there were x amount (let's just say 100) of bites and that surprisingly a rather large percentage of them where from golden retriever.

Fortunatley, in the same article, someone shouted "the emperors naked" by stating that of course there would be more GR bites, there's like 500 times the number of GR's than let's say PB's in this city.

duh. Do the math.

That's another example of making numbers say whatever you want them to.

I find it very likely people don't know what kind of dog some breeds, like a pit bull looks like.
Someone from a generation that knowing the breed was that important, "it's just a dog"...to people whose cultures aren't into dogs "it's a big brown dog"


Sure, everyone could pick out a poodle if it's got the poodle cut, but if it's not got the signature hair style, I'll bet many would confuse it with something else.

I see dogs in the park all the time that I know are some kind of specific breed, but I really don't know what.

See if you can pick out the one pit bull:

http://www.nokillnow.com/PitbullFindIT.html

There is a dog bite epidemic in the United States. There are almost 5 million victims annually -- about 2% of the entire population. 800,000 need medical attention. 1,000 per day need treatment in hospital emergency rooms. Between 15 and 20 die per year. Most of the victims who receive medical attention are children, half of whom are bitten in the face. Dog bite losses exceed $1 billion per year, with over $300 million paid by insurance.

In all fairness, therefore, it must be noted that:

* Any dog, treated harshly or trained to attack, may bite a person. Any dog can be turned into a dangerous dog. The owner or handler most often is responsible for making a dog into something dangerous.

* An irresponsible owner or dog handler might create a situation that places another person in danger by a dog, without the dog itself being dangerous, as in the case of the Pomeranian that killed the infant (see above).

* Any individual dog may be a good, loving pet, even though its breed is considered to be potentially dangerous. A responsible owner can win the love and respect of a dog, no matter its breed. One cannot look at an individual dog, recognize its breed, and then state whether or not it is going to attack.

Truthfully it isn't easy to identify a true pit bull terrier from among many other very similar breeds. They are also historically significant.