September 26th, 2006
Kids and Pits: Playing with Fire or What’s all the Fuss?
Kids and Pits are always an interesting topic and you’ll receive a lot of opinions for both Pit Bull owners and non-Pit Bull owners about the “right” way to allow children and Pit Bulls (or dogs) to interact.
The following tips will help you have a better understanding of what can present a problem and what won’t.
Keeping Kids Safe around Dogs Tip Sheet
1.) Never let your child stare a dog down or otherwise gaze at them intently. This is a sign of challenge to a dog and since kids are on their level, they are more willing to accept this challenge.
2.) Never let your child poke the dog in the face, pull the dogs tail, or grab their side. The last two are signs of aggression in dogs and a lot of fights start with dogs brushing up against each other side by side. By grabbing or petting aggressively on the side the dog may consider this a challenge.
3.) Never have your toddler crawling around on the ground around your dog while they have toys, chewables, or other items that might be considered prized items by the dog. This will ensure you avoid any reactions from a dog that is toy/food/item possesive.
4.) Never allow children to sneak up on a dog while it’s eating or resting. They could startle the dog and this may cause a nip reaction. It doesn’t take much to harm a child.
5.) Always, let me repeat that, always supervise children under the age of 12 with your dog.
6.) For older kids, they should not be allowed to walk the dog alone. This will ensure that you have the ability to stop any accidental fighting, or other unfavorable things that could occur on walks.
7.) Never feed your child while the dog is around. This is a pack order thing. Your child should get food first and the dog should not be around to beg or otherwise pester you and your kid for the food.
8.) Teach kids how to use obedience commands with your dog to build a relationship and a bond with the dog early on.
9.) Never allow your kids to sleep with puppies. This is a puppy safety measure, they could roll over and smother the little pup in the night.
10.) Always teach your kids to NEVER approach strange dogs that are loose, chained, or dogs they have never met before. This one alone is the cause of a lot of children being bitten.
When it comes to kids and pits, common sense and good old fashion parenting come into play. Teaching how to interact with dogs from an early age goes a long way to helping them avoid any bites or otherwise harmful situations that can occur around dogs.
Have a great day!
Best Regards,
Jason Mann
The Most Complete Pit Bull Information Site Online
Categories: Pit Bull Blog |
16 Comments
September 26th, 2006
Most people think of a typical Pit Bull owner as a thug, gangster, punk, low-life, poor, african american or some po-dunk redneck. When you ask the general public “who owns Pit Bulls” nearly all of them will give you a similar description.
When I walk my dogs people (and I have been asked this) think I’m a skin head. Yes I’m follicly challanged, yes I have a beard, yes I might “appear” to be a skin head. However I am not, was never, and will never be.
People assume because you look a certain way you are a certain way. My neighbor is a 25 year old African American man who wears baggy pants and long shirts and smokes cigars. Everyday he is looked at by people who “think” he is a thug or a potential mugger.
Neither is true. He is a dedicated father of two who works his butt off to make ends meet and happens to like Cigars.
So who are typical Pit Bull owners?
Typical Pit Bull owners are everyday people like the rest of us who work for a living and try to raise their families during these crazy times.
You can find them in the grocery store or the local beauty shop.
You can find them on T.V. as America’s sweethearts.
You can find them walking their dogs in the local dog park.
You can find them hanging out in the suburbs and the ghetto.
You can find them teaching children at your local schools or giving a speech at a charity ball.
You can find them defending or prosucuting clients.
You can find them on the FoodNetwork hosting 30 Minute Meals. (Rachel Ray has a Pit Bull).
Typical Pit Bull Owners? They don’t exist. We are just people who love the American Pit Bull Terrier and breeds of similar background. We come from the four corners of the earth and inhabit almost every country around the world.
In the end, we are dog lovers who happen to choose a mis-aligned, mis-understood, abused, scapegoat of the dog world as our companions.
For the general public…
Get out of your house, talk to the people who have these dogs, and you might discover we are people much like yourself. Who knows you might like us. :o)
Best Regards,
Jason Mann
American Pit Bull Terrier Owner, Fancier, and Advocate
The Most Complete Pit Bull Information Site Online
Categories: Pit Bull Blog |
10 Comments
September 20th, 2006
If I sat down and counted how many times someone has used bite statistics to show the American Pit Bull Terrier, pit bull type dogs, and other breeds are dangerous I would be living in Anguilla in a beautiful beach house right now.
The most commonly used statistics are those gathered by the Center for Diesease Control. Recently the CDC went on record saying these stats are being misused and they will not offer help to anyone using them to help establish breed specific laws. If the very people who collected the data say’s the data can not be used to accurately determine if one breed is more dangerous than another breed how can anyone put stock into their use as a tool to “prove” certain dog breeds are more dangerous than others.
More to the point. If you look over those statistics you will find another little piece of data that pops out at you like a jack in the box. During the times were Pit Bull type dogs and other breeds reported statistics are higher you will see they correspond to a time when that particular breed or breeds was increasing in popularity.
What happens when a breed starts to become popular?
More dogs start to show up within that breed and more breeders start
producing more puppies at a rapid rate to keep up with the demand
for the dogs.
In short, a lot of crappy puppies are produced to make a bunch of money for the fad breeder looking to cash in on the popularity of the breed.
In the case of the American Pit Bull Terrier and Rottweiler this is happening right now. The Rottweiler has surpassed the American Pit Bull Terrier as the most popular breed and they did so in the mid to late 1990′s. However both breeds are still quite popular.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we start to see Labradoodles and Goldendoodles on breed ban lists here soon as they are starting to gain massive popularity with the designer dog crowd.
Statistics show us a glimpse of the problem with dog bites (notice I said DOG bites and not a specific breed) and while they offer use that little peek they are by no means a way to accurately tell if there is a breed specific bite problem.
Not to mention these are reported bites. What about the millions of bites that are not reported by other breeds that may do less damage? Minature Poodle bites a kids finger is not going to draw the readers as “Pit Bull Mauls Toddlers Hand.”
I mean when you really think about it in the grand scheme of things don’t we have enough to worry about other than someone saying, “You have that breed, you can’t have it anymore because Bill over in Indiana was bitten and received 14 stitches from a dog that LOOKS like that breed.”
If you worry that your kids are going to be bitten by a dog. Try watching them. You never know that might actually help stop a few bites.
Instead of telling me and other American Pit Bull Terrier fanciers that our dogs are the problem why don’t you put some work into establishing a dog bite prevention seminar at your local elementary school. Why not report the irresponsible owner letting their dogs run loose in your neighborhood when there is a leash law.
I mean sit down and think about it. A law banning the dogs sounds great. After all you would never have to worry again right? Wrong.
Miami-Dade County Florida has had a Pit Bull ban for well over 10 years now. Flip on Miami Animal Cops on Animal Planet one night and guess what you will see. Yes, Pit Bulls.
Bans do not work, it’s proven over and over again, they create more problems than they solve and for reponsible law abiding owners like myself and millions of others they cause us nothing but grief. To be honest, we are mad. Mad at YOU for not seeing the big picture. For not getting all the facts and then drawing your conclusion. For listening to the media drivel that is not based on facts but fanatasy and fear.
Wake up and open your eyes. If you are a dog owner and you support a ban on Pit Bulls or any breed for that matter you should really start to pay attention because it’s only a matter of time before they start including all dogs in these stupid laws. In some countries they have already started doing that. In some states here in America they are starting to target all dogs with spay and neuter requirements.
I will leave you with this. The problem is not a dog problem. It’s a people problem that involves dogs. Until we address the people end of this problem we will never get anywhere. We will continue to isolate people and restrict people to the point where we have no freedom left at all.
Think that’s insane or out there? Why don’t you ask the hundreds of innoncent responsible dog owners in Denver who had their dogs taken out of their homes and killed because they were Pit Bulls or Pit Bull type dogs.
Wake up and stop blaming the dogs.
Best Regards,
Jason Mann
Categories: Pit Bull Blog |
18 Comments
September 14th, 2006
Editors notes are in bold throughout the article
Jason:
The male Pit Bull that lead the attacks by three bully dogs in Cary had been neutered before he tore flesh out of young arms and limbs. Also, the children who were victims of the attacks in Cary had previously played many times with all three dogs without incident, only to be savagely attacked them when a knock at the front door of the owner set-off some trigger that no human being yet understands. So much for the remedies of “fixing” and “socialization” of such dogs to protect our children.
Dog’s rarely do anything out of the blue. Either the signs were missed or there was a medical issue surrounding the dogs violent reaction to the knock on the door. Along with that, were you at this location when this happened? If not then you do not have a clue what caused the dog to react as he did. Nor does anyone who wasn’t there.
Horror gripped three families in Cary, Illinois back on the evening of November 5, 2005, and human lives and bodies were scarred forever.
Sad but true. Dog bites scare people for life. I’m lucky after not one but three bites as a child I am able to work with dogs. Most people develop a life long fear of dogs after such events. Not just Pit Bull attacks. But all dog bites.
The dog lobby is found of saying 16 to 24 deaths from dog attacks each year nationally do not rise to the level of a public danger. But that’s looking at the iceberg above the surface. Besides deaths, how many more maulings must the public endure?
How many? No clue. And no one can predict this number either.
From an article appearing in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, I read that data indicates that Rottweilers and Pit Bull-type dogs accounted for 67% of the human dog bite related fatalities (“DBRF”) in the United States between 1997 and 1998. “Thus, there appears to be a breed specific problem with fatalities.” (JAVMA 2000;217:836-840, “Breeds of dogs involved in fatal human attacks between 1979 and 1998.” Sachs, Sinclair, Gilchrist, Golab and Lockwood)).
This is one of those cases where the commenter below was right to question why I had not countered these stats. These stats are inaccurate. There has not been an accurate study on dog bites or which breeds bite more often in the history of dogs. These are all “rounded” figures and if you look at the popularity of the breeds you will see a rise in reported bites from that breed. These stats are useless.
Does any of this logically suggest that certain breeds are not genuinely domesticated animals?
Dog owners should read the case of Vanater v. Village of South Point, 717 F. Supp. 1236 (S.D. Ohio 1989). It was written by the Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and it’s the only case I know of that has been decided by a federal appellate court on the matter of breed specific legislation.
The 6th Circuit upheld the constitutionality of a breed specific ordinance passed by the Village of South Point located in Ohio. In fact, the ordinance banned specific breeds. After Vanater, state courts in Ohio remained split on the constitutionality of breed specific legislation.
What is interesting is that the later Ohio state court decisions ruling the opposite way from the 6th Circuit Appellate Court in Vanater never explained how the cases before them were different, or how the 6th Circuit erred in its decision. I suspect that its because federal judges, being appointed by the President for life with the consent of the U.S. Senate, are not subject to the political pressures many state court judges are subjected to. They do not come up for retention votes. No amount of campaigning by the American Kennel Club will work to have them removed. They also are viewed as more competent in deciding the constitutionality of legislation.
As of 2006 these laws have been declared unconstitional. Read more here
As long ago as 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in the case of Sentell v. New Orleans & Carrollton Railroad, (166 U.S. 698, 702) that “even if it were assumed that dogs are property in the fullest sense of the word, they would still be subject to the police power of the state and might be destroyed or otherwise dealt with as in the judgment of the legislature is necessary for the protection of its citizens.”
Whatever you think, the vast majority of case precedent across the U.S. has upheld the constitutionality of well drafted BSL, and supports the belief that the Vanater case is well reasoned and was correctly decided by the federal appellate court in that case.
All the rest of us (including children) have rights, too, including the right to feel safe in our own neighborhoods. Contrary to what some have said about the Chicago Tribune series on the Cary dog attacks published this month (August, 2006) as being overly sensational, the word “rampage” appearing in the Tribune’s headline was indeed an apt description of what happened in Cary. To understand the definition of the word rampage, I suggest you go and watch the slide show telling the story of what happened that horrible night in Cary. It will also help you to understand the word courage. That’s because you will see how Nick Foley has the gift of courage. Nick has had more than nine surgeries since the attacks on November 5, 2005. Nick’s courage has been a blessing to his family. His story is told at the Tribune web site at
http://www.chicagotribune.com:/news/specials/broadband/chi-pitbull-flashhtml,0,6893302.html story.
Unless I was on the scene I could not accurately describe a dog attack or mauling. No one can. Which makes the news reporter a hearsay artist that takes the information THEY GATHER and reports on it. I could make a bite from a Yorkshire Terrier look brutal and terrifying if I wrote it correctly. Point is, these stories lack much of the facts. Owners are not forth coming with how the dog was treated, problems the dog might have or their actions in regards to how the bite or the mauling was created.
I mean take the Fabish case out in California. At first it was “Pit Bull Kills 12 year old!” Then it was found out that not only did the dog show aggression towards the boy that he was locked in the basement and left alone with the dog while his mother went shopping. Is the dog to blame here? Of course not. It was irresponsibility that caused the death of a child here.
For more of my views on Breed Specific Legislation click here.
R. Frett
Categories: Pit Bull Blog |
13 Comments
