Rottweiler Mauls Baby to Death

[Lilavati]

I think that even with dogs that weren't bred and raised to fight or guard, or attack people, certain breeds are more likely to become aggressive-- or rather, just Problematic.

If you put a Pit Bull or a Neapolitan Mastiff with a person who's only ever owned cats, or let's say... a Beagle, I'd say that there are potential problems there. You can put a Beagle or a Golden with just about anybody, and they'll turn out okay. A little rough during the teenage years, but we've all had our first or Childhood dogs. We know how it is.

However, if you put a high-energy, working, or driven dog like a Pit Bull, Doberman, or even a Border Collie, I'm sure problems will arise. Those people may just put those problems aside and ignore them, and they'll fester. Put the dog away in the backroom, then when it gets out, it goes nuts and hurts somebody in the commotion. Or since some need more socialization than others, and they don't receive it, then they turn "Dangerous." People want these High-maintenance breeds because they're Cool.

I think that breeds like that really do need more experienced owners, and that's why alot of them are like they are. That's what I've seen, and I think that's why we see more aggressive Rotties and Am Bulldogs in Shelters and on Death row than Beagles and Golden Retrievers.

And the other big thing is size, for sure. I'm sure there's a million more bites by small dogs than big dogs, but they sure do inflict less damage. But that's not the point. Pit Bulls are smaller than Saint Bernards, yet we see more "Pit Bull" bites than Saint Bernard Bites.

PArtially because fewer idiots own Saints, but you have a point. But the problem is not that there is anything innately psychoically aggressive about bullies, they are rather more aggressive, and so are many other breeds, many of which you don't see on BSL lists. The problem is owners. Many people get dogs they shouldn't because they are cool. Unfortunately, the reputation of bullies is such that the people who think they are cool are exactly the people who should under NOcircumstances own a powerful, tenacious, more aggressive than average dog. Often, they shouldn't own a dog at all, or even a goldfish. The thing is that bully owners, and the rest of us who oppose BSL have been cornered . . . conceed one of these breeds can be difficult and the BSL people will should 'TOLD YOU SO!'.

I'm convinced that the problem isn't the breed, its the owners. At times, the owners have the best of intentions (border collie owners come to mind) and are simply incompetant to deal with that breed or have a lifestyle that prohibits it. The solution, however, is not to ban border collies. And I can't think of any way to enforce a 'experienced dog owners' only rule for certain breeds except through the rescues (who unfortunately are oftne rather bad at it) and the breeders (who seem to be slightly better, if they are good responsible breeders). But honestly, I think that in most cases, people who have vicious dogs set themselves up for it one way or another, either by getting a dog from a dubious souce (which I can forgive people for, they often dont' know and mean well) or wanting a dog like that in the first place. Or wanting a dog that looks like that and somehow not realizing that you might want to TRAIN said dog . . . The vast majority of bullies, rotties, GSDs and Dobes I have met have been fine . .many have been wonderful . . . they were owned by responsible people who reseached the breed and trained their dogs. End of story.

There are a lot of ways to deal with the problem of BSL. Part of it is education of the public, including future dog owners who may discover that a rottie or a APBT is not for them (though, honestly, I don't think many people get these breeds who are truely ignorant . . . they either want a tough guy dog (not innately bad if they are responsible about it), or they love the breed for its own sake . . . its not poor ignorant soccer moms who suddenly discover that rotties and bullies can be problematic). Another way to deal with it is not only to fight BSL, but to fight the common enemy. And we do have a common enemy with the BSL people: its irresponsible owners who keep poorly bred, aggressively bred dogs that they can not and will not control. Its people who run puppy mills. Its dog fighters and people who keep their dogs in drug warehouses. Some BAL people hate dogs, but most are ignorant and fightened and trying to deal with a huge and complex problem in a simplistic and comforting way. Education helps, but getting rid of the problem helps too . . .

 

[Squishy22]

I want to point out that the huge problem comes from breeders as well as owners. Idiot people who think its cool to have a pit bull guard dog breed human aggression into these dogs. I have seen breeder websites that claim that their pit bulls are amazing guard dogs. YIKES. Thats a very bad thing. People who think they are cool are people that shouldnt own or breed these dogs. Pit bulls are more aggressive than most other breeds, but not towards people, they are aggressive towards other dogs. At least thats how its supposed to be.

PArtially because fewer idiots own Saints, but you have a point. But the problem is not that there is anything innately psychoically aggressive about bullies, they are rather more aggressive, and so are many other breeds, many of which you don't see on BSL lists. The problem is owners. Many people get dogs they shouldn't because they are cool. Unfortunately, the reputation of bullies is such that the people who think they are cool are exactly the people who should under NOcircumstances own a powerful, tenacious, more aggressive than average dog. Often, they shouldn't own a dog at all, or even a goldfish. The thing is that bully owners, and the rest of us who oppose BSL have been cornered . . . conceed one of these breeds can be difficult and the BSL people will should 'TOLD YOU SO!'.

 

[savethebulliedbreeds]

The one thing I am not getting here, is why some people are making dog bite incidences to be extremely common. Like dogs put people in HUGE danger.

The truth of the matter is quite the opposite. Your chances of being bitten by a dog are not all that great to begin with. Dogs pose only a small danger to humans.

They may seem very common because darn near everyone of them is reported by the media so you hear about them. And of course you are going to hear even more about so called pit bull attacks because of the fear that people have of these dogs. Not to mention, lots of reported "pit bull" attacks are not even involving "pit bulls".

How many vehicle accidents happen daily? How many people die in these car accidents daily? A massive amount. You just rarely hear about car accidents.

You have a greater chance of winning the lottery than being killed by a dog. You even have a greater chance of being struck by lightening than being killed by a dog.

It is not like every dog is going to rip a childs face off.

You also have to remember the fact that dogs are exactly that. Dogs. They are animals, not humans. They think differently than we do. Just because you think a dog should not have bitten, I can assure you that they felt that they needed to.

 

[Squishy22]

The one thing I am not getting here, is why some people are making dog bite incidences to be extremely common. Like dogs put people in HUGE danger.

The truth of the matter is quite the opposite. Your chances of being bitten by a dog are not all that great to begin with. Dogs pose only a small danger to humans.

They may seem very common because darn near everyone of them is reported by the media so you hear about them. And of course you are going to hear even more about so called pit bull attacks because of the fear that people have of these dogs. Not to mention, lots of reported "pit bull" attacks are not even involving "pit bulls".

How many vehicle accidents happen daily? How many people die in these car accidents daily? A massive amount. You just rarely hear about car accidents.

You have a greater chance of winning the lottery than being killed by a dog. You even have a greater chance of being struck by lightening than being killed by a dog.

It is not like every dog is going to rip a childs face off.

You also have to remember the fact that dogs are exactly that. Dogs. They are animals, not humans. They think differently than we do. Just because you think a dog should not have bitten, I can assure you that they felt that they needed to.

Good point. It confuses the heck out of me. There are other greater dangers to worry about. I worry more about getting into and driving a vehicle than being killed by a dog. In fact, I don't worry about being attacked by a dog at all!

 

[LuvsDogs]

In August, a Siberian Husky dog, maulled & killed a 2 week old baby in Perth Australia. I don't know all the details but from what I heard on the radio the dog had been sent to relatives when the baby was born for a week. I'm assuming that this dog was the couples "baby", wasn't desensitized to a new baby coming into its home. When I 1st heard it I felt very sick in the stomach. The dog was euthanized.

 

[Groch]

The one thing I am not getting here, is why some people are making dog bite incidences to be extremely common. Like dogs put people in HUGE danger........ The truth of the matter is quite the opposite. Your chances of being bitten by a dog are not all that great to begin with. Dogs pose only a small danger to humans......

These statements are not in line with the statistics that I have seen. While you are right that few people are killed in the U.S. by dogs each year (15-25 on average) over 4.7 million people are bitten each year of which 800,000 are serious enough to require emergency room care.

These statistics are from the government Centers for Disease Control as quoted on this insurance industry web site: http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/dogbite/

If you have better statistics, please let me know.

I think that ALL serious preventable injuries, whether caused by cars or dogs or whatever, should be accurately reported so that people can make rational judgments about them. We know that the media is not always accurate and they should be held to task for that. However, saying that serious dog injuries should be ignored (and you did not say that...others on this thread did) is just wrong.

 

[Tazwell]

Savedthebulliedbreeds, I love the new BSL piece in your Signature! Very nice

 

[ToscasMom]

First of all, insurance companies are heading in a direction whereby we all give them money and find we aren't covered for whatever it is that happened.They have lobbied so long and hard to reduce their liability for so many things, homeowner's insurance is approaching extortion. You pay us and we won't pay you. Expect their list of dogs to grow longer. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually do not insure any dogs at all. The insurance industy is a huge greedy lobby that pays out very nice donations to political campaigns.

I do want to make one distinction though, about comparing threats to lives. While it is true that dog bites pose a lesser threat statistically than say, slip and fall accidents, a slip and fall is just that: an accident. A dog bite is not considered an accident, it is considered an attack. Legally there can be a huge difference between the two. This is why insurers are able to get away with precluding certain breeds from coverage.

 

[LuvinBullies]

These statements are not in line with the statistics that I have seen. While you are right that few people are killed in the U.S. by dogs each year (15-25 on average) over 4.7 million people are bitten each year of which 800,000 are serious enough to require emergency room care.

These statistics are from the government Centers for Disease Control as quoted on this insurance industry web site: http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/dogbite/

If you have better statistics, please let me know.

I think that ALL serious preventable injuries, whether caused by cars or dogs or whatever, should be accurately reported so that people can make rational judgments about them. We know that the media is not always accurate and they should be held to task for that. However, saying that serious dog injuries should be ignored (and you did not say that...others on this thread did) is just wrong.

There are lies, **** lies, and the worst of all: statistics.

Statistics don't show a lot of relevant info. For instance:

Suppose a certain city has a dog population distributed as follows:

1,000,000 Pit Bulls
200,000 Golden Retreivers
100,000 Dalmations
50,000 Beagles
20,000 chihuahuas
10,000 mutts
5,000 Poodles
1,000 Labs.

In 2007 the number of reported dog bites in this city:

9 reported bites were from Pit Bulls
9 were from chihuahuas
5 were from Dalmations
5 were from Labs
4 were from Golden Retrievers
4 were from unidentified dogs (mutts)
2 were from Poodles
2 were from Beagles

Statistically, most of the bites are from Pit Bulls, however the ODDS of being bitten by a Pit Bull are only 9 out of 1,000,000. In the above example there is a much greater chance of being bitten by many of the other breeds. Or possibly winning the lottery. And believe me- talk to anyone in a shelter or in rescue or any APBT enthusiast- most cities have a much higher population of APBTs than any other breed.

 

[savethebulliedbreeds]

Groch, your statistics came from an insurance companies website. Enough said.

I have a ton of information about the two major dog bite studies that were done. Both of which were actually quite a joke. I will get that information for you after lunch.

 

[Lilavati]

Groch, your statistics came from an insurance companies website. Enough said.

I have a ton of information about the two major dog bite studies that were done. Both of which were actually quite a joke. I will get that information for you after lunch.

Well, those really are the CDC statistics, but I wonder how many of those trips to the emergency room are for a couple of stitches or a tetanus shot? Or just a hysterical parent? There are people who go to the emergency room for a cold, after all. Also, working from memory, with the population of dogs in the US, then, assuming none of those bites, serious or otherwise, are repeats by the same dog, then 7% of American dogs bite. Of course, most of the biters that I know are repeat offenders, so its probably lower than that.

 

[Groch]

Groch, your statistics came from an insurance companies website. Enough said......I have a ton of information about the two major dog bite studies that were done. Both of which were actually quite a joke. I will get that information for you after lunch.

The statistics quoted were from the Center for Disease Control, not the insurance industry. However, it does seem that nearly everyone who publishes statistics on this stuff has an axe to grind one way or the other.

f the CDC and insurance estimates are "a joke", then lets hear some accurate statistics from a reliable source. I would be sincerely interested.

Rational decisions on things like BSLs are very hard for the public to make if the studies have not been done, or if the data is faulty. The result is picking and choosing your data. Dogs kill very few people every year, but using the CDC data you are thousands of times more likely to get seriously hurt from a dog attack (800,000 a year) than a lightning strike (less than 400 a year).

It makes rational sense for people to be every bit as concerned about avoiding dog bites as it is to find shelter in a lightning storm. To pretend either one does not exist is foolish. To say that dog attacks should not be publicized is irresponsible (once again, you did not say that, others did).

 

[savethebulliedbreeds]

I will post the actual info tomorrow. I lent it to my mom to look over.

For now I will tell you what I remember

There were 2 major studies done. One recently (in the last 10 years) and one in the early 80's. The organization that did these studies said that there was a HUGE increase in dog bite incidents in the recent study from the one done in the 80's.

Problem right there. To state that is ridiculous. There may have been an increase but there are also A LOT more family dogs now then there was then.

Also these studies were not conducted in the same manner. The first one asked 1 person in a family if they had been bitten, did a small number of surveys etc. The second study was conducted on a larger basis, asked more people in the family, didn't ask questions like "was the bite serious enough to warren emergency care", and didn't ask if they were play bites or not. Just whether or not they had been bitten.

Then, since they can't survey anyone in the country, they took the figure they had for dog bite incidents (remember it didn't matter if the dog was playing or not), added the could haves, would haves and should haves of people that might have been bitten (they didn't know for sure) and came up with that 800,000 people that you talk about. This is used nation wide as the dog bite stats.

I can't remember exactly what it is called when they do that, but they can basically add ANY number to the total they have to come up with for their final number.

 

[DryCreek]

I will post the actual info tomorrow. I lent it to my mom to look over.

For now I will tell you what I remember

There were 2 major studies done. One recently (in the last 10 years) and one in the early 80's. The organization that did these studies said that there was a HUGE increase in dog bite incidents in the recent study from the one done in the 80's.

Problem right there. To state that is ridiculous. There may have been an increase but there are also A LOT more family dogs now then there was then.

Also these studies were not conducted in the same manner. The first one asked 1 person in a family if they had been bitten, did a small number of surveys etc. The second study was conducted on a larger basis, asked more people in the family, didn't ask questions like "was the bite serious enough to warren emergency care", and didn't ask if they were play bites or not. Just whether or not they had been bitten.

Then, since they can't survey anyone in the country, they took the figure they had for dog bite incidents (remember it didn't matter if the dog was playing or not), added the could haves, would haves and should haves of people that might have been bitten (they didn't know for sure) and came up with that 800,000 people that you talk about. This is used nation wide as the dog bite stats.

I can't remember exactly what it is called when they do that, but they can basically add ANY number to the total they have to come up with for their final number.

There are also a lot more family's now!

Accurate statistics require multitudes of data for cross referencing.

Human population density
Pet population density
Breed population density etc...

At this time, NONE of these stats are accurate. Not everyone registers their dogs and not everyone is counted in a census. It's less about the actual numbers and more about finding the percentages but without fully accurate data, it's impossible to do so.

Also, was the attack the cause of the hospital visit or was it the secondary infection that was the cause. Same as the DBRF stats. Was it the initial attack or was it a secondary cause. Where do you draw the line?

I recall one story where a girl was hit by a car trying to avoid a dog, yet the headlines read "attack injures girl".

I also strongly believe that a mixed breed dog should be listed as such. Who's to say which part of the mix brought instability to the dog in an incident?

Who identifies the breed for the hospitals records? The bite/attack victim?

There are always too many variables to rely upon statistics for being accurate.

savethebulliedbreeds, I always enjoy reading your posts! Keep up the good fight!

 

[savethebulliedbreeds]

savethebulliedbreeds, I always enjoy reading your posts! Keep up the good fight!

Aww, thanks DC. That means a lot to me. I love reading your posts as well. ALWAYS so much good information. I have posted your post in a number of different threads here in the last two days. Good job!!