This week, police responded to the screams of a pit bull owner from inside his home. Officers found him on the ground, his pit bull clamped onto his arm. When the dog was Tasered, it simply ran to another part of the house, but was captured. The 47-year-old man was hospitalized in serious condition. He has requested that his dog be put down. (Click here to read the article.)
We refer to the dog as "man's best friend." But again and again we learn about pit bulls that maul and kill their owners and, more often, their owners' children. What kind of best friend is this? Are we to believe that all of these pit bull owners, whose dogs maim them and their kids, are simply bad people? To the other extreme, are we to assume that all of these particular pit bulls were anomalies -- defective freaks of their breed which should not reflect on or tarnish the reputation of the breed as a whole? Or, as some believe, are all of these news accounts made up by evil journalists who hate dogs?
Those are the three positions that I hear most often. The debate will rage on until a scientific study establishes what, if anything, is wrong with the pit bull. Until that happens, my opinion will be that the dog was hard-wired for violence against other dogs, and additionally has some type of mental defect that causes this violent trait to focus on other living things in a random manner.
And one more thing: love them or hate them, pit bulls were responsible for two-thirds of all fatal dog attacks in the USA last year, and only one U.S. citizen over the age of 3 was killed by a breed other than a pit bull.
We refer to the dog as "man's best friend." But again and again we learn about pit bulls that maul and kill their owners and, more often, their owners' children. What kind of best friend is this? Are we to believe that all of these pit bull owners, whose dogs maim them and their kids, are simply bad people? To the other extreme, are we to assume that all of these particular pit bulls were anomalies -- defective freaks of their breed which should not reflect on or tarnish the reputation of the breed as a whole? Or, as some believe, are all of these news accounts made up by evil journalists who hate dogs?
Those are the three positions that I hear most often. The debate will rage on until a scientific study establishes what, if anything, is wrong with the pit bull. Until that happens, my opinion will be that the dog was hard-wired for violence against other dogs, and additionally has some type of mental defect that causes this violent trait to focus on other living things in a random manner.
And one more thing: love them or hate them, pit bulls were responsible for two-thirds of all fatal dog attacks in the USA last year, and only one U.S. citizen over the age of 3 was killed by a breed other than a pit bull.
