pet connection

Update: Luisa has a good collection of commentary on the Vick case over on her Lassie Get Help blog. Saves my blood pressure from shooting up while reading any that apologize for dog-fighting by arguing that it’s “just like hunting” or that the Vick charges were racially motivated. (Apparently not noticing that some of the biggest dog-fighting busts in recent years have been old-time Cajun dog-fighters in Louisiana.)

I thank you and my blood pressure thanks you. Now … I’ve been thinking a lot about pit bulls lately, because of Michael Vick, of course, but also because of constant parade of stories of abuse of these dogs  – both organized like dog-fighting, or just “casual” cruelty. A couple years back I wrote my newspaper column about how this one kind of dog, with his smiling hammy face, attracts such strong emotions and so much abuse.

The latter because of criminals like Michael Vick, and the chuckleheads who want to be like him. The former because … well, of people like Michael Vick, who help to perpetuate the idea that to be a pit bull — any pit bill, all pit bulls, anything that vaguely looks like a pit bull — is to be an indescriminate killing machine.

Here’s the piece, from a couple years ago. And the dog pictured above is (was?) named Panda. My local SPCA euthanizes most pit bull and pit mixes, because like many urban shelters they have many more pits and pit mixes than people who want them. The ones they do put on the adoption floor are fantastic dogs, but many of them never get a chance to prove it. I don’t know if Panda got his forever home, or his forever sleep.

So it is to be a pit bull today. From the column archives:

Sometimes I think having no pit bulls wouldn’t be that bad a thing, but not for the reasons you might imagine.

If pit bulls weren’t around, they couldn’t be beaten. Starved. Left chained outside with little protection from the elements. Subjected to ear croppings with scissors and no pain relief. Made to bear puppies with next to no food. And finally, if pit bulls weren’t around, they couldn’t be tossed dead (or nearly so) into a vacant lot when they come up on the losing side of a dogfight.

For every headline-grabbing attack by a pit bull, there are countless cruelties inflicted on these dogs by the criminal element attracted to them. As a person recently noted on a dog-related Web log: “It’s amazing how many other kinds of dogs in the best homes bite. It’s amazing how many pit bulls in the worst homes don’t.”

But those who do … Oh, what fear and anger they cause. It’s no surprise, given the horror of recent attacks, that the call to eliminate pit bulls has never been louder. But that call remains the wrong one: Breed-specific legislation is not the answer to the problem of dangerous dogs.

It doesn’t help much to argue that the odds of an attack by a pit bull are so low as to be insignificant compared to life’s other risks, not in the face of saturation media coverage of every such attack. It doesn’t help much to argue that a well-bred and properly raised pit bull can be a better companion than many other popular breeds, based on temperament-testing statistics that show these dogs to be stable and calm. It doesn’t help much to argue that many of the pit bulls who are being seized and killed in places like Denver are family pets who have never shown a reason for concern — and never would have.

So let’s try this: If you want to be protected against a dog attack, banning the pit bull isn’t going to accomplish that goal. That’s because every large breed or mix you can think of, and many small ones you can’t imagine, have been involved in attacks on humans.

You cannot predict the likelihood of an attack by the type of dog, but you can see clear trends based on other criteria. Poorly bred, unsocialized, unneutered and untrained dogs are most often involved in attacks. If you want to prevent those attacks, you need to address those root causes. All dogs, not just pit bulls, need to be the focus of legislative, societal and educational efforts geared toward removing the contributing factors behind most every dog attack.

We need to make it harder for people to casually breed and quickly sell dogs, and we need to make it easier — even free – to have animals neutered. We need to recognize that dogfighting is as much of a danger to our communities as it is to the animals participating in this illegal but popular blood sport. We need to outlaw keeping dogs on chains, a cruel practice that leaves animals feeling isolated, territorial and more likely to attack.

And even as we need to crack down on irresponsible and criminal dog owners, we need to help those people who want to do right. We need to educate prospective dog owners on responsible care, training and socializing, so that they may raise dogs who are not dangerous.

And yes, we need to establish zero tolerance for all dangerous dogs, with no second chances: If a dog attacks someone, that animal needs to be put down. If a dog is a neighborhood menace, that animal needs to be put down.

We need to stop looking for scapegoats in the face of every pit bull, and look to addressing the human reasons behind the problem of dangerous dogs.

For then and only then can we hope to be safer around not only the pit bull, but also all dogs. And maybe then the pit bull will be safer around us.

Want more? Check out Salon, where author Ken Foster argues that pit bulls are not criminals.