Doesn’t the fact that there are enough attacking-pit-bull stories to bore you tell you something?

Not really. I'm quite sure someone could bore me with the gory details of every one of the 17,000 or so injuries and 30 fatalities caused by elevators and escalators every year, too.

You're making a common mistake.

Doesn’t the fact that there are enough attacking-pit-bull stories to bore you tell you something?

It tells me that you have nothing better to do than to dredge up more proof that the staff of The Stranger is frustratingly classist, and keen on focusing on issues of little relative importance.

How about this: next time a pit bull kills someone, we put down the owner.

Now THIS is news:

(Dauchshund mutilates genitals of sleeping child)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-dog_bite_bothnov06,0,657910.story

"...chewed through the child's dirty diaper"

"...dachshund owned by his father's girlfriend mutilated and ingested his genitals"

I always knew there was something wrong with those dogs.

tsm: We're comparing pit bulls and other dogs. Nobody's going to bore you with stories of basset hound attacks. Pit bulls are the deadliest dogs. Not a mistake.

In related Pitbull news, last night I was walking down Broadway with my out-of-town father, and we saw 5 pitbulls in the span of 6 blocks... so many that my father asked if the Pitbull was the unofficial dog of Seattle. HAW!

@2 How does this show classism ?

I'm sorry, can we all just take a moment to appreciate that the first stabbing happened in Otter Tail County? I think we need to respect that truth.

Stories of pit bulls attacking people remind me of religious leaders abusing children. The dogs get put down the priests get arrested and everyone thinks the problem is over. Then it happens again. Obviously these incidents are part of a larger problem that causes them in the first place that never seems to get addressed. We still have kids in the care of churches that believe they are morally perfect and aggressive dogs in the hands of some people that say they are great and gentle dogs. They are like mini time bombs ready to go off. We read the stories about them and then sit back wondering why it happens again, over and over until we are numb to the incidents and they become mundane news.
The church hides the actions of priests and the owners of the dogs insist the dogs are sweet and gentle. Maybe it is the churches and owners of dogs that need to be held accountable for the revolving door of abuse we constantly hear about. Maybe a complete overhaul of what churches are allowed to do instead of them hiding behind the morality ticket. Then overhaul dog licensing so you have to have proof of certified training for every dog from yapping fashion accessory to the sweet and gentle jaws of death Pit Bull.

Seattle doesn't have a lot of violent dogs, so maybe the reason locals are bored by it is because they just have no idea how scary it is to walk through neighborhoods where there are violent dogs. All it takes is one jackass owner forgetting to latch the gate to his front yard, and you've got an angry un-housebroken pit roaming the streets, ready to attack anyone on sight.

I'll take David's obsession with pancakes over the pit bulls.

More starch, less dogs!

"Doesn’t the fact that there are enough attacking-pit-bull stories to bore you tell you something?"

Yes. It reminds me that the plural of anecdote is not data.

Doesn’t the fact that there are enough attacking-pit-bull stories to bore you tell you something?

Yes, it tells me that the media spend too much time writing about pit bulls and not enough time writing about the 42,443 people killled annually in motor vehicle accidents in the US.

Thank you for bringing these stories to light. The only pitbull I trust is a dead one.

Oh my God, Pa! Grab the children and lock them in the cellar! The world is about to end! The pitbulls are attacking!

You people are fucking lame.

wouldn't you be angry too if somebody took you to the vet, chopped off your nuts, then took you home to a woman, a little brat who constantly pokes you, and a dude you constantly throws a stick and demands that you bring it back to him and when you do he throws it again and makes you go get it again? Then....they start making you wear hideous sweaters and sometimes a bow on your head....think about it.....

Every time you stab a pit bull, God waterboards Michael Vick with Chuck Norris' tears.

Whenever you stab a pitbull, unopened 24oz cans of Colt .45 fall out pinata style.

Every time a pitbull is stabbed, Eric Powers has to blow a Reggaeton artist.

@7: @2 How does this show classism ?

If you were to interview people off the street and ask what the associations people had with pit bulls, I'd consider it very unusual if there weren't clear associations between dogs and social class / ethnicity in their perceptions.

You can make the argument, of course, that a threat to public safety is a threat to public safety, regardless of the source. Still, the odds of being killed by *any* dog in one's lifetime are about 1 in 140,000 (2004). Compare that with being killed by lightning (1 in 82,000), bee sting (1 in 72,000), or a fall from a ladder (1 in 10,000).

Regardless of what you might think, there's a fundamental difference between the actual risk and the perception of risk here, and to me, this is primarily because of social status.

BMA and TSM: Well you both basically demolished Schmader's shitty argument, so I guess we can all go home now.

Mad props.

15. Go run through Inglewood or North Las Vegas and report back to us. I bet the thing that eventually kills you won't be the Crips, but it will shit on your face when it's done with you.

Gomez: I lived in North Las Vegas (near the North Town air terminal) and the rundown area of Las Vegas around the UNLV (near Flamingo and Maryland Pkwy)- lived in the Vegas valley for about 18 years. I never had a problem with a pit bull a day of my life, and I didn't live in the newly developed areas in North Town either. Saw lots of Pits, never had a problem with one. Of course, gang members never bothered me either. So yeah, on some level, a lot of Seattleites are a little on the NIMBY/yuppie side of things, the kind of people someone living on Martin Luther King and Owens would probably call, with admitted exaggerated machismo, pussies. There is a kind of fear of minorities, poor people, and the dogs they own in this town. That's not even intended as a knock; it's just a fact.

You sound like you're full of shit.

JUST KIDDING. Where were your cross streets?

Jay, TSM and BMA--Thank you.

I live in a minority neighborhood where there are pitbulls in almost every house--including mine. People (like Gomez) need to get over themselves. We dont' have a problem with Crips or pitbulls. The problem we have is people coming into our neighborhood looking to buy drugs. Thank G-d the pitbulls scare them away.