I, however, would like to give the deceased dog credit for eating the kitten.

was it a gunpowder nail gun or an electric?

Dingos ate my baby!

Nothing beats an oven. Throw it in the oven. Turn on the oven light. Pull up a chair. Watch.

I suppose when it becomes unacceptable to fantasize about hurting women or gays or minorities the only thing left is to dream of hurting animals. If you're the type of person with a need to brag about being violent.

Read the follow up story, the owner and sister of the victim, insists that it was a sweet dog and never hurt anyone. Incredibly she goes on to say that what it did to her sister doesn't change the way she feels about the dog!

Then read the comments after the story, they're very much like what the comments will be here! Its incredible! Although we got the anti cat comment at #1 while it took the Australians a little bit.

oh, and as a side note, the dog previously ate a kitten.

so sad.

are there any other dogs biting people? i got bit on the thigh by a shiba inu mix back in the 70's. 2" from the family jewels.

OK, but what's a tradie???

@#9 I was GOING to say something like, "dude this is the internet" and link you to a description.... but I couldnt find one.

So yeah, what is a tradie?

Apparently someone who works with a nail gun. Just guessing.

someone of "the trade"?

@9 and 10...i think a tradie is short for a tradeworker

Tradie would be someone who works in the "trades". As in tradesmen or tradeswomen.... er, tradesperson. You know those blue collar types that build shit or fix shit.

That's so generic. I was hoping for something more complex. Like, "specifically someone who shoots dogs with nail guns". Or something.

These pitbulls should be boiled alive stories are not helpful. They are an animal that requires special training and care, and and are no more evil than a lion or tiger. If you really want to make the streets safer, calling them bloothirsty demon dogs just makes you look like an extremist, and will make people dismiss the parts of your argument that are valid.

These pitbulls should be boiled alive stories are not helpful. They are an animal that requires special training and care, and and are no more evil than a lion or tiger. If you really want to make the streets safer, calling them bloodthirsty demon dogs just makes you look like an extremist, and will make people dismiss the parts of your argument that are valid.

Dan - harping on and on about pitbulls is really boring. Why don't you start doing a slog post every time there's a media report about someone being killed or injured by a motor vehicle? Oh, what's that? maimings and killings by motor vehicles are far too common and so rarely make the news? Ok, let's focus on a specific breed of dog then, which poses such a threat to our way of life that fully 0.00000000001% of the population is liable to be injured by one during their lifetime.

And #1 - bang on. Maybe the thing to do with pitbulls is retrain them to eat cats.

elenchos @5 has a rhetorical slam-dunk, but it depends on a sleight-of-hand.

Fantasizing about hurting women or gays or minorities because they are women or gays or minorities is not the same as fantasizing about hurting the Ghanian next door who likes to practice drumming at 2 am, or the depressed gay guy 2 apartments over whose cats make the entire floor reek of urine, or the woman on the corner, say, whose pit bull ate your kitten.

Both are ways of releasing anger in a relatively benign way (compared to, say, actual violence), but one is unacceptable because it's a manifestation of destructive bigotry.

Likewise, voicing a violent fantasy in order to let it go is not the same as "need[ing] to brag about being violent."

1) I'd like to see a picture of the dog. Nowadays, any dog that attacks anyone is a "pit bull".

2) "Pit bulls" and all the breeds that are commonly called "pit bulls" (American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Bull Terrier) are (TA DAAA) TERRIERS. Terriers kill small animals. I wouldn't look at it as a reflection on the dog's potential for violence towards people. I mean, cats kill mice, but nobody regards that as evidence of particular bloodthirstiness. Frankly, I'd never leave a Jack Russell Terrier near a kitten either.

3) I don't think bull breeds are (mostly) inherently violent and bad breeds, but often THEY'RE BRED AND SOCIALIZED TO BE and they're owned by people who cannot handle them.

- Charming pet.

- Jaws don't "lock"

- Can be boiled and eaten.

- Intelligent.

http://www.bethestaryouare.org/merlot,%20potbelly%20pig.jpg

Please, sing along:

Don't you worry bout a pig.
Dont' you worry bout a pig.
Because a pig's as smart as a three year old.
Ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh.

@16/17 ha! you hit the nail on the head of the pitbull!

and and are no more evil than a lion or tiger i think that's the point... no one keeps lions or tigers as domestic pets. or should.

You can pick out cases about any animal in the news across THE ENTIRE WORLD everyday to make that breed look bad. The simple fact that the story uses words like bloodthirsty and savaged should show you that these pitbull news stories are less news and more sensationalism.

gunpowder or electric!

Oh, BA, you bloodthirsty savage!

for all you who think pitbull owners are unfairly persecuted... i'm looking

@8
@16
@18
@20
@32

i'm going to post this link every time this comes up:

http://www.dogbitelaw.com/Dog%20Attacks%201982%20to%202006%20Clifton.pdf

animal experts can identify a pitbull. sometimes because of the owners, and sometimes not, pitbulls are dangerous and provide little good that cannot be attained with a different breed of dog. furthermore, comparing dogs to cars in most cases is silly -- i hope i don't have to say why.

@32 should be @23. unless @32 has something to add... well?

You know Dan, I'm done.

I've been a dedicated reader for years, bought your books, recommended your work to strangers, and generally thought you were the greatest. But you're completely wrong on the Pit Bull issue, as many readers are pointing out.

I can't change your attitude, but what I am going to do is stop. Stop reading your column, stop reading Slog, and unsubscribe from your podcast. And I'll be sure to tell other people to do the same.

In recent posts, you have crossed the line to encouraging cruelty to these animals, and it's disgusting. Attitudes like yours are what encourages people to mistreat pit bulls in the first place, and I am done with you.

Poecile @28 has really hit Dan where it hurts.  We all know how much he frets about offending people and losing readers.

Surely, he owes much of success to his determined effort to never alienate any possible audience.

@26. Animal experts my #$%^@. Seriously... Nothing in that article indicated that the dog had been examined by a "dog expert", whatever that is (betcha money I'd qualify). I can tell you that for insurance purposes, all the bull breeds are lumped in to one. And if I showed you a pedigreed American Staffordshire Terrier and an American Pit Bull terrier, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference (actually, there really isn't any). If I showed you a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, you'd think it was a pitbull (and Staffy Bulls are famously non-aggressive). IF I showed you a boxer mix, you'd probably think it was a pit bull. Labrador retriever mixes often look like pit bulls, as do rottie mixes (Rotties, BTW, from what I read have been responsible for half the dog-bite-related deaths in this country, though I've never seen Dan post about THAT).

You don't have to say why comparing cats to dogs is silly? Wellll, I think you should...

I used to volunteer at a shelter, and I was never bitten by a dog. I was, however, bitten by a cat. I had to go to the emergency room, where they cleaned the bite with saline for 1/2 hour and made me wear a brace on my arm for 10 days. And I still have the scars. Cat bites are DANGEROUS because they are punctures and don't bleed much. One person at the shelter who got bitten by a cat ended up in the hospital on IV antibiotics. Sure, cats won't generally get a chance to savage you (they aren't big enough) but on the whole I'd rather be bitten by a small dog than a cat.

I don't think pitbull owners are unfairly persecuted. I think a lot of them get the dogs and MAKE them unstable, or get unstable dogs to begin with. But plenty of other breeds and mixed breeds bite people too (I read a story about a 4-pound Pomeranian killing a 6-week-old infant).

I have Shelties, BTW--no stake in this whatsoever.

@1: And I give you credit for being an **shole. Now please kill yourself.

Owes much of hissuccess.

Omitted words are the bane of my existence.  -_-;

@28. People who have pitbulls have them because they like them, other people not liking them is unlikely to make an owner of a pitbull mistreat it. Leave slog, stop reading Dan for any reason you like but apply some logic. Do you mistreat pitbulls because other people don't like them? Do you even think about doing it? thought not.

#28, I've boiled about 40 pit bulls alive and fed them to their idiot owners since Dan started encouraging this. Are you saying I should stop???

Or are you referring to Dan encouraging people to shoot pit bulls with nail guns when they try to kill teenage girls? I haven't done that yet but yes that is very cruel.

@31

Lighten the fuck up. Who honestly wants kittens to be eaten by a dog?

Jesus Christ.

Yes, but did he empty his clip and reload, or just empty his clip?

I would have reloaded. Twice.

One more thing:

http://www.nbc5.com/news/4734947/detail.html?rss=chi&psp=nationalnews


This is a story about stray dogs killing some zoo birds. The dog that was captured was identified as a "male Pit Bull". In the pictures that accompany the article, the dog is (to my dog-expert eyes, and to the eyes of other people who know dogs) a smooth-coated border collie.

Poecile, until your "moral high ground" starts cutting into Dan's $30,000-a-night honorariums, I seriously doubt that he'll notice.

Nora @37, congratulations, you found a single example from 2 years ago of local TV news misattributing an attack to a pit bull.

I don't know if you read the report linked by infrequent @26, but it cites 1182 attacks by pit bulls and their mixes, more than double the second-place Rottweiler and two orders of magnitude greater than any other breed in the report.

I'm no dog expert, but the authors seem pretty meticulous about correctly identifying the breeds in each attack.

@37 There are no pictures of the other 4 dogs involved so I guess we actually don't know one way or the other. Why did the collie survive? Perhaps it turned state's evidence. Maybe it was actually a K-9 parol undercover operative infiltrating bad dog packs. We need more info to make a declaration.

@26:

you misunderstand my comment. so sad FOR EVERYONE & EVERYTHING INVOLVED. so sad that the women got mauled. so sad that the dog was not properly socialized so that it would not attack humans & had to die that in that horrible, painful way. so sad that the tradie had to kill a dog with a nail gun. i bet he feels like shit, not like a hero.

Look up the methodology on that report. It's STRICTLY by media reports of dog bites. Which are often wrong about breed. And what's the current scare, so what tends to get picked up by the media? Pit bulls!

The report is full of errors/indications of self-reporting/just plain howlers. For instance, Australian Cattle dogs/Australian blue heeler/Blue heelers are essentially the same breed. What's a "Buff Mastiff"? (hint: they don't exist). Same for that famous breed, the "East Highland Terrier". And what about the note/explanation under Doberman? "One miniature pinscher apparently joined two Pit Bull terriers in attacking a child". A min pin isn't a Doberman--completely different breed.

And then there's this, which is utter and complete bull:

German shepherds are herding dogs, bred for generations to guide and protect sheep. In modern society, they are among the dogs of choice for families with small children, because of their extremely strong protective
instinct. They have three distinctively different kinds of bite: the guiding nip, which is gentle and does not break the skin; the grab-and-drag, to pull a puppy or lamb or child away from danger, which is as gentle as emergency circumstances allow; and the reactive bite, usually in defense of territory, a child, or someone else the dog is inclined to guard. The reactive bite usually comes only after many warning barks,
growls, and other exhibitions intended to avert a conflict. When it does
come, it is typically accompanied by a frontal leap for the wrist or
throat.

I'm sure the writer loves GSDs very much, but they aren't any more likely to make that kind of bite distinction than any other dog.

@40 ha!

@30.

1) there are animal experts out there -- that report was generated by one. your argument would seem to say we cannot use my statistics in this argument, but we can use your personal testimony. but your refutation of my statistics says nothing about the stats i provided, and provides no counter proof as to how many pitbulls are misidentified. i offer proof, and you offer personal stories to say my proof cannot be considered.

2) yes *i* cannot identify a pitbull. what does that mean? i cannot identify a brain tumor either. trying to use me as an example proves nothing.

3) perhaps you missed that i said comparing dogs to cars was silly. i said nothing about cats. comparing dogs with cars is silly, but was done earlier in this thread.

4) comparing one type of pet to another is more acceptable. to follow your logic, and your question, would you rather be bitten by a pitbull than a cat? how many people end up in the hospital or dead as a result of cat bites compared to pit bull bites? i doubt you will get much traction here (or anywhere) if your argument is that cats are as dangerous if not more dangerous than pitbulls.

5) now certain "large cats" are more dangerous than dogs. take the lion. and that is one member of the felidae family that you cannot have as a pet. maybe because it can be dangerous? yet some in captivity are trained, and get along well with the people they interact with.

6) i said pitbull owners, because the dogs themselves are not persecuted against, per se. i don't care which came first, the bad pitbull or the bad pitbull owner. when pitbulls are trained to fight it is a problem. but even when they are not specifically trained, they are still a problem. there is enough of a problem because of pitbulls that, in the world of pets, there is cause for concern.

@42:

...compiled by the editor of "animal people" from press accounts, this table covers only attacks by dogs of clearly identified breed type of ancestry, as designated by animal control officers or other with evident expertise...

Oh, fuck it. Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.

I'd like to know why the dog wasn't put down after it ate a kitten.

Idiot pit bull owners should be fed alive to their pit bulls.

#44 You just proved my point. It's PRESS ACCOUNTS. Not every incident gets picked up by the press. BTW, animal control officers are in NO WAY people with "expertise" about dog breeds. Having interacted with enough of them working at shelters, I can tell you this. Not that they're in any way bad people either. They just DON'T KNOW, just as most of us don't. The article says "only attacks by dogs of clearly identified breed type of(sic) ancestry" but I'd like to see an "East Highland Terrier"...

AKC has a program called the ILP program, which allows dogs of identifiable breed but unknown ancestry to be registered so that they can compete in Obedience and Agility trials. I've ILP'd a couple of dogs myself. You have to send in a few photos of the dog, and tell them why you think it is a *insert breed here* (the dog has to be neutered, BTW). Since I'm involved in Agility, I know a lot of ILP'd dogs and I can tell you (for instance):


2 siblings of mixed parentage--1 dog got ILP'd as a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, the other as a Lhasa Apso. (the first dog really looked like a Cavalier, the second not so much like a Lhasa)


A beagle mix ILP'd as a wirehaired dachshund.


A whippet/jack russell terrier cross ILP'd as a Jack Russell.


A Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix ILP'd as a Border Collie


TONS of German Shepherd-ish dogs ILP'd as German Shepherds. (BTW, at the shelter I volunteered at "Shepherd mix" was code for "we have no freakin' clue".


Now AKC actually DOES have dog experts (as in people with in-depth experience with a wide variety of breeds). And even THEY can't tell.

And #43, sorry about the car/cat thing. You will notice, though, I said *small* dog. I don't want to be savaged by a pit bull any more than anyone else, and I think they are not dogs for inexperienced owners. Unfortunately a lot of people want them for the wrong reasons. I just don't think the breed itself is the problem.

i can't let two of your arguments stand. this is, after all, the internet.

1) i didn't prove your point. it said press where the breed was certain. where the breed was certain. that means, when the breed was not certain, the statistic was not included. i'd say in most cases the breed was identified correctly. by the animal control officer (who does know more than i do), or by, i don't know, maybe the owner? the owner just might know.

you cannot dismiss these reports because some people cannot identify breeds -- nothing without providing some bit of hard evidence to support that the vast majority of animal control officers and pitbull owners cannot correct identify the breed of the pet in question.

2) you are the one who wants to compare dogs and cats in a discussion about pitbulls. so you write how dangerous cat bites are, and that you'd rather be bitten by a small dog. what's does that have to do with pitbulls then?

no one is pointing out the dangers of small dogs. we are talking about pit bulls. in fact, we are talking about how pitbulls are different from other pets, such as small dogs. (though i'm not an expert, i'm guessing pitbulls are not small dogs.)

so, what do we learn when we compare dogs and cats, according to you: that some dogs are not as bad as cats which are not as bad a large dogs, when it comes to biting. and when comparing dogs and cats, pitbulls bites are worse than cat bites.

Nora, you're being delibrately obtuse. If you say that "I think they are not dogs for inexperienced owners." then you are agreeing with what most people here are saying - these dogs that are known as "pit bulls" are more dangerous than others and should not be owned by most people.

Let's face it, the primary reason for letting a dog compete in an agility test is to get the entry fee which would not be possible if they didn't assign it some breed. Let's not hold this up as some example of scientific expertise.

Nora @47:

I just don't think the breed itself is the problem.

So, we agree that there's a problem.  (Namely, people are winding up in ERs and sometimes morgues from dog attacks.)  Do we want to spend our energy making sure everyone agrees that it's not the dogs' fault?  Or shall we focus more on fixing the problem?

You argue that the cluelessness of animal control officers about breed and selective media reporting make the report cited by infrequent @26 basically meaningless.  For the sake of argument, let's give you the benefit of the doubt on your generalization about ACO competence from anecdote and your dismissal of the report's checks for data reliability.  Let's also dismiss Rottweilers, on the presumption that they suffer from similarly biased reporting, and German Shepard mixes since that's apparently code for unidentifiable mutt.  Heck let's even toss all the Pit Bull mixes.

The next-most-reported attackers are wolf hybrids, with 71 reported attacks.  Pit Bull Terriers have 1110.

For the Pit Bull Terrier to be even the second-most frequent attacker (after friggin' wolf hybrids!), false reports of Pit Bull attacks would have to outnumber correct reports by nearly 15 to 1.

Do you really think that everyone is so unable to tell a Pit Bull from a Poodle that such a ratio is even remotely plausible?

Once again, #48--

You say the breed is identified--but there's no "East Highland Terrier". There's no "Buff Mastiff". Both of those breeds are listed in that report. Apparently also a Miniature Pinscher is misidentified as a Doberman (big difference). There's a bullshit discourse on the types of bites that German Shepherds engage in. The report is very, very sloppy.

There's a fairly good discussion of the report here, citing some of the same misinformation I noticed when I looked at the report:

http://lassiegethelp.blogspot.com/2007/08/dangerous-breeds-dog-bite-statistics.html

Here's a site they link to with information from the AVMA, CDC, etc.

http://dogbitesinformationandstatistics.blogspot.com/

Let's face it, the primary reason for letting a dog compete in an agility test is to get the entry fee which would not be possible if they didn't assign it some breed. Let's not hold this up as some example of scientific expertise.

Don't hold the animal control officers up as scientific experts either. The AKC has much more experience in properly identifying a breed than your average animal control officer. And I know ILP attempts that have been rejected too. All I was pointing out was that it's HARD TO TELL what breed a dog really is. (as a sidenote, AKC doesn't get much of their money from Agility and Obedience--Conformation is where the money's at, and obviously, ILP'd dogs cannot compete there)

Do I think a "pit bull" is more likely to be dangerous? Not necessarily. I DO think that a "pit bull" OWNER is more likely to be dangerous, by which I mean someone who wants a tough dog and encourages it to be tough. Also, because the dogs were bred to fight, they (and other terriers) were bred for gameness--they were bred to work through pain rather than to retreat or quit.

So yeah, I think they're not good for people who don't understand or know how to handle them--but that goes for nearly any big, strong dog, and a lot of the littler ones too. I know people with Jack Russells who would NEVER, under any circumstances recommend them to families with children--they say the dogs are just too reactive and unpredictable.

@51: as 49 and 50 point out, even you recognize there is a "problem". why are you arguing against the stats while acknowledging there is a problem? if there is a problem it should be in the stats. if the stats are wrong, then there is not a problem.

isn't the problem that this breed isn't for the inexperienced? that is a difficult breed? and that some owners intentionally train pitbulls to fight?

if that is all true, then shouldn't there be extra measures to make sure owners of problem breeds (however you choose to define them) are qualified? so that even well-meaning but inexperienced pet owners don't perpetuate the problem?

I don't know how many of you have used a nail gun for a living before, but felling a pitbull with one would be quite a feat even for an experienced carpenter.

You'd actually have to manually hold the safety in and shoot the nails between your fingers, which don't always fly straight. Poor thing must've looked like a pin cushion before it quite.

Not if you give the pit a quick bop on the forehead with it as you pull the trigger...

this isn't about using a nail gun for a living...
this is about using a nail gun for a killing.

Dan, I adore you but you really need to shut up about the pit bulls already.

Seriously.