Comments on There Are No Bad Dogs

Je. Sus. Christ.

From the racket she was making I thought she was being mauled...

It took awhile of watching through the screaming to figure out what was going on...but holy shit.

Meow.

Not now.

Oh come on. The cat is the dog's mortal enemy. The cartoons tell us so.

she should have hit the dog with a stick

This two minute Youtube video is all the proof I need to determine that the dog has never been mistreated or abused in its entire life!

There is no context to this video. Some dogs know CPR.

What do most people eat?

If you're an American, your answer will be different than someone who realizes most people eat rice.

With all things YouTube blocked at work, I thought the comments might provide a clue to what is in the video. Not so much, but I'm thinking that may be a good thing.

#7: Who cares if the dog was mistreated? Try telling that to the mom of a 4 year old randomly mauled to death by a pitbull. "Don't worry, it wasn't the dog's fault it bit your child to death -- it was just mistreated!"

Christ. I'm going to pet my cat right now.

Dan, I love you. Really. But here you go, comparing a situation with a cat to a situation with a human, making sweeping generalizations (about all dogs, but about all aspects of this one dog's life), etc. A dog ate a cat and the owner freaked out. That's all the video shows.
I don't like pitbulls (or dogs in general). I think it's probably a good idea to ban pitbulls. But the way you go about arguing the point seems to be counterproductive.

1. That video went on an awfully long time before we actually could see what was going on.

2. What WAS going on? It could just as easily have been the dog sniffing a dead cat as mauling it. Seriously. There appeared to be very little blood. Also, the dog is on a leash and the cat is not--so how exactly did the dog get hold of the cat (if it was indeed alive)?

3. What country was this from?

4. Dog could be a pit bull. It could also be some type of mastiff, or one of the South American breeds. Could be a lab or lab mix too.

5. Many, many breeds of dogs will catch and kill things. And eat them (or not). Just like many, many cats will. And many, many birds of prey (I know puppies and small dogs that were killed that way.)

Typical female to stand and scream like a girl while the animal kills some cat or smaller dog or what ever it was. And she did NOT even pull hard on the leash. Of course her "little fluffy" would NEVER hurt anything.

God speed, little kitty cat.

@10: The point in determining whether an attacking dog was mistreated is not to excuse its behavior, but rather to point out how irrational attitudes about entire breeds of dogs based on the behavior of cherry-picked cases are completely asinine. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

My guess is it's either a pit or bullmastiff?

(I worked at a boarding kennel for years...)

I am reminded of the time my Cocker Spaniel picked up a dead squirrel while walking on leash with me, and carried it half a mile. I couldn't get it away from him. We only got it away from him by distracting him when we got home. I don't know if the dog killed this cat, or it was just dead, but if my dog killed a cat, he wouldn't live another day. Cockers are bred to retrieve, and that's what my dog did. Didn't make me happy as 400 tourist drove by me and a dog with a squirrel in it's mouth. And yes, I tried to get it out of his mouth, but he had what is called in hunting circles a "hard mouth."

The breed of dog is Canis Overweightus, and that woman should be put down. Also, I have personally seen that kitties often have a death wish - taunting dogs with great glee. That poor kitty paid for the taunting sins of its brethren.

I don't have the sound on at work, and based on the video alone I would never guess there's any screaming. yes, the dog owner is incredibly nonchalant-acting. Plus she's on her cell phone while yanking the dog's leash in irriatation. I'm rather surprised that Dan would have posted this, because to me it completely supports the "bad owners not bad dogs" side of the argument.

BTW, the dog looks almost as lackadaisical as the owner. Not like it's just caught and killed a cat while on its leash. I also wonder if it found a dead or maybe injured cat, because if the dog just killed it, there would be noticeable blood on all that snow, and the dog would be behaving much differently. I'd like to think the owner would be too...

Dan, how is it that you can correctly identify the silliness of the annual media-induced panic about shark attacks, and not see how the logic might apply to your own pit bull crusade? Last I checked, more people were injured every year by escalators or elevators than pit bulls. Elevators: the vertically mobile menace!

cochise @8. Think Will in Seattle will notice?

If a cat like that could get caught by a dog, a dog on a leash, no less, then it probably needed to be out of the gene pool anyhow.

What the fuck was that, footage of the Blair Witch? That was the crappiest animal attack video I've ever seen.

Dogs are more destructive to the social fabric of cities than heroin, cocaine and alcohol combined. They basically allow shut-ins and antisocial closet fascists to enjoy a prosthetic social interaction, devoid of any societally meaningful interpersonal context. Why form a friendship with the people on your block -- and thereby come to understand and sympathize with their hopes and concerns -- when you can get unqualified love from what amounts to an inflatable friend.

An inflatable friend that may, for reasons that only an inflatable friend can understand, suddenly flip out and kill a small child.

#18

Don't know which is worse - your dog carrying the dead squirrel in public. Or mine bringing the carcass to me in the house. (Through the dog door.)

At least Chance carried it outside again when I insisted. He stayed with it for half the day under the deck. I think probably my cat was the killer, and the dog just took over afterwards.

I suspect that cat was already dead - and frozen. The woman's reaction was insane. Maybe she was just yelling in the phone instead of at her dog?

I still think banning any particular BREED is wrong. But going after any particular dog who threatens people or other animals is fine by me.

Chance is a little Sheltie wimp and I've almost run over other dogs with my wheelchair when he's been threatened.

#24

Sorry you have such negative feelings about dogs. Yes - I freely admit I enjoy the unqualified love they give me. And dorky as it may be, I return the favor.

My first dogs were my *hobby*. I trained and showed them in obedience competitions. Lots of meaningful social interactions with fellow dog lovers.

Now that I'm disabled, my dogs are still my companions. But they're also trained as my 'service animals'. Without them, I wouldn't be able to go out among people.

So, yes - they are very important in my life. And I love them.

This kind of thing is just one reason I carry a very large knife everywhere I go. If your precious pooch comes after one of my kids, I will carve that fucker up.

This is retarded. The audio seems to either be coming from inside the apartment or was dubbed in afterward. It sure seems unrelated. There's no sign of a fight—cats can defend themselves against dogs—and if the dog had killed the cat, this dog would not have walked away from it so easily. The dog would have likely carried it for a while; it's what prey-drive dogs do by instinct. They want to carry the kill back to the den, where it's safe, to gut and eat it.

If you find yourself in a situation where your animal has another animal in its mouth or the reverse, sticking your finger up its butt to startle it will get it to release the prey. Never tried it but I would if some dog had mine in its jowls.

Your obsession with pit bulls is becoming like the Christian right's obsession with gays, Dan. Are you secretly a pit bull breeder?

Oh come on, a dog doesn't have to be mistreated to attack something.

There are no bad dogs. I agree with this.

There is only the bad practice of applying human ethics to an animal capable of ripping your face off for no discernible reason.

You can't fault a dog with attacking a cat as much as i feel for that cat. You can fault a person for not stopping their dog though. If you want to own a breed that has a stigma attached you have to be ready to accept the consequences for all of that pets actions. Its your job to control it and no one else's, and your job to stand in and take any punishment for the dogs actions.

Fuck cats.

Best way to stop a dog fight/attack? Water. Don't hit them, don't pull them, don't yell at them, just pour water, or beer or any liquid you have nearby, on them. It breaks their concentration and makes it hard for them to breathe, so they retreat. If you yell or hit or pull it just intensifies the altercation and they'll fight harder. People should be required to learn about dogs before owning one (or writing slanderous posts about them).

this whole video seems a bit off, especially the audio. i think the dim wit who filmed it missed the actual murder going on behind him because he was so focused on some retard and her dead cat sniffing dog.
@24 your a weird person.

@18/25 -- Our family beagle once brought us the gift of a baby possum that was, as my mom discovered when she tried to dispose of it, only half-dead. Peaches could not have been prouder.

@20 -- I agree, the dog seems relatively bored with the cat, which makes me think the cat was already dead, or at least severely injured.

@30: Catfucker!

I agree Dan has got a reactionary viewpoint on this one. Regardless of what the dog owners have done (which we don't know), many dogs are bred to be vicious. Also, it's the food chain, if you eat meat (which I do BTW) you are just as vicious as that dog. Fortunately you don't have to kill your own food.

Tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

Both the dog and the owner need to be put down.

genevieve @20, the sound is of the woman screaming hysterically, pretty much non-stop, beginning to end. By the time the Blair-Witch cameraman has finally found the subject of all that caterwauling right below his window, she has pretty much exhausted herself screaming, and can only feebly tug at the leash.

Since the viewer doesn't actually see anything until 3/4 of the way through the video, I thought a woman was being mauled, judging by her screaming and wailing for the first 2 minutes. When I saw that all this hysteria was over a dead cat, I almost wish it had attacked her instead.

The dog should be put down because it now has the taste for blood, and it will do it again.

The woman has no business owning any sort of animal more dangerous than a hamster.

@18, @25 & @33:

Cats, squirrels, and possums all pale in comparison to this...

http://www.webtree.ca/tree/keeper/dogs_in_elk.htm

Count your blessings!

I have a lab who would kill a cat if he was allowed to get close enough to one. (Which is why I would never allow him to get near one). But he would never hurt a person. Making assumptions about any breed of dog for attacking a cat is stupid. I'm disappointed Dan, you are so enlightened about everything else.

#37

I think the 'tasting blood' thing is an old wives tale. I've fed my dogs raw food off and on for over 20 years. (Beef ribs,necks; chicken wings, necks and legs) All of my dogs have been good-natured and friendly.

My Belgian Tervuren (who looked like a wolf) actually adopted a stray cat who wandered into the yard. And still lives in the house.

@31 - awesome practical advice.

@37 - very much the impression I had, and then when I realized the screaming was about an animal-on-animal mauling, I assumed she owned the victim animal rather than the perp. Considering her simpering response, it's glaringly obvious that she hasn't quite figured out that whole dog/master dynamic.

@40 - While I'm not saying the taste for blood thing applies to dogs, I have actually seen an iguana (which despite the dinosaur look is a herbivore through and through) turn into a meat eater after being fed pinkies (ie - baby mice sold as snake food).

While I think Dan overdoes the pitbull thing, I was ruminating the other day about how far a local municipality can/should be able to go in regulating dogs as dangerous animals. My initial thought - require insurance for owners of all breeds likely to bite (which includes relatively harmless but still annoying twerpy dogs like poodles and other small feisty breeds), but increase the premiums exponentially for dogs that are able to actually seriously hurt people and have a demonstrable history of doing so.

You know, like pit bulls.