More piddly stuff.
May. 11th, 2005 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThe city of Denver has lost it's mind.
It's a crime to be a pit-bull in Denver.
A capital crime.
Johnson: Pit-bull ban may reveal unwarranted prejudice
Johnson quotes a vet "Yes, I tell him, but aren't pit bulls actually the human flesh-ripping monsters they are portrayed to be?
Bill Suro snickers at my naivete.
"I've been a veterinarian for 45 years, and I've never once been attacked or bitten by a pit bull. There are other breeds where I have gone into an examination room and really been on my guard. I will not tell you which, but they scare me."
Cities like Denver, he says, whip up pit bull hysteria. And that is all it is, he said. People now all believe every pit bull "is a coiled and snarling attacker. It's nonsense...."
"Eighty percent all fatal attacks in the U.S. are caused by male dogs. I guess, given this, it would be prudent to now ban all breeds of male dogs."
Denver," he said, "does not at the same time send dogcatchers to cite owners of non-neutered dogs..."
"There appears a racial end of this," Bill Suro says.
"Look at the dogs that have been impounded, and the surnames of their owners. . . . They aren't killing dogs from Cherry Creek. They pick on the easiest people to pick on, the ones who give up easiest," he said, adding that he has forwarded this claim to the American Civil Liberties Union.
What happens, I ask, when all of the Denver pit bulls have been rounded up and put down?
He would not want to be a Malamute, he said.
A male Malamute attacked and killed a 7-year-old girl in Fruita last Saturday night.
"It is not the breed," an unsmiling Bill Suro said."
I don't live in Denver, so I don't know where the seizures are being made, but I do know a bit about dogs. I used to work at a vet. I own a pair of dogs. I have friends who own dogs. I've had friends who bred American Staffordshire Terriers (which is the breed name of "pit bulls".
Friends, who have a pit/sharpei mix (we think) has gone so far as to train her to never bite. They've had to pay vet bills when she scraps at the dog park. Not for the other dog, but to get her stitched up. She has never bitten anyone.
But I've been attacked by dobies, chihuahuas, and a husky. I've been scared by rottweilers, spaniels, dachshunds and pomeranians (little bundles of energy and teeth. Tear your toes off, they will :).
As the doctor says, it isn't the breed. More to the point, this problem is, more than many, a problem of the press.akirlu says most claims of pit-bull attacks are sloppy journalism. Dog attacks someone, the someone claims it was a pit-bull, the reporter accepts it as read. For details on the misreporting of dog attacks see Newspaper and Media Accounts of Dog Attacks
Most people don't know how to tell one breed from another. A basset hound and a beagle might as well be the same dog. Denver says the cops have been responding to, "They might have a pit-bull" calls.
How did we get to this. Where the presumption (and a capital presumption) is of guilt? Where, rather than see if the dog is aggressive to people (and there are some oddments about dogs. Inside a fence they will be ferocious, to anything on the outside. Outide the fence, they tend to be much more mellow. It's why dog parks work) the default is that not only are they, but they are so dangerous as to need to be exterminated.
For the years 2002-2003 there were 39 fatal dog attacks. In 2004 there were 22. So, for three years there were (drum roll maestro) 61 people killed by dogs.
For the past 40 years the number of fatal attacks per year has averaged about a dozen. Colorado, since 1965 has has nine.
Drunk drivers do more damage, and we can't even find the will to put them in jail for a year. But dogs (not all dogs, just those nasty pit-bulls) they have to be killed because they might attack someone.
Angels and Ministers of Grace.
It's a crime to be a pit-bull in Denver.
A capital crime.
Johnson: Pit-bull ban may reveal unwarranted prejudice
Johnson quotes a vet "Yes, I tell him, but aren't pit bulls actually the human flesh-ripping monsters they are portrayed to be?
Bill Suro snickers at my naivete.
"I've been a veterinarian for 45 years, and I've never once been attacked or bitten by a pit bull. There are other breeds where I have gone into an examination room and really been on my guard. I will not tell you which, but they scare me."
Cities like Denver, he says, whip up pit bull hysteria. And that is all it is, he said. People now all believe every pit bull "is a coiled and snarling attacker. It's nonsense...."
"Eighty percent all fatal attacks in the U.S. are caused by male dogs. I guess, given this, it would be prudent to now ban all breeds of male dogs."
Denver," he said, "does not at the same time send dogcatchers to cite owners of non-neutered dogs..."
"There appears a racial end of this," Bill Suro says.
"Look at the dogs that have been impounded, and the surnames of their owners. . . . They aren't killing dogs from Cherry Creek. They pick on the easiest people to pick on, the ones who give up easiest," he said, adding that he has forwarded this claim to the American Civil Liberties Union.
What happens, I ask, when all of the Denver pit bulls have been rounded up and put down?
He would not want to be a Malamute, he said.
A male Malamute attacked and killed a 7-year-old girl in Fruita last Saturday night.
"It is not the breed," an unsmiling Bill Suro said."
I don't live in Denver, so I don't know where the seizures are being made, but I do know a bit about dogs. I used to work at a vet. I own a pair of dogs. I have friends who own dogs. I've had friends who bred American Staffordshire Terriers (which is the breed name of "pit bulls".
Friends, who have a pit/sharpei mix (we think) has gone so far as to train her to never bite. They've had to pay vet bills when she scraps at the dog park. Not for the other dog, but to get her stitched up. She has never bitten anyone.
But I've been attacked by dobies, chihuahuas, and a husky. I've been scared by rottweilers, spaniels, dachshunds and pomeranians (little bundles of energy and teeth. Tear your toes off, they will :).
As the doctor says, it isn't the breed. More to the point, this problem is, more than many, a problem of the press.
akirlu says most claims of pit-bull attacks are sloppy journalism. Dog attacks someone, the someone claims it was a pit-bull, the reporter accepts it as read. For details on the misreporting of dog attacks see Newspaper and Media Accounts of Dog AttacksMost people don't know how to tell one breed from another. A basset hound and a beagle might as well be the same dog. Denver says the cops have been responding to, "They might have a pit-bull" calls.
How did we get to this. Where the presumption (and a capital presumption) is of guilt? Where, rather than see if the dog is aggressive to people (and there are some oddments about dogs. Inside a fence they will be ferocious, to anything on the outside. Outide the fence, they tend to be much more mellow. It's why dog parks work) the default is that not only are they, but they are so dangerous as to need to be exterminated.
For the years 2002-2003 there were 39 fatal dog attacks. In 2004 there were 22. So, for three years there were (drum roll maestro) 61 people killed by dogs.
For the past 40 years the number of fatal attacks per year has averaged about a dozen. Colorado, since 1965 has has nine.
Drunk drivers do more damage, and we can't even find the will to put them in jail for a year. But dogs (not all dogs, just those nasty pit-bulls) they have to be killed because they might attack someone.
Angels and Ministers of Grace.
