Reply #64: A kid gets his ear and half his face torn off, one story in a local paper

[jtuck004]

if it's by a labrador, or a small dog. But if they can get anyone to say, or imply, or look like they are thinking "pit bull" it gets thrown in a headline that crosses the nation. Literally the only difference is that 250 outlets with millions of people see "pit bull" in that context, makes them think that it is a much greater danger than it is. That is not only documented by millions of newspapers, it is common behavior. Hyperbole.

30 deaths in a year, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States. That's tragic. But every day in the United States, nearly 82 people die as a result of unintentional poisoning. We lose 34,000 a year to car wrecks.
About 123,000 to accidents of all kinds, of which 30 were reported as dog bites. Yet people make a career preaching their brand of hate-that-doesn't-do-anything-constructive standing on top of those 30 or so bodies. That's beyond hyperbole in my book, and for me begins a need for me to question who is pushing that agenda. Just like I look at the people at Westboro Baptist Church and their ministers of salvation.

I know a woman who went to the city council and actually had them considering a breed ban for the entire freakin' city, ('till they looked at the experience of other cities). She told me that she only wanted to hurt her neighbor, but if it took perfectly good dogs out of perfectly good homes and killed them, that was ok with her, as long as they got those "son of a bitches across the alley". Her cause is now evidence on the web site of at least one breed ban advocacy group, notorious for their lack of fact-based reporting.


~ To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity. ~
Friedrich Nietzsche

The point was we want to reduce bites an attacks, for everyone including children. Not beat up on our neighbors, or sell newspapers, or be someone who uses overblown fear to push a course of action that will ultimately result in getting people hurt while bites and attacks continue and scarce funds are wasted, (I can't decide who that reminds me of more - the Bush administration or the people with the teabags on their hats.)

To reduce bites -

1 - Educate people, at least a couple of times when they are very young, and then for those who might need to be trained for their job. That will provide an incredible rate of return for your investment.

2 - Provide public spay/neuter. A city can provide this by hiring vets to do nothing but this in areas of low-income where there are no vet services (the schools actively teach vet students to avoid locating in areas which may have lower average income, btw. Smart, and good for a vet - those machines, the help, the drugs, none of that is cheap, so cities need to pick up the slack for the safety of the kids, if nothing else).

The rest of that stuff is snake oil at best.