32 Replies to “This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society”
Sorry Kate – pit bulls are purely evil. Unless you can physically control it, you shouldn’t be in the presence of it. A yappy little terrier might bite a lot but pit bulls can readily kill. They are responsible for the largest number of dog bite death victims. To the statement “there are no bad dogs, just bad owners” – bull crap!
have you seen the video where a woman walks two pitbulls, and when they see a cat they jump on it, the woman does not have even one third of the strength necessary to hold back the dogs.
the woman tries again, falls on the ground, then one dog slips out of its collar…
had the dog attacked a toddler the woman would have been responsible for murder.
had the dogs attacked an adult, they might have killed him/her too, the woman would have been responsible for murder
she is lucky it was only a cat ( although I still find it horrible for a poor innocent house cat to be mauled to death by two dogs )
no man is strong enough to open the jaws of a pitbul once the dog locks its jaws on its victims
you need a crowbar and even then the pitbul may still manage to keep his jaws locked on the victim
it is horrifying what pitbuls can do
I have seen videos where 3, 4 or 5 men could do absolutely nothing to stop a pitbul, or to make it release its jaws
it should be illegal to own any dog of any breed that is so strong that the only solution is to shoot several bullets in the dog ( and even then many videos show that after 4 or 5 bullets the pitbul still attacks and remains alive for several minutes )
and to those who say the owner is the problem…well once the pitbul rips someone’s face as one did near MOntreal in 2015 ( the little girl’s face was ripped off and her jaw broken in several places, she required over twenty different surgery ) it does not matter who is to blame, the damage is done
and if the owner is the problem, once its pitbul rips someone’s face off or kills a human , can we put the owner to sleep with a lethal injection?
I think we should.
I would like to see statistics about what percentage of Pit Bulls (and a few other “guard dog” breeds make up the total number of rescues ? The criminal underclass has been breeding without any limits … millions of these vicious, dogs. Then, the overflow is dumped on an unsuspecting public … into the hands of animal rights “deniers”. Deniers who refuse to accept the TRUTH about not only these vicious breeds, but deny the TRUTH of their criminal origins.
Sorry … but I do not EVER plan to put my own life on the line to test whether these dogs are vicious by nature or nurture. As far as I am concerned … a leopard never changes its spots.
A good first step would be to take pitbulls out of the AKA and CKA, as the breeders have apparently taken few steps to breed out the aggressive genetics. That said, the virtue signalling rescue industry need to be better regulated. We meet a lot of proud “city lefty”
rescue dog owners on walks. Some of their dogs are nice and well-behaved, others, not so much or intolerable. Most of the dogscalle are ugly. Some owners make excuses for their dog’s bad behaviour, which may be partly true, “oh he is a rescue”, but they still bring the dog to the park off-leash and think that is just fine that the dog is not well-socialized. I can not imagine why someone would buy a cheap, ill-bred dog, and fail to train it, as the cost of taking care of them for a lifetime responsibly pales in comparison to the initial investments. Some cities have banned pet stores, but I fear that this will increase the number of bad “rescues” of an older age when the adage, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” becomes true in the hands of naive owners.
“as the breeders have apparently taken few steps to breed out the aggressive genetics”
Why do you suppose they’re called pitbulls? Could it be that they were bred to fight other dogs in a pit?
Fatal dog attacks in US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States
Doberman Pinschers have only killed 9 people over time in the US. Biting has pretty much been bred out of them. After screwing up and putting 2 male Dobermans (who hate each other) together I was able to apply physical violence to pry them apart without getting a scratch. They knew me and didn’t want to hurt me. That’s an “oh shit” moment when you let one boy out and then see the other one standing there. If they were pit bulls either me or one or both dog would have been dead. For a while we had the gentlest Doberman boy who at a previous owner’s place had ended up killing a pit bull that had gotten out of its crate. He got lucky and pierced an artery. Must have looked like a scene from a slasher film.
The dog had attacked many humans before but they decided to ” save” it from euthnasia and to ” rescue” it
their pathological altruism got someone killed.
the same pathological altruism that made some europeans take muslim refugees in their own home only to be raped and murdered by them
pathological altruism…maybe we should call it “the silent killer”
As a dog owner, 13 lb shitzu-maltese, I have had to rescue my little mutt from pit bulls.
I was fortunate I was able to intercede the first time as the pit bull lunged past me to get at my dog.
He was running loose, my dog was leashed, my wife picked up our dog the pit bull had to go around me and I was able to get a handful of his nape and his collar in my left hand and pulled his front feet off the ground.
I had control, he couldn’t bite me, he continued to lunge at my wife.
I am 270 lb male, otherwise I would never been able to stop the attack.
As the owner was nowhere to be found I pounded on the top of the dogs head with the heel of my hand until his eyes rolled back and he hung limp.
At that time the owner about 50′ away let loose a lot of profanity directed at me.
I dropped the dog and gave him a 13.5 assist towards his owner.
We were very lucky to have come through this with no injuries
The owner grabbed his pit bull ran to his car and disappeared.
This was on a beach promenade in Qualicum BC
His “dog” was running loose, why did he attack ?
Your guess is as good as mine
When I walk my mutt now I take a very stout 1″ piece of red oak 36″ capped with a stainless tube 6″ long.
I like dogs, I don’t think most people are equipped to control a purpose bred fighting machine.
They will not sell house or apartment insurance to people that own pit bulls or rottweilers
Invariably victims of these dogs cannot get anything from aggressive dog owners so they go after their house/apartment insurance.
I didn’t feel good beating up the dog
I have owned hunting dogs for decades. I’ve seen a few dog fights.
In a fight to death dogs will bite anything including their owners. They bite indiscriminately. You above who have been in a dog fight are in my opinion very lucky not to have been ravaged.
A friend of mine who has hunting dogs also owns a pit bull. I’m a tough guy around a dog. I don’t scare easily and I know what a dog is capable of. His dog has bite people and he (dog) easily accepts me but I am cautious around him. I asked my buddy if the dog can go to the dog park? “No way,” was his reply. I have no idea why my friend has a dog like this. It is senseless.
Barbara Kay who writes for the Nat Post has lead a fight in Montreal for years to ban fighting dogs in the city.
I would like to comment, but don’t we have more than enough freaking pets in this country.
Pitbulls are the assault riffle of the dog world. So demonized by libtard media that apparently even conservatives buy into the story. I suppose you lot would have happily signed your names under McGuinty’s dog ban. And then they will come for your Dobermans, German Sheppards, Rototillers etc.
“Pitbulls are the assault riffle of the dog world”
Rifles are tools, dogs are living creatures with their own volition. Not a good analogy.
And they can have my rototiller when they pry it from my blackened dirty fingers. (8>P
high McStupid asshole. Many breads are purpose bread, and it stays with them for many generations. Read about a sheltie that tried herding a wooden cow on Hwy11 in northern ontarion. Pits and shar peis are fighting dogs, nuff said if you have any brains, which I doubt
This a tough one for me. I have met two beautiful, seemingly gentle pitbulls in my day. That said, I would still never have considered leaving one of my kids alone with one of them.
I was attacked by a Doberman that got loose from some biker bitch while on a collection call many moons ago. He lunged for my jewels but I turned just in time so he only got my thigh. I was saved from any further attack because he immediately obeyed a command from the biker bastard. Ha, to clarify I worked for a finance co., not some rival gang. But I did collect the payment, I think strictly due to their guilt at what happened.
Anyways, a couple years later I became friends with a guy who owned a Doberman. One of the gentlest dogs I have ever known and still have fond memories of his huge personality. I guess my point being, there is no black and white here. Different breeds, individual personalities of each dog, good, evil or simply irresponsible owners…. there are so many contributing factors, kinda like with kids.
But I believe pitbulls, by the very nature of what they are, are dangerous. Sadly, I suspect that sometimes good training and good owners can combine to temporarily disguise a bad dog, until it’s too late.
Oh yeah, and rescuing dogs from other countries is bad.
Idiots will always have aggressive dogs and banning one breed will only make them switch to another. The analogy to “assault weapon” defined by some cosmetic characteristic is perfectly valid. Meanwhile people who breed and show these dogs are supposed to suffer because ghetto scum breed similar dogs.
Yes, yes as evident your breeders clearly focused on rabid stupidity
Big heavy dogs are a pain to me. My dear sweet jack got almost chomped to death by a schutzhund trained giant snauzer. Our temporary neighbor’s dog. A dog well known for his issues. Even the wife and the two grown sons feared that dog. None the less the owner let the dog walk off leash around small kids… and of course with other dogs. Despite this wasn’t the first attack on my little dog I always heard the same adage “he wont do nothin”. All attacks happened in a moment when he could surprise my dog. From behind, or that last time he was just right there and ready when we exited the elevator. He chomped on my poor dog like a squeeky toy and squeek he did. I tried to block access to his throat and head, not that the belly was much better. I kicked that black monster to no avail. Once he did let go and just nipped me in my shin and jumped back onto my dog again, that I literally flew 6 feet away and to the ground, spilling my bag and ripping my clothes. The finally after just watching the owner obviously fearful reached for the collar and tried to pull the dog away… as usual he was not only a dumd ass, he was also drunk and stoned at 7.30 in the morning…. business as usual.
Well, we fought for the jack’s life, but he never recovered and succumbed to trauma physical as well as mental and skelettal as well as organ injuries one year later. It was a miracle he was able to fight for this long. I only see this now.
It’s a horrible experience. And easy to avoid if the oversized dogs trained to attack are not allowed on our streets.
But all is well in case a dog bites people, we have mandatory 2 million insurance coverage for all dog owners … so we can keep on importing floods of eastern european feral street dogs to adopt them out into unstable mentally ill homes to owners who have no idea what their wolfish looking romanian “rescue” that hates their partner did for a living before the “angels” came and caught him. …i see disaster coming.
Dog breeds have personality characteristics that are breeding selected in to each breed for a purpose.
Often, these personality characteristics make a breed unsuitable to be a family pet.
Fighting breeds, ancient war dog breeds, and attack dog breeds are often unsuitable as family pets.
About 1/2 a block away from my home an English Bull Mastiff attacked a 13 y/o girl last summer. Everyone thought that dog was a sweetheart and good protector of the family’s children. It was. Except that the 13 y/o girl was a sitter and she was jumping on the backyard trampoline with the family kids and the screeches/squeals coming from the kids were interpreted as an attack on the kids and the 13 y/o sitter lost a huge chunk of her right arm and nearly bled to death before the ambulance arrived.
The English Bull Mastiff was nearly 200lbs. and guess what, they are a breed that was created to protect their armored knight on the battlefield. They are a war dog breed and that dog did what it was bred to do. The dog misread the circumstances and acted as it was bred to do.
I am not against particular dog breeds. I have an Olde English Bulldogge. He is perfectly capable of killing a large fit man with minimal effort.
The breed was created by mixing 1/2 English Bulldog with the other half being 1/3 Bull Mastiff+1/3 American Bulldog+1/3 Staffordshire Bull Terrier(pitbull).
I think that owners of a dog should be responsible to understand the characteristics of the breed they are choosing to own.
They should also understand that if they are getting a “rescue” dog that the dog they are getting is very likely damaged goods.
Proof reading… failed.
That should have read: And easy to avoid if the (oversized) dogs bred and trained to attack are not allowed on our streets.
Or as our former landlord puts it with his pack of schutzhund trained rottweilers: you can not walk behind the gate or accidently leave the gate open, although our dogs usually are never unsupervised, I can not tell what might happen if they get to you.
Great to have such beady around! Nice to know. And they are behind a fence only 4ft high…
For obvious reasons they ALLWAYS have only one dog out at a time and when training one of the rotties the partner is always sitting at the close by. Not doing anything but watching. Noteworthy that I do see the GSDs being worked by a single person present. Makes you think.
If someone feels the urge to own such an animal: fine. But keep the rest of us safe from their ideas of fun.
I was not advocating banning anything, I recognize from bitter experience what these dogs are capable of if they are triggered.
I go aware, and prepared, if your dog is not under control and attempts to hurt me or mine it is in a state of terminal mediation with me.
The things I have heard after the fact are always, “he’s never done that before” which invariably turns out to be a lie.
Or he/she likes “little dogs”
I was lucky as was my wife and little dog in our encounter, funny how the owners of aggressive dogs run away when confronted.
They are responsible legally for the mayhem their “pet” causes.
Breed specific legislation is a slippery slope. Don’t believe me? Look at Ireland where they went beyond Bull Terrier breeds and now have special regulations in place against Akitas, Ridgebacks, German Sheppards, Dobermans, Rotties etc. Your dog could be next on the list and then it will be mandatory mutilated and it will be the last dog of this breed you ever get to own. And the same arguments as used against Pitbulls will be used against your dog. Like I said, Pitbulls are the MAC-10s, TEC-9s and Streetsweepers of the dog world. Just because I have no interest in owning them I have much less interest in government using the same reasoning to go after my 1911 or my Flat Coated Retriever. To each their own, play responsibly and be held liable if you don’t. Not a perfect system, there will always be instances when it fails but much better than any heavy handed state regulations like the abomination we have in Ontario.
Besides almost every time you hear about vicious dog attacks these dogs do not come from responsible breeders who spent their lives preserving the breed and showing them. These people never gave their dogs to hood rats and tend to be as meticulous and responsible with respect to who they give their pups to as reputable breeders of other dogs.
Typically aggressive dogs come from hood backyard breeders. Some of them get abandoned and then “rescued”. Most people who rescue, have no clue what they are getting into and no business doing it. Getting a dog from a shelter means that one has to trust some bureaucrat about the dog’s suitability. Unless you are experienced, really experienced with dogs, don’t do it. Moreover it is always a lottery as far health and especially hereditary conditions that are not always obvious at the time of adoption. Spare me the “my mix breed I have rescued lived with me until he was twenty and died peacefully in his sleep, I never paid for more than mandatory vaccinations” for every such story there is a dozen of heartbreak stories typically including a mountain of vet bills. Same btw goes for all the Doodles Cocapoos and other hybrids advertised on Kijiji.
These creatures don’t even look normal. More like mongoloids of the canine world.
Hate them with a passion!
Your former landlord would be less blase if you had mentioned that if the dogs he knew were dangerous attacked, then you would end up owning the building. In the case of the pit bull and the Grandmother, the dog was a known risk. Rather than investing thousands in its rehabilitation, put it down and spend your donor’s money on a dozen other dogs that are more suitable. Mine is a spaniel selected for the breed’s non-aggressive behaviour and is obedience trained. And rescue dogs are a business trafficking dogs with unknown behaviours for profit.
Oh and someone please explain to NME what animals are Shetland Sheepdog supposed to herd.
I wonder if those who favour preventative proscription of dog breeds would extend the same thoughts to human cultures.
There are some cultures that I really think can’t and won’t be safe within Canadian society. Equal in part with that outlook is the thought that some dogs cannot be rehabilitated. It’s not necessarily their breeding, it’s the doggy equivalent of culture.
Kenji — I don’t have exact numbers of dogs actually placed, but pit bulls make up approx. 35%+- of the shelter dog population in the U.S. (this is an averaged percentage taken from the last decade). They make up approx. 6% of the U.S. dog population.
Essentially shelters/rescues have become the pet stores for pit bull breeders, and many of the dogs are not far removed from fighting stock (or are directly from pit fighting stock). This makes them truly not good candidates for adoption into pet homes (besides, the rescue agencies are lying through their teeth about them — they are adopting out dogs who have been in the fight pit).
While there are still some Pits and Pit mixes running about that do not have issues, they have become completely outnumbered by the heavily muscled, aggressive, unpredictable dogs that have become the norm. As such, I would never recommend that anyone have one (and I say that as somebody who has owned a Pit BullxBlackmouth Cur mix who was a nice dog, and who has owned working line Dobermans and German Shepherds). The odds against getting a nice, safe dog are too high with them now. I don’t hate my family, my community, local animals, or myself enough to inflict a Pit Bull on them.
Most people looking into dog adoption would, imhao, not be capable of handling working bred dogs period (this would include Border Collies, German Shepherds, Huskies, Dobermans…heck even field bred gun dogs would be a handful for the average shelter adopter). It isn’t that those dogs are necessarily bad dogs, but their physical and mental exercise requirements are probably too much for the average shelter adopter to cope with because they want a nice, laid back dog that will hang out on the couch with them after a long day at work (anyone who has been around working breeds or dogs from working lines knows that this sort of lifestyle would drive a dog like that nuts…and make their owners and neighbors miserable).
And those are dogs that, if properly bred, trained, and handled, can make very nice, stable, wonderful pets in the right hands. The Pit bulls however are not that: they are bred for extreme, violent reactivity aggression and tenacity (they keep going, even if met with force). They are not bred for trainability (Pits are notoriously hard to access by a trainer — they have a mind of their own). This serves them well in the fighting pit — it makes for a potentially lethal combination as a pet dog.
Plus a lot of the PIts are severely inbred (longevity isn’t needed in a pit dog, so their fighting dog breeders don’t care about inherent genetic disorders) — they’ve got all manner of health concerns on top of unstable temperments. You will be seeing your vet quite regularly.
My community went through the Pit bull rescue craze about five years ago — it was a nightmare (the local dog training club first moved to a Bully breeds only program (they were a big problem in the regular dog classes) and now they just won’t accept any of them in either the training classes or at the private dog park they run. The reason: to a dog they were out of control and had shown aggression towards other dogs and people. Their owners to a man (or most likely woman, with pink hair) could not handle them in the slightest.
Dog breed legislation is a slippery slope, but it is a direct result of very irresponsible behavior on the part of dog owners not choosing good, stable dogs — and dog sellers (and I put rescues/shelters in this category at this point)hawking bad, unstable dogs on a public who refuses to become educated (or just doesn’t care).
Pit bulls, their mixes, and Rottweilers make up approx. 77% on dog bite stats in the U.S. while being a bit less than 10% of the U.S. dog population. This is a problem. A problem I did not see when I was working for a shelter 20 years ago that had a policy of not adopting out Pit bulls. It’s a very hard thing to summarily euthanize an apparently healthy animal, but with the situation as it is I don’t see any recourse at this time. Pit bulls are not a good adoption risk; by pushing them on the public it is just encouraging breeders to breed more of them (and they are not responsibly bred)…and this in turn leads to not only people and other animals being hurt or killed but a large number of Pit bulls being euthanized each year. I don’t hate Pit bulls that much to see them being born to be soon killed after a rather short, sorry life for a dog (dogs were designed by us to live with us, not sit unregarded in a shelter pen; that’s a horrible existence for a dog); that isn’t right either.
Yes, yes for a thousand time yes. None of it excuses bans on specific breeds. Breed specific legislation uses pit attacks as excuse to go after dogs in the same way was “assault weapons ban” used the LA shooting to impose the draconian restrictions on gun ownership in US or the École Polytechnique shooting did that in Canada. Libtards would prefer you not to have a dog but if you have one, it better be small, as non threatening as possible, mix breed, ugly and neutered and walk in a movement restricting harness attached to an expandable leash (a libtard dog in other words). War on guns, war on cars, war on dogs are all a part of the same equation. Besides I am sick and tired of having restrictions imposed on my freedom just because the most f***ed up members of society have no clue how to exercise their freedom responsibly.
I believe that ALL insurance premiums are based on ACTUARIAL tables. Sorry, but your muscle car and sports cars tend to get in expensive wrecks, so you’re gonna pay MORE liability. And if you’ve ever had a DUI … get ready to empty your bank account to pay your auto insurance premium. You are HIGH RISK. For HIGH PAYOUTS.
The same should be applied to Pit Bulls. All Pit Bull owners and “rescuers” should be mandated to carry personal insurance policy … on the DOG. To PAY the victim and/or survivors family for damage done by your dog. Any time a police officer responds to a call, and there is a Pit Bull in the house, the police should be empowered to CHECK YOUR PAPERS (insurance) to make sure the owner carries a valid policy.
That would clean up a lot of the Thug culture that is spreading this breed out across the landscape. No breed BANS. Just mandatory financial responsibility. Period. With FREEDOM, comes RESPONSIBILITY.
Step 1 on the road to freedom: require people to pay pet insurance. Yay! No chance this will end up being another government boondoggle.
On one hand I agree.
I have owned and own Dobermans and Shepherds (and that one Pit Bull mix) — and have had a handful of Schutzhund I – III Dobes and Sheps (for those who don’t know that’s a dog that has gone through and qualified in all 3 phases of schutzhund work, obedience/tracking/bite work). I really don’t want my dogs legislated against, nor do I believe I could afford pet insurance (although my homeowner’s insurance is higher thanks to those dogs and my horses).
We raise working Border Collies, but my dad trained and owned hunting dogs (he had been a military and police dog handler, did some work for Seeing Eye back in the day), and Mom liked working terriers (fox hunter). So, all of our preferred dog breeds could cause problems (people who think all hunting dogs are easy going — uhm, Chesapeake Retrievers are not easy going dogs; and an Airedale from a line used for large predator hunting is a dog that should be taken seriously; heck, Mom’s working bred Jack Russell was a freaking spitfire of a dog).
Still, in the over 30 years of having a lot of dogs that have a reputation for at least nippiness only 3 people ever got bitten: 2 were break-ins (they actually got bit) and 1 was a scratch that didn’t need a Band-Aid, and that was probably more a case of the Heeler going for the kid’s soccer ball and missing. Even when they did get loose, our dogs have not chewed on people or animals (and they rarely stray on the few occasions they did — our place is more interesting anyway I guess).
But I do make it a habit to do 3 things: socialize my dogs, train my dogs, and most importantly pick only very stable, mentally sound dogs to the best of my ability. Everybody needs to do that, and know the breeds/mixes of dogs they are getting (different breeds call for different things). And I treat my dogs like dogs (and my horses like horses) — I call the shots, but I also realize that they have a right to be something themselves, which does not include me (my show horses for instance, get time to be away from people and in the company of other horses, same with the dogs — they work hard and well for me, and deserve to not have to put up with humans 24/7/365 — they get some “down time”). We do not insist that they play kissy face every damn minute of their lives; we realize that they can get headaches and feel under the weather too.
Nobody does that; the rescues (and many even “reputable” breeders) don’t educate.
And some of these Pit Bulls (or God help us, they are mixing Pits with Presas, Bullmastiffs,Filas and worst of all, Boerboels now…to get a bigger Pit Bull) are dogs that experienced handlers would pass up on because they’re too unpredictable, not mentally stable at all, and strong and aggressive. The average dog owner has no business with them…and they are a huge danger to the community.
The best response would be to go back to the policy of no adoptions of these dogs. It is harsh, but given the incidents of fatal or horribly maiming attacks against people and other animals, that’s the responsible thing to do…but I do believe the agenda is to get rid of pets altogether, and this is the perfect camel’s nose under the tent…and people are too damn irresponsible and foolish (egoistic really) to NOT let this happen. Because they must virtue signal with a bloody dog as well as turn the dog (or other pet) into some sort of personal style statement, rather than treating it like an animal with its own right to be an animal.
Thanks for a series of very good posts. I bow to your experience in the area. I personally don’t have a bone in that fight (pun intended). My experience and interest are mostly with gun dogs especially retrievers, had some minor successes in field, show ring and agility events. These dogs generally range from among the tamest and friendliest to slightly reserved but decisively non-aggressive. So I am not worried about my dogs being especially regulated but it is the “first they came for communists” kind of scenario (would be a cold comfort though). It starts with mandatory registration then proceeds to mandatory spay and neuter, mandatory pet insurance, limit on the number you’re allowed to have, further restrictions on breeders, mandatory this or that – all regulations aimed at restricting freedom of pet owners (parallels to guns and cars aplenty). So yes, I am more worried about breed specific legislation than I am about those breeds.
Having said that, one restriction I would approve off. Convicted violent felons or those with history of being involved in dog fighting should be, by default, prohibited from owning dogs (one gun control policy I agree with). They could petition local authorities for an exemption to own a Pomeranian or something similar and those would be taken care off on case by case basis. I guarantee you this policy would be more effective in reducing dog attacks than all alternatives discussed above.
Sorry Kate – pit bulls are purely evil. Unless you can physically control it, you shouldn’t be in the presence of it. A yappy little terrier might bite a lot but pit bulls can readily kill. They are responsible for the largest number of dog bite death victims. To the statement “there are no bad dogs, just bad owners” – bull crap!
have you seen the video where a woman walks two pitbulls, and when they see a cat they jump on it, the woman does not have even one third of the strength necessary to hold back the dogs.
the woman tries again, falls on the ground, then one dog slips out of its collar…
had the dog attacked a toddler the woman would have been responsible for murder.
had the dogs attacked an adult, they might have killed him/her too, the woman would have been responsible for murder
she is lucky it was only a cat ( although I still find it horrible for a poor innocent house cat to be mauled to death by two dogs )
no man is strong enough to open the jaws of a pitbul once the dog locks its jaws on its victims
you need a crowbar and even then the pitbul may still manage to keep his jaws locked on the victim
it is horrifying what pitbuls can do
I have seen videos where 3, 4 or 5 men could do absolutely nothing to stop a pitbul, or to make it release its jaws
it should be illegal to own any dog of any breed that is so strong that the only solution is to shoot several bullets in the dog ( and even then many videos show that after 4 or 5 bullets the pitbul still attacks and remains alive for several minutes )
and to those who say the owner is the problem…well once the pitbul rips someone’s face as one did near MOntreal in 2015 ( the little girl’s face was ripped off and her jaw broken in several places, she required over twenty different surgery ) it does not matter who is to blame, the damage is done
and if the owner is the problem, once its pitbul rips someone’s face off or kills a human , can we put the owner to sleep with a lethal injection?
I think we should.
I would like to see statistics about what percentage of Pit Bulls (and a few other “guard dog” breeds make up the total number of rescues ? The criminal underclass has been breeding without any limits … millions of these vicious, dogs. Then, the overflow is dumped on an unsuspecting public … into the hands of animal rights “deniers”. Deniers who refuse to accept the TRUTH about not only these vicious breeds, but deny the TRUTH of their criminal origins.
Sorry … but I do not EVER plan to put my own life on the line to test whether these dogs are vicious by nature or nurture. As far as I am concerned … a leopard never changes its spots.
A good first step would be to take pitbulls out of the AKA and CKA, as the breeders have apparently taken few steps to breed out the aggressive genetics. That said, the virtue signalling rescue industry need to be better regulated. We meet a lot of proud “city lefty”
rescue dog owners on walks. Some of their dogs are nice and well-behaved, others, not so much or intolerable. Most of the dogscalle are ugly. Some owners make excuses for their dog’s bad behaviour, which may be partly true, “oh he is a rescue”, but they still bring the dog to the park off-leash and think that is just fine that the dog is not well-socialized. I can not imagine why someone would buy a cheap, ill-bred dog, and fail to train it, as the cost of taking care of them for a lifetime responsibly pales in comparison to the initial investments. Some cities have banned pet stores, but I fear that this will increase the number of bad “rescues” of an older age when the adage, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” becomes true in the hands of naive owners.
“as the breeders have apparently taken few steps to breed out the aggressive genetics”
Why do you suppose they’re called pitbulls? Could it be that they were bred to fight other dogs in a pit?
Fatal dog attacks in US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States
Doberman Pinschers have only killed 9 people over time in the US. Biting has pretty much been bred out of them. After screwing up and putting 2 male Dobermans (who hate each other) together I was able to apply physical violence to pry them apart without getting a scratch. They knew me and didn’t want to hurt me. That’s an “oh shit” moment when you let one boy out and then see the other one standing there. If they were pit bulls either me or one or both dog would have been dead. For a while we had the gentlest Doberman boy who at a previous owner’s place had ended up killing a pit bull that had gotten out of its crate. He got lucky and pierced an artery. Must have looked like a scene from a slasher film.
The dog had attacked many humans before but they decided to ” save” it from euthnasia and to ” rescue” it
their pathological altruism got someone killed.
the same pathological altruism that made some europeans take muslim refugees in their own home only to be raped and murdered by them
pathological altruism…maybe we should call it “the silent killer”
As a dog owner, 13 lb shitzu-maltese, I have had to rescue my little mutt from pit bulls.
I was fortunate I was able to intercede the first time as the pit bull lunged past me to get at my dog.
He was running loose, my dog was leashed, my wife picked up our dog the pit bull had to go around me and I was able to get a handful of his nape and his collar in my left hand and pulled his front feet off the ground.
I had control, he couldn’t bite me, he continued to lunge at my wife.
I am 270 lb male, otherwise I would never been able to stop the attack.
As the owner was nowhere to be found I pounded on the top of the dogs head with the heel of my hand until his eyes rolled back and he hung limp.
At that time the owner about 50′ away let loose a lot of profanity directed at me.
I dropped the dog and gave him a 13.5 assist towards his owner.
We were very lucky to have come through this with no injuries
The owner grabbed his pit bull ran to his car and disappeared.
This was on a beach promenade in Qualicum BC
His “dog” was running loose, why did he attack ?
Your guess is as good as mine
When I walk my mutt now I take a very stout 1″ piece of red oak 36″ capped with a stainless tube 6″ long.
I like dogs, I don’t think most people are equipped to control a purpose bred fighting machine.
They will not sell house or apartment insurance to people that own pit bulls or rottweilers
Invariably victims of these dogs cannot get anything from aggressive dog owners so they go after their house/apartment insurance.
I didn’t feel good beating up the dog
I have owned hunting dogs for decades. I’ve seen a few dog fights.
In a fight to death dogs will bite anything including their owners. They bite indiscriminately. You above who have been in a dog fight are in my opinion very lucky not to have been ravaged.
A friend of mine who has hunting dogs also owns a pit bull. I’m a tough guy around a dog. I don’t scare easily and I know what a dog is capable of. His dog has bite people and he (dog) easily accepts me but I am cautious around him. I asked my buddy if the dog can go to the dog park? “No way,” was his reply. I have no idea why my friend has a dog like this. It is senseless.
Barbara Kay who writes for the Nat Post has lead a fight in Montreal for years to ban fighting dogs in the city.
I would like to comment, but don’t we have more than enough freaking pets in this country.
Pitbulls are the assault riffle of the dog world. So demonized by libtard media that apparently even conservatives buy into the story. I suppose you lot would have happily signed your names under McGuinty’s dog ban. And then they will come for your Dobermans, German Sheppards, Rototillers etc.
“Pitbulls are the assault riffle of the dog world”
Rifles are tools, dogs are living creatures with their own volition. Not a good analogy.
And they can have my rototiller when they pry it from my blackened dirty fingers. (8>P
high McStupid asshole. Many breads are purpose bread, and it stays with them for many generations. Read about a sheltie that tried herding a wooden cow on Hwy11 in northern ontarion. Pits and shar peis are fighting dogs, nuff said if you have any brains, which I doubt
This a tough one for me. I have met two beautiful, seemingly gentle pitbulls in my day. That said, I would still never have considered leaving one of my kids alone with one of them.
I was attacked by a Doberman that got loose from some biker bitch while on a collection call many moons ago. He lunged for my jewels but I turned just in time so he only got my thigh. I was saved from any further attack because he immediately obeyed a command from the biker bastard. Ha, to clarify I worked for a finance co., not some rival gang. But I did collect the payment, I think strictly due to their guilt at what happened.
Anyways, a couple years later I became friends with a guy who owned a Doberman. One of the gentlest dogs I have ever known and still have fond memories of his huge personality. I guess my point being, there is no black and white here. Different breeds, individual personalities of each dog, good, evil or simply irresponsible owners…. there are so many contributing factors, kinda like with kids.
But I believe pitbulls, by the very nature of what they are, are dangerous. Sadly, I suspect that sometimes good training and good owners can combine to temporarily disguise a bad dog, until it’s too late.
Oh yeah, and rescuing dogs from other countries is bad.
Idiots will always have aggressive dogs and banning one breed will only make them switch to another. The analogy to “assault weapon” defined by some cosmetic characteristic is perfectly valid. Meanwhile people who breed and show these dogs are supposed to suffer because ghetto scum breed similar dogs.
Yes, yes as evident your breeders clearly focused on rabid stupidity
Big heavy dogs are a pain to me. My dear sweet jack got almost chomped to death by a schutzhund trained giant snauzer. Our temporary neighbor’s dog. A dog well known for his issues. Even the wife and the two grown sons feared that dog. None the less the owner let the dog walk off leash around small kids… and of course with other dogs. Despite this wasn’t the first attack on my little dog I always heard the same adage “he wont do nothin”. All attacks happened in a moment when he could surprise my dog. From behind, or that last time he was just right there and ready when we exited the elevator. He chomped on my poor dog like a squeeky toy and squeek he did. I tried to block access to his throat and head, not that the belly was much better. I kicked that black monster to no avail. Once he did let go and just nipped me in my shin and jumped back onto my dog again, that I literally flew 6 feet away and to the ground, spilling my bag and ripping my clothes. The finally after just watching the owner obviously fearful reached for the collar and tried to pull the dog away… as usual he was not only a dumd ass, he was also drunk and stoned at 7.30 in the morning…. business as usual.
Well, we fought for the jack’s life, but he never recovered and succumbed to trauma physical as well as mental and skelettal as well as organ injuries one year later. It was a miracle he was able to fight for this long. I only see this now.
It’s a horrible experience. And easy to avoid if the oversized dogs trained to attack are not allowed on our streets.
But all is well in case a dog bites people, we have mandatory 2 million insurance coverage for all dog owners … so we can keep on importing floods of eastern european feral street dogs to adopt them out into unstable mentally ill homes to owners who have no idea what their wolfish looking romanian “rescue” that hates their partner did for a living before the “angels” came and caught him. …i see disaster coming.
Dog breeds have personality characteristics that are breeding selected in to each breed for a purpose.
Often, these personality characteristics make a breed unsuitable to be a family pet.
Fighting breeds, ancient war dog breeds, and attack dog breeds are often unsuitable as family pets.
About 1/2 a block away from my home an English Bull Mastiff attacked a 13 y/o girl last summer. Everyone thought that dog was a sweetheart and good protector of the family’s children. It was. Except that the 13 y/o girl was a sitter and she was jumping on the backyard trampoline with the family kids and the screeches/squeals coming from the kids were interpreted as an attack on the kids and the 13 y/o sitter lost a huge chunk of her right arm and nearly bled to death before the ambulance arrived.
The English Bull Mastiff was nearly 200lbs. and guess what, they are a breed that was created to protect their armored knight on the battlefield. They are a war dog breed and that dog did what it was bred to do. The dog misread the circumstances and acted as it was bred to do.
I am not against particular dog breeds. I have an Olde English Bulldogge. He is perfectly capable of killing a large fit man with minimal effort.
The breed was created by mixing 1/2 English Bulldog with the other half being 1/3 Bull Mastiff+1/3 American Bulldog+1/3 Staffordshire Bull Terrier(pitbull).
I think that owners of a dog should be responsible to understand the characteristics of the breed they are choosing to own.
They should also understand that if they are getting a “rescue” dog that the dog they are getting is very likely damaged goods.
Proof reading… failed.
That should have read: And easy to avoid if the (oversized) dogs bred and trained to attack are not allowed on our streets.
Or as our former landlord puts it with his pack of schutzhund trained rottweilers: you can not walk behind the gate or accidently leave the gate open, although our dogs usually are never unsupervised, I can not tell what might happen if they get to you.
Great to have such beady around! Nice to know. And they are behind a fence only 4ft high…
For obvious reasons they ALLWAYS have only one dog out at a time and when training one of the rotties the partner is always sitting at the close by. Not doing anything but watching. Noteworthy that I do see the GSDs being worked by a single person present. Makes you think.
If someone feels the urge to own such an animal: fine. But keep the rest of us safe from their ideas of fun.
I was not advocating banning anything, I recognize from bitter experience what these dogs are capable of if they are triggered.
I go aware, and prepared, if your dog is not under control and attempts to hurt me or mine it is in a state of terminal mediation with me.
The things I have heard after the fact are always, “he’s never done that before” which invariably turns out to be a lie.
Or he/she likes “little dogs”
I was lucky as was my wife and little dog in our encounter, funny how the owners of aggressive dogs run away when confronted.
They are responsible legally for the mayhem their “pet” causes.
Breed specific legislation is a slippery slope. Don’t believe me? Look at Ireland where they went beyond Bull Terrier breeds and now have special regulations in place against Akitas, Ridgebacks, German Sheppards, Dobermans, Rotties etc. Your dog could be next on the list and then it will be mandatory mutilated and it will be the last dog of this breed you ever get to own. And the same arguments as used against Pitbulls will be used against your dog. Like I said, Pitbulls are the MAC-10s, TEC-9s and Streetsweepers of the dog world. Just because I have no interest in owning them I have much less interest in government using the same reasoning to go after my 1911 or my Flat Coated Retriever. To each their own, play responsibly and be held liable if you don’t. Not a perfect system, there will always be instances when it fails but much better than any heavy handed state regulations like the abomination we have in Ontario.
Besides almost every time you hear about vicious dog attacks these dogs do not come from responsible breeders who spent their lives preserving the breed and showing them. These people never gave their dogs to hood rats and tend to be as meticulous and responsible with respect to who they give their pups to as reputable breeders of other dogs.
Typically aggressive dogs come from hood backyard breeders. Some of them get abandoned and then “rescued”. Most people who rescue, have no clue what they are getting into and no business doing it. Getting a dog from a shelter means that one has to trust some bureaucrat about the dog’s suitability. Unless you are experienced, really experienced with dogs, don’t do it. Moreover it is always a lottery as far health and especially hereditary conditions that are not always obvious at the time of adoption. Spare me the “my mix breed I have rescued lived with me until he was twenty and died peacefully in his sleep, I never paid for more than mandatory vaccinations” for every such story there is a dozen of heartbreak stories typically including a mountain of vet bills. Same btw goes for all the Doodles Cocapoos and other hybrids advertised on Kijiji.
These creatures don’t even look normal. More like mongoloids of the canine world.
Hate them with a passion!
Your former landlord would be less blase if you had mentioned that if the dogs he knew were dangerous attacked, then you would end up owning the building. In the case of the pit bull and the Grandmother, the dog was a known risk. Rather than investing thousands in its rehabilitation, put it down and spend your donor’s money on a dozen other dogs that are more suitable. Mine is a spaniel selected for the breed’s non-aggressive behaviour and is obedience trained. And rescue dogs are a business trafficking dogs with unknown behaviours for profit.
Oh and someone please explain to NME what animals are Shetland Sheepdog supposed to herd.
I wonder if those who favour preventative proscription of dog breeds would extend the same thoughts to human cultures.
There are some cultures that I really think can’t and won’t be safe within Canadian society. Equal in part with that outlook is the thought that some dogs cannot be rehabilitated. It’s not necessarily their breeding, it’s the doggy equivalent of culture.
Kenji — I don’t have exact numbers of dogs actually placed, but pit bulls make up approx. 35%+- of the shelter dog population in the U.S. (this is an averaged percentage taken from the last decade). They make up approx. 6% of the U.S. dog population.
Essentially shelters/rescues have become the pet stores for pit bull breeders, and many of the dogs are not far removed from fighting stock (or are directly from pit fighting stock). This makes them truly not good candidates for adoption into pet homes (besides, the rescue agencies are lying through their teeth about them — they are adopting out dogs who have been in the fight pit).
While there are still some Pits and Pit mixes running about that do not have issues, they have become completely outnumbered by the heavily muscled, aggressive, unpredictable dogs that have become the norm. As such, I would never recommend that anyone have one (and I say that as somebody who has owned a Pit BullxBlackmouth Cur mix who was a nice dog, and who has owned working line Dobermans and German Shepherds). The odds against getting a nice, safe dog are too high with them now. I don’t hate my family, my community, local animals, or myself enough to inflict a Pit Bull on them.
Most people looking into dog adoption would, imhao, not be capable of handling working bred dogs period (this would include Border Collies, German Shepherds, Huskies, Dobermans…heck even field bred gun dogs would be a handful for the average shelter adopter). It isn’t that those dogs are necessarily bad dogs, but their physical and mental exercise requirements are probably too much for the average shelter adopter to cope with because they want a nice, laid back dog that will hang out on the couch with them after a long day at work (anyone who has been around working breeds or dogs from working lines knows that this sort of lifestyle would drive a dog like that nuts…and make their owners and neighbors miserable).
And those are dogs that, if properly bred, trained, and handled, can make very nice, stable, wonderful pets in the right hands. The Pit bulls however are not that: they are bred for extreme, violent reactivity aggression and tenacity (they keep going, even if met with force). They are not bred for trainability (Pits are notoriously hard to access by a trainer — they have a mind of their own). This serves them well in the fighting pit — it makes for a potentially lethal combination as a pet dog.
Plus a lot of the PIts are severely inbred (longevity isn’t needed in a pit dog, so their fighting dog breeders don’t care about inherent genetic disorders) — they’ve got all manner of health concerns on top of unstable temperments. You will be seeing your vet quite regularly.
My community went through the Pit bull rescue craze about five years ago — it was a nightmare (the local dog training club first moved to a Bully breeds only program (they were a big problem in the regular dog classes) and now they just won’t accept any of them in either the training classes or at the private dog park they run. The reason: to a dog they were out of control and had shown aggression towards other dogs and people. Their owners to a man (or most likely woman, with pink hair) could not handle them in the slightest.
Dog breed legislation is a slippery slope, but it is a direct result of very irresponsible behavior on the part of dog owners not choosing good, stable dogs — and dog sellers (and I put rescues/shelters in this category at this point)hawking bad, unstable dogs on a public who refuses to become educated (or just doesn’t care).
Pit bulls, their mixes, and Rottweilers make up approx. 77% on dog bite stats in the U.S. while being a bit less than 10% of the U.S. dog population. This is a problem. A problem I did not see when I was working for a shelter 20 years ago that had a policy of not adopting out Pit bulls. It’s a very hard thing to summarily euthanize an apparently healthy animal, but with the situation as it is I don’t see any recourse at this time. Pit bulls are not a good adoption risk; by pushing them on the public it is just encouraging breeders to breed more of them (and they are not responsibly bred)…and this in turn leads to not only people and other animals being hurt or killed but a large number of Pit bulls being euthanized each year. I don’t hate Pit bulls that much to see them being born to be soon killed after a rather short, sorry life for a dog (dogs were designed by us to live with us, not sit unregarded in a shelter pen; that’s a horrible existence for a dog); that isn’t right either.
Yes, yes for a thousand time yes. None of it excuses bans on specific breeds. Breed specific legislation uses pit attacks as excuse to go after dogs in the same way was “assault weapons ban” used the LA shooting to impose the draconian restrictions on gun ownership in US or the École Polytechnique shooting did that in Canada. Libtards would prefer you not to have a dog but if you have one, it better be small, as non threatening as possible, mix breed, ugly and neutered and walk in a movement restricting harness attached to an expandable leash (a libtard dog in other words). War on guns, war on cars, war on dogs are all a part of the same equation. Besides I am sick and tired of having restrictions imposed on my freedom just because the most f***ed up members of society have no clue how to exercise their freedom responsibly.
I believe that ALL insurance premiums are based on ACTUARIAL tables. Sorry, but your muscle car and sports cars tend to get in expensive wrecks, so you’re gonna pay MORE liability. And if you’ve ever had a DUI … get ready to empty your bank account to pay your auto insurance premium. You are HIGH RISK. For HIGH PAYOUTS.
The same should be applied to Pit Bulls. All Pit Bull owners and “rescuers” should be mandated to carry personal insurance policy … on the DOG. To PAY the victim and/or survivors family for damage done by your dog. Any time a police officer responds to a call, and there is a Pit Bull in the house, the police should be empowered to CHECK YOUR PAPERS (insurance) to make sure the owner carries a valid policy.
That would clean up a lot of the Thug culture that is spreading this breed out across the landscape. No breed BANS. Just mandatory financial responsibility. Period. With FREEDOM, comes RESPONSIBILITY.
Step 1 on the road to freedom: require people to pay pet insurance. Yay! No chance this will end up being another government boondoggle.
On one hand I agree.
I have owned and own Dobermans and Shepherds (and that one Pit Bull mix) — and have had a handful of Schutzhund I – III Dobes and Sheps (for those who don’t know that’s a dog that has gone through and qualified in all 3 phases of schutzhund work, obedience/tracking/bite work). I really don’t want my dogs legislated against, nor do I believe I could afford pet insurance (although my homeowner’s insurance is higher thanks to those dogs and my horses).
We raise working Border Collies, but my dad trained and owned hunting dogs (he had been a military and police dog handler, did some work for Seeing Eye back in the day), and Mom liked working terriers (fox hunter). So, all of our preferred dog breeds could cause problems (people who think all hunting dogs are easy going — uhm, Chesapeake Retrievers are not easy going dogs; and an Airedale from a line used for large predator hunting is a dog that should be taken seriously; heck, Mom’s working bred Jack Russell was a freaking spitfire of a dog).
Still, in the over 30 years of having a lot of dogs that have a reputation for at least nippiness only 3 people ever got bitten: 2 were break-ins (they actually got bit) and 1 was a scratch that didn’t need a Band-Aid, and that was probably more a case of the Heeler going for the kid’s soccer ball and missing. Even when they did get loose, our dogs have not chewed on people or animals (and they rarely stray on the few occasions they did — our place is more interesting anyway I guess).
But I do make it a habit to do 3 things: socialize my dogs, train my dogs, and most importantly pick only very stable, mentally sound dogs to the best of my ability. Everybody needs to do that, and know the breeds/mixes of dogs they are getting (different breeds call for different things). And I treat my dogs like dogs (and my horses like horses) — I call the shots, but I also realize that they have a right to be something themselves, which does not include me (my show horses for instance, get time to be away from people and in the company of other horses, same with the dogs — they work hard and well for me, and deserve to not have to put up with humans 24/7/365 — they get some “down time”). We do not insist that they play kissy face every damn minute of their lives; we realize that they can get headaches and feel under the weather too.
Nobody does that; the rescues (and many even “reputable” breeders) don’t educate.
And some of these Pit Bulls (or God help us, they are mixing Pits with Presas, Bullmastiffs,Filas and worst of all, Boerboels now…to get a bigger Pit Bull) are dogs that experienced handlers would pass up on because they’re too unpredictable, not mentally stable at all, and strong and aggressive. The average dog owner has no business with them…and they are a huge danger to the community.
The best response would be to go back to the policy of no adoptions of these dogs. It is harsh, but given the incidents of fatal or horribly maiming attacks against people and other animals, that’s the responsible thing to do…but I do believe the agenda is to get rid of pets altogether, and this is the perfect camel’s nose under the tent…and people are too damn irresponsible and foolish (egoistic really) to NOT let this happen. Because they must virtue signal with a bloody dog as well as turn the dog (or other pet) into some sort of personal style statement, rather than treating it like an animal with its own right to be an animal.
Thanks for a series of very good posts. I bow to your experience in the area. I personally don’t have a bone in that fight (pun intended). My experience and interest are mostly with gun dogs especially retrievers, had some minor successes in field, show ring and agility events. These dogs generally range from among the tamest and friendliest to slightly reserved but decisively non-aggressive. So I am not worried about my dogs being especially regulated but it is the “first they came for communists” kind of scenario (would be a cold comfort though). It starts with mandatory registration then proceeds to mandatory spay and neuter, mandatory pet insurance, limit on the number you’re allowed to have, further restrictions on breeders, mandatory this or that – all regulations aimed at restricting freedom of pet owners (parallels to guns and cars aplenty). So yes, I am more worried about breed specific legislation than I am about those breeds.
Having said that, one restriction I would approve off. Convicted violent felons or those with history of being involved in dog fighting should be, by default, prohibited from owning dogs (one gun control policy I agree with). They could petition local authorities for an exemption to own a Pomeranian or something similar and those would be taken care off on case by case basis. I guarantee you this policy would be more effective in reducing dog attacks than all alternatives discussed above.