Pitbull scare near Webster and 32nd

[DP]

Some dog-bite statistics, as presented by a site called “Dog Bite Law.”

http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html

Excerpts from the site:

Merritt Clifton, editor of “Animal People,” has conducted an unusually detailed study of dog bites from 1982 to the present. (Clifton, Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada, September 1982 to November 13, 2006;)

Download the study in PDF format here:

http://roominate.com/blogg/dog_attacks_1982_to_2006_clifton.pdf

According to the Clifton study, pit bulls, Rottweilers, Presa Canarios and their mixes are responsible for 74% of attacks that were included in the study, 68% of the attacks upon children, 82% of the attacks upon adults, 65% of the deaths, and 68% of the maimings. In more than two-thirds of the cases included in the study, the life-threatening or fatal attack was apparently the first known dangerous behavior by the animal in question.

In summarizing the dog-bite stats, Clifton states:

If almost any other dog has a bad moment, someone may get bitten, but will not be maimed for life or killed, and the actuarial risk is accordingly reasonable. If a pit bull terrier or a Rottweiler has a bad moment, often someone is maimed or killed–and that has now created off-the-chart actuarial risk, for which the dogs as well as their victims are paying the price.

Is the “Dog Bite Law” site biased? Maybe. The author of the report claims that he culled the statistics from newspaper clippings, but there’s no way to check his numbers, and this is not, after all, a controlled study . . .

Nevertheless, you don’t need a controlled study to know that a pitbull can be a very dangerous animal — just like any other large breed. You also don’t need a study to tell you that certain dog breeds have innate tendencies.

It’s no more a matter of conjecture, for example, that pit bulls exhibit a tendency for aggression (a trait for which they were originally bred) than it is a matter of conjecture that rat terriers will dig holes in your yard if the instinctive behavior is not “trained” out of them.

Can a pit bull’s in-bred aggression be overcome by a good, loving home? In most cases yes — especially where the owner is able to train and socialize the dog from puppyhood.

Unfortunately, many people acquire pit bulls with the express intent of encouraging the dog’s natural aggressive tendencies, and the result of this, not surprisingly, is a large percentage of aggressive individuals in the general pit bull population.

So have pit bulls gotten a “bad rap” in the press, as their defenders claim? I don’t think so. Instead, I think a lot of pit bulls are just doing what comes naturally to them — and doing what many irresponsible owners want them to do, in fact — by being aggressive.

At this point, I’m not for an outright ban on the breed. But I would support stricter licensing requirements, requirements that include specialized training courses and an insurance policy at a minimum.

Finally, I think it’s pretty specious to compare a chihuahua bite to a pit bull bite. I mean . . . that’s just ridiculous on the face of it. JoB’s account notwithstanding, when’s the last time anyone read in the papers about a chihuahua maiming someone? Clifton’s report doesn’t list a single instance of that in a 24-year period. Yet, in that same period, there were 608 maimings and 104 deaths caused by pit bull terriers.

For the record, the next bitingest breeds behind pit bulls were:

Rottweilers: 223 maimings and 58 deaths

Akita: 39 and 1

German Shepherd: 38 and 7

Chow: 32 and 6

(I am sorry to report that Wheaten terriers also made the list, with a single maiming. But I suspect that was really just a misunderstanding.)

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[abstract]

This post is turning into a ridiculous post. I feel bad for enginerd, his wife, and child. I hope animal control will follow up and find this dog. I am not a fan of vicious dogs, pit bulls or poodles. The fact is that pit bulls can cause damage quickly, toy poodles can’t. I wish the city would require a license to own these types of dogs.

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[Lucian]

@27 No kidding! Makes people not want to even post.

Thanks for ruining yet another thread official WSB Forum Scold..

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[JoB]

DP..

“The author of the report claims that he culled the statistics from newspaper clippings, “

enough said.

Lucien…

not scolding.. educating.

i agree completely that loose dogs are a problem… but would have everyone be wary of any loose dog.. not just pitbulls.

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[DP]

Here’s the relative order of weight to give to purported evidence about dog breeds:

Most weight: Scientific, controlled studies

Less weight: Items culled from newspaper reports

Least weight: Personal anecdotes about chihuahua’s being more dangerous than pit bulls

Did you even read the man’s report or look at his Web page, JoB? It’s pretty well put together.

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[DP]

Also, I question this notion of the “responsible” versus the “irresponsible” pit bull owner. I don’t think you can make such a distinction without considering the characteristics of the breed.

Let’s consider two pit bull owners. Both are basically good people, but they have very different ideas of what a pit bull is for:

Owner A (we’ll call him “Butch”) considers his dog to be a kind of live-in security guard. He lets the dog run free in the back yard and encourages it to attack anyone who trespasses on his property. Butch doesn’t maltreat his dog in any way, but he does take advantage of the dog’s power and naturally aggressive instincts to keep people off his property.

Owner B (“Sarah”) rescues her pit bull from a shelter, treats it with kindness, and tries her best to socialize it, with apparent success. One day, however, while Sarah is playing with her dog in an off-leash area, it attacks and severely mauls a smaller dog.

Of these two pit bull owners, Butch and Sarah, who is really the “irresponsible” one?

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[yeah-me]

I find it so irritating that people always toss out the argument that it is the owner not the dog.

I have a Aussie-cross. I can’t stop her from herding the cats and myself around the house. Herding is what she was bred to do.

I used to own a Springer Spaniel — the goofball would chase a rock if I accidentally kicked one down the sidewalk. He slept with is tennis ball his entire life. Fetching is what he was bred to do.

Many, many years ago I owned a Pit Bull. It attacked and killed a neighbors goat. It then attacked our pony. Fighting is what he was bred to do.

Someone can be the best intentioned owner in the world, but still not be able to overcome the fundamental breeding of a fighting dog.

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[JoB]

DP..

yes, i did look at his site.

i also looked at several others and there is no question that maiming and killing attacks by pitbulls and associated breeds far outnumber those of other breeds.

however, those stats don’t tell the whole story.

most dog attacks happen on the owner’s property..

most victims are friends/family of the owner.

the public perception of marauding dogs randomly attacking children on the street is nothing more than sensationalism created by the news media.

if you go beyond that and look at owner profiles of dog owners whose animals are involved in killing/maiming incidents it gets even more interesting…

they fall mainly into two groups…

those who chose the dog breed either for it’s perceived capacity for violence

and those who chose the dog breed for it’s perceived watchdog characteristics and keep the dog mainly isolated from it’s family..

This is an owner problem.. not a breed problem..

if you are interested in scientific controlled studies here is a site that has all kinds of interesting information about dog bites and links to many quality studies on the subject…

http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/statistics.html

of course, this is a legal site so the focus here is on stats that prove liability… but it still makes for some pretty interesting reading.

” * The median age of patients bitten was 15 years, with children, especially boys aged 5 to 9 years, having the highest incidence rate

* The odds that a bite victim will be a child are 3.2 to 1. (CDC.)

* Children seen in emergency departments were more likely than older persons to be bitten on the face, neck, and head. 77% of injuries to children under 10 years old are facial.

* Severe injuries occur almost exclusively in children less than 10 years of age.

* The majority of dog attacks (61%) happen at home or in a familiar place.

* The vast majority of biting dogs (77%) belong to the victim’s family or a friend.

* When a child less than 4 years old is the victim, the family dog was the attacker half the time (47%), and the attack almost always happened in the family home (90%). “

from the same site…

“In Canine homicides and the dog bite epidemic: do not confuse them, it has been pointed out that the dog bite epidemic as a whole involves all dogs and all dog owners, not just the breeds most likely to kill.

In all fairness, therefore, it must be noted that:

* Any dog, treated harshly or trained to attack, may bite a person. Any dog can be turned into a dangerous dog. The owner or handler most often is responsible for making a dog into something dangerous.

* An irresponsible owner or dog handler might create a situation that places another person in danger by a dog, without the dog itself being dangerous, as in the case of the Pomeranian that killed the infant (see above).

* Any individual dog may be a good, loving pet, even though its breed is considered to be potentially dangerous. A responsible owner can win the love and respect of a dog, no matter its breed. One cannot look at an individual dog, recognize its breed, and then state whether or not it is going to attack”

The point is simple. while including the breed of the dog in the headline creates more readers.. it is not the most important information.

I think the post with the most actual information in this topic was posted by MAS… who states that although there is a pitbull that does roam the area and has been known to attack dog walkers… there is also a brindle boxer who is often loose on the same street.

Of the two dogs known to be loose in the neighborhood… the event described by enginerd seems more likely to be a contact with the brindle boxer than with the pit bull.. which by the way does NOT make it any less serious…

and that was the point i was trying to make.

which leads me to a last link from that same site..

http://www.dogbitelaw.com/PAGES/prevent.html

this link offers some surprisingly useful information about dog bite prevention.

LOL.. i just realized that after all that reading we ended up citing the same website but found entirely different information on it…

perhaps i should have asked if you actually read the site?

;->

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[JoB]

enginerd…

i am truly sorry your wife and child were frightened and am glad that you posted so that other parents and the preschool can be aware of the problem.

This kind of exposure is likely to be more effective than individual complaints about loose dogs in the area.

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[JoB]

Yeah-me…

i will admit that people often choose a dog for it’s breed characteristics and then are surprised when the dog exhibits them…

woe be unto the squirrel or rat or possum or mole or cat that finds itself hunted in my yard since i have a couple of the best hunters i have ever seen…

but the story you tell about your pitbull sounds more like an aberration than a breed characteristic.

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[JoB]

DP..

a dog attack in either of the scenarios you mentioned is a tragedy.

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[Hydrangea]

JoB, I have some comments for you.

Regarding your statement, “the public perception of marauding dogs randomly attacking children on the street is nothing more than sensationalism created by the news media”: my husband was severely bitten by an unknown pit bull while running through the park by Delridge Community Center last May. He had no connection whatsoever to the dog’s owner, and did nothing to provoke the dog. He merely passed within a few feet of it.

Other people have posted to these forums in recent months with similar experiences.

Regarding your comment, “but the story you tell about your pitbull sounds more like an aberration than a breed characteristic”: One of the receptionists at the Swedish Hospital Emergency room told us that she had a pit bill she lovingly raised from puppyhood, only to have it bite a chunk out of the leg of a person visiting her home, also with no provocation.

I can’t understand why you won’t let this drop. Not every pit bull is dangerous, but many of them are, and they can turn vicious with no warning. There is no need to keep defending them.

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[DP]

JoB: Your first link is the exact same page I cited to you before. The exact same page!

Frankly, I don’t see what the hell difference it makes whether the kid maimed or killed is a family member of the dog or not. And what the hell difference does it make if it happens indoors or outdoors, in a yard or on the street?

If anything, the fact that a pit bull would severaly maul a family member just proves that the breed is inherently dangerous and that the aggression simply CAN’T be trained out of it.

So why do you talk about Pomeranians and chihuahuas? Sure, there are some bad Pomeranians (or Pomeranian owners) out there. Sure, a few kids will get mauled by Pomeranians. But even if Poms turned out to have ten times the aggression of pit bulls, many, many more kids will get mauled (and killed) by pit bulls than by Pomeranians.

Tell me, do you attribute that statistical difference solely to “owner irresponsibility”?

It’s simple, JoB: Pit bulls kill more people than Poms because pit bulls are much bigger, stronger dogs. And they have more than enough natural aggression in them to make that difference in size and strength matter.

As far as the issue of “pit bulls running loose,” I’m with you on that. There’s no more need to panic over a pit bull being loose than to panic over any other large dog being loose. But the real issue here, as I see it, is this idea of how much owner responsiblity even matters when it comes to naturally aggressive breeds.

In any case, voluntary responsibility does not seem to be something we can rely on when it comes to pit bulls. So I think we’re going to have to legislate it.

Special training and licensing requirements for pit bulls. That’s all I’m saying.

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[JoB]

hydrangea…

i was badly bitten by a german shepherd within a block of my home riding a bike and a german shepherd was sicced on me and my dogs in Lincoln Park by it’s owner… should we all fear german shepherds?

i was badly bitten trying to keep an unleashed Chihuahua away from my dogs so it would get killed by them in a local park… should we all fear chihuahuas?

One of the kids in our family was bitten in the face barely missing an eye by a dachshund .. should we all fear dachshunds?

the point is that singling out any one dog breed as the cause for fear ignores the danger posed by all dogs.

I can’t understand why there is so much resistance to singling out the owners that allow their dogs to run off leash but none at all to singling out a breed of dog to label vicious.

maybe it’s just easier to blame the dog?

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[Que]

I think that we can all agree that irresponsible dog ownership (which can take a multitude of forms) is lousy for everyone. It is lousy for the community, it is lousy for the dogs, everyone.

However there are breeds that require higher levels of owner responsiblity to maintain canine domesticated civility. There are also breeds for which there are greater ramifications for the lack of owner responsiblity. While we can all be injured by a Chiahuahua who has been poorly trained and not well socialized, the ramifications are less. Powerful dogs of all stripes require dilligent owners who are attentive to their emotional and training needs.

That being said, I totally feel for Enginerd’s wife and child and how frightening that experience was. I think that this thread has been totally highjacked by the breed discussion and has forgotten about how this was originally about a scared mom and little kid. It makes me sad.

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[JoB]

Que..

i wish we all agreed that irresponsible dog ownership is lousy for everyone but caution you not to test that hypothesis on the forum by posting about unleashed or unsupervised dogs.. not to mention roaming cats… or you will quickly find that we don’t all agree.

I agree completely with you that there are dogs that require higher levels of owner responsibility..

but those dogs don’t always come in the large packages we would expect.

Nor are those small packages necessarily any less dangerous. A Pomeranian was responsible for the death of a child and they don’t come much smaller than that.

We have become so focused in this society on individual rights that somehow the responsibilities that come with those rights have been shuffled to the side.

Behind the dog that might have been a pitbull and might have been dangerous but that definately frightened the women and children at that pre-school is an owner who has not contained their dog successfully with a leash or a kennel or a well fenced yard.

Accidents happen to even the most diligent dog owner… but posts report a history of both a pitbull and a brindle boxer running free in that neighborhood. That points to irresponsible owners.

Do dogs of all shapes and sizes routinely run free in that neighborhood? Who knows?

We only hear about the “frightening” or lost ones.

What has apparently been lost in my posts by those who see this as only a breed issue is my concern for all moms and kids who are harassed and frightened by all unsupervised and untrained dogs.

This is an excellent opportunity to galvanize public support behind reporting all loose and unleashed dogs to animal control… making not only Enginerd’s family but all families in West Seattle safer.

Instead we get post after post of why pitbulls are an inherently dangerous breed by people who for the most part know little more about them than what they read.

I too am saddened by the response to this topic…

not because i am saddened that so many people believe pitbulls to be a dangerous breed…

but because so many people would rather blame a breed of dogs for what is essentially a human behavior problem than address the human behavior that created the problem.

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[JoB]

DP..

you apparently discount the human responsibility involved in choosing a designer breed for it’s macho potential and ignoring it’s socialization needs…

or the human responsibility involved in teaching a dog to attack and thinking that it will only attack strangers…

or the human responsibility involved in training your dog using dominance techniques and not understanding that that while that kind of training might make your dog subservient to you it will also make it dominant towards others…

or the human responsibility involved in substituting a dog pack for including your dog in your human pack…

or…

need i go on?

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[Lucian]

Interesting.. Kind of like the human responsibility to not completely dominate community forums and always have the last word.

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/298096

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[JanS]

Lucian…getting personal on here is verboten…just a heads up. Speak about the topic, not the poster, please. It adds nothing.

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[JoB]

Lucien…

this is the second inappropriate comment from you about someone i am pretty sure you don’t know well enough to be calling names.

all you have to do to ensure that the poster in question never irritates you with their comments is hit the ignore button. you will find it under their last post.

voila! they will instantly disappear for you…

so far..i have used it only twice and for a limited time..

but i can assure you it was exceedingly effective…

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[TammiWS]

Sorry Enginerd your post got sidelined. I hope your family is okay.

As a side note, this happens so often on this forum its getting really sad and quite predictable.

Conversations DO get dominated by a few, many get fed up, someone calls it out and then the post gets shut down for the call out rather than addressing the problem many of us have with certain folks dominating so many posts, on every topic under the sun.

And, what is often described as educating us on the forum doesnt always come off that way. It comes off condescending and ultimately argumentative.

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[kellym]

For me it has gotten old I am tired of being “schooled” on nearly every subject. I will return to the blog for the front page news only. Enginerd hope you get some closure with authorities on this. Good luck and maybe by chance when you are on your daycare run we will meet as I love just a few houses away….

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[mirabile]

I think debate is healthy as long as it’s conducted within a respectful environment. This is a hot topic and since it affects our and our children’s safety, it’s easy for the discussion to escalate into something uglier.

That said, I’m really impressed with the level of research that I’ve observed on both sides of the argument. When everyone works together, I’ve seen this group of people make actual, quantifiable differences (remember the KFC flag). That’s impressive.

So what I’m most concerned with is the outcome of enginerd’s call to Animal Control.

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[waterworld]

JoB: Earlier you said that you could not understand why there is so much resistance to singling out the owners who allow their dogs to run off leash, and accused DO of discounting various levels of human responsibility for dogs’ behavior. In reading the many posts here, though I don’t see that; rather I see people saying that one of the reasons — not the only reason — why people react the way they do to attacks by pit bulls and certain other breeds is that these breeds are associated with a higher likelihood of causing injury. Responsible ownership may make all the difference, but associating certain breeds with a potential for harm is not a fantasy.

One thing I think is important to note (or re-note) is that dogbitelaw.com is written by a lawyer who represents exclusively victims of dog bites. I would not assume that his site is unbiased. I went back over to the Centers for Disease Control site, and pulled one article entitled “Breeds of Dogs Involved in fatal human attacks in the United States between 1979 to 1996.” You can find it here:

http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/images/dogbreeds-a.pdf

It’s an interesting report. The data reveals that pit bulls and Rottweilers account for the majority of dog related deaths over a twenty-year period. Further, the CDC reports that more than half of the fatalities in a twenty-year period occurred off the owner’s property, not on it. (Perhaps the trend goes the other way when injury-only cases are factored in.)

These statistics are unreliable for certain purposes, which the CDC acknowledges. For one thing, there is no good way to quantify the risk that a breed poses. Risk analysis requires comparison of the number of injuries/fatalities caused by a breed to the total population of that breed, and we don’t have the latter information. Also, data collection has been erratic, and an attack by a breed commonly believed to be dangerous is perhaps more likely to be documented.

That said, the data is useful for making some general observations. For example, the discrepancy between the numbers of fatalities related to attacks by pit bulls and Rottweilers and the number caused by any other breed associated with a fatality, is so large that one of two things must be true: either (a) pit bulls and Rottweilers pose a greater risk of death than the other listed breeds, or (b) the population of pit bulls and Rottweilers is a large multiple of the population of any of those other breeds. (By large multiple, I mean a multiple of at least 5 or 6, meaning that if the risk of fatality is equal between pit bulls & rottweilers and husky-type dogs, then there must be six times the number of pit bulls & rottweilers in the nation than there are husky-type dogs.)

All I’m getting at is that it is not non-sensical that people are more concerned that a pit bull or Rottweiler might harm them or their children. That’s not blaming the breed, as you suggest, because none of this tells you why the attacks or fatalities happened. Maybe it’s thousands of years of selective breeding, maybe it’s owner irresponsibility, maybe it’s both, maybe it’s neither. The numbers don’t tell the whole story, but they do tell a story.

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[thee]

forum bossy-bosses are bossy!

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[Author]

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