A Pit Bull Attacks a Friend’s Daughter
My daughter Heather is an only child. As such, her mother and I have worked hard to ensure she has some close friends she is able to spend time with on a regular basis. One set of friends she has known since she was born are sisters and they have been on a couple cruises together, multiple camping trips, countless pool parties and play dates. One of the girls is Heather’s age and the other is a few years older.
The other morning, this friend was walking to school when a neighbor left their door open and their dog ran out, knocked over Heather’s friend and immediately started attacking her face. The girl started screaming and the owner came out and immediately pulled the dog off our friend but not before the damage was done. Admittedly, the attack could have been worse, but the dog tore a chunk out of her lip and bit her multiple times on the arms and legs. This dog was a Pit Bull mix.
Switching gears to my own sister, she owns her own dog rescue and she specializes in Pit Bulls and Pit Bull mixes. In our part of Florida, abandoned Pit Bulls are extremely common. My sister has been rescuing these dogs for 10-15 years and while she does rescue a variety of dogs, the majority seem to be at the very least a Pit Bull mix. Prior to my sister really getting into this work, I could never understand the desire to own a Pit Bull. Having an animal in your home who could kill or seriously hurt you or a member of your family just did not make any sense. Watching my sister with these animals, however, helped me to change my mind and I started to believe it was the owners who were to blame and the dog was just the victim of the people who raised them as well as their reputation for being a violent and aggressive dog. After this incident, however, and doing some additional research I have swung back to my original views on the animal; their reputation for being one of the most vicious dogs is well earned.
If we just look at dogsbite.org, there are some disturbing reports starting with this one:
Breed | Bodily harm | Child Victims | Adult Victims | Deaths | Maimings | % of total dog population |
Pit bull | 3397 | 1355 | 1312 | 295 | 2110 | 6.69% |
Rottweiler | 535 | 297 | 141 | 85 | 296 | 2.76% |
Husky | 83 | 51 | 8 | 26 | 27 | 1.04% |
Wolf hybrid | 85 | 70 | 5 | 19 | 49 | |
Bullmastiff | 111 | 46 | 41 | 18 | 63 | 0.02% |
German shepherd | 113 | 65 | 41 | 15 | 73 | 3.72% |
Pit bull-mix | 206 | 78 | 54 | 12 | 115 | |
Akita | 70 | 44 | 22 | 8 | 52 | 0.07% |
Chow | 61 | 37 | 18 | 8 | 40 | 0.01% |
Doberman | 23 | 12 | 9 | 8 | 12 | 1.70% |
Unidentified | 81 | 16 | 29 | 8 | 32 | |
Boxer | 64 | 19 | 23 | 7 | 31 | 1.25% |
German shepherd-mix | 45 | 28 | 14 | 7 | 30 |
Granted, if you look at this from a yearly average, the numbers look different.
Breed | Bodily harm | Child Victims | Adult Victims | Deaths | Maimings | % of total dog population |
Pit bull | 106 | 42 | 41 | 9 | 66 | 6.69% |
Rottweiler | 17 | 9 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 2.76% |
Husky | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1.04% |
Wolf hybrid | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
Bullmastiff | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0.02% |
German shepherd | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3.72% |
Pit bull-mix | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | |
Akita | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0.07% |
Chow | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0.01% |
Doberman | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.70% |
Unidentified | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
Boxer | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1.25% |
German shepherd-mix | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Even the yearly breakdown is pretty sobering. Pit Bulls represent 87 total attacks per year with at least 9 deaths. To me, it is hard when you look at these numbers to just be okay with everything.
I am not suggesting we kill or ban all of these dogs (but there are parts of the country that have banned these dogs), but we should at least enforce some kind of regulation. Like riding a motorcycle, owners are required to pay a higher premium, or gun owners are required to register their weapons. Pit Bulls should be considered dangerous and if you want to own one, then you should be willing to make some considerations.
My friend is looking at pursuing some kind of legal action against the owner and he also wants to look at how to enforce or pass laws to help control these dangerous animals.
I will support him the entire way.