Alert! Pit Bull Hysteria-Pls comment on DMN Blog Posting

May 18, 2008

Alert: Pit Bull Hysteria -- Please comment on DMN blog posting. Such nonsensical thinking could get innocent dogs banned, leaving them homeless. When a Pit Bull is taken by a municipal shelter, it is almost certainly a death sentence. This blog writer is clear that he does not think Pit Bulls should even exist. Thanks to Holly Elms Niederhaus for bringing this to our attention. Margaret From www.dallasnews. com May 15, 2008: http://dallasmornin gviewsblog. dallasnews. com/archives/ 2008/05/pit- bull-menace. html Pit bull menace 8:55 AM Thu, May 15, 2008 I have to say, I'm constantly amazed at the ability of pit-bull advocates to blindly defend this dog

breed and behave as if these little darlings couldn't hurt a flea. It's the owners, they insist, who are badly training or neglecting their dogs. I'm a dog lover, and I don't want to be accused of racially profiling certain dogs. But when I read stories such as the one from Fort Worth today about a 3-year-old who was mauled by a pair of pit bulls, it just makes my blood boil. I've received dozens of emails recently from pit-bull defenders who make up ridiculous statistics about how pit bulls are unfairly maligned. A woman today emailed me to say that pit bulls are responsible for only three deaths a year. First of all, that is significantly skewed from U.S. government statistics, and second, it ignores the hundreds of maulings that leave people disfigured for life. Maybe I was wrong to advocate banning pit bulls altogether in Dallas, as Denver has done. But I can't think of another way to force pit bull breeders into thinning-out the numbers of these dogs so they don't pose such a disproportionate threat to residents. When a chihuahua or poodle bites you, you have a

very, very high chance of surviving and not even being permanently scarred by it. But when a pit bull attacks, the bite is similar to that of a shark. There's a huge difference between the two, and although irresponsible owners should be held accountable in all instances, I think pit bull owners should be legally required to take special precautions because of the danger their dogs pose -- simply by existing.