Around the 'Shoe

I heard Vick was PISSED

1.)Since 1992, the breed most involved in fatal attacks has been the
Rottweiler, not the pit bull.

2.) Over the 37-year period from 1965-2001, pit bulls have been blamed
for an average of 2.48 human fatalities per year.

3.) About 40 people (children) per year die by drowning in 5-gallon water
pails. A person, during their lifetime, is 16 times more likely to drown in a
5-gallon water pail than to be killed by a pit bull.

4.) Approximately 50 children in the US are killed every year by their cribs
- 25 times the number of children and adults killed by pit bulls.

5.) Approximately 150 people are killed every year by falling coconuts.
Therefore, you are more than 60 TIMES MORE LIKELY to be killed by a
PALM TREE than a pit bull.

6.) Each year, 350 people drown in their bathtubs. You are 151 times
more likely to be killed by your bathtub than you are by a pit bull.

7.) It is estimated that about 500 deaths per year are caused by aspirin.
You are more than 200 times more likely to die from taking aspirin than
from a pit bull attack.

8.) Every year, more than 2,000 children in the U.S. are killed by their
parents or guardians either through abuse or neglect. A child is more
than 800 times more likely to be killed by their adult caretaker than by a
pit bull.

Therefore - it is at least a HALF MILLION TIMES MORE LIKELY that a pit
bull will be killed by a HUMAN than the other way around

For every pit bull who kills, there are hundreds of thousands that
DON'T.

My sources:
Most of the dog bite fatality info from CDC/HSUS studies; stats from the
book “Fatal Dog Attacks” by Karen Delise.

Additional statistics from both the CDC and the National Safety Council.

Having owned a Pit Bull who was as loving and calm around strangers, friends, and other dogs as any I have ever come across I can say it isn't the dog. It is the upbringing.

I got my Pit, Dee, when she was 5 weeks old. She was a rescue, her mother was dying from malnutrition, most of the litter had passed by the time I found them. When I took Dee, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle more than one of them. Now I wish I took all of those dogs.

They are powerful dogs, but they can be trained so that you can control that. All you have to do is give them attention and make them burn off their energy. I walked Dee twice a day until she was ready to pass out in front of the door. I live in an apartment complex, a lot of my neighbors have dogs. Dee played with the other dogs, was calm around small children (to the point where one child rode on Dee's back like she was a pony). I was never afraid of Dee hurting anyone, especially me.

'Nuff said

Anyway, who's complaining about McDonalds and dogs when the big news this week was the pink shit that they've been putting into their "hamburgers".

Bottom line here with McPoisons and their kin...If I go to a joint and order a burger and it doesn't look like the burger I take off my grill then it's poison...period. You can't make it better by adding something to it, and when "suits" add something to it, it aint good.

I can pretty much tell you if you put a glop of that pink shit in front of the CEO of that shithole and tell him to eat it, he wouldn't...'nuff said

Pit bulls that kill or injure, generally have been trained to be vicious. When trained to be loving, they are no different than any other dog.

That's just not true. When looking at the stats it's important not to rely on older info. Of the fatal attacks by pit bulls in the past 30 years, two thirds of them are within the past four or five years. This was predictable given the increase in numbers kept as house pets.

You can't ignore genetics. How you raise them certainly has an effect, but you can't trump countless generations of breeding. They kill people at approximately 10X the rate one would expect based on the number of pits out there. And you can't have it both ways. They are trained to be aggressive, no question. But why do you think they are the preferred breed to train to fight? Because at heart they are really sweet, gentle family dogs? No, because they have been bred for it, with massive chest, neck and jaw bones and muscles. They have been bred for a type of aggression one doesn't see with most other breeds; they don't bite, thrash and quit. Instead they attack with a tenacity that is hard to believe if you haven't seen it, biting, crushing, won't let go until the victim or the attacker is killed. That's what they have been designed to do.

It's not the dog's fault. They are what people made them. They are a beautiful breed, exquisitely designed for what they do. The real problem is that people put them in situations where they don't belong, with predictable results. Sure, other dogs are raised badly and bite, including dogs like chihuahuas, but a chihuahua won't pin an adult against the wall and kill him/her, pits do.

I've worked as a licensed vet for over 30 years, work on pits daily, work with pit rescue, have worked on Michael Vick's pits, am a specialist in dog behavior, testify as an expert witness in attack cases (for both sides), was appointed by the government to serve on a panel investigating the problem, so I am quite familiar with both sides of the issue. I also know that almost every person who gets a pit does so with the knowledge of the breed's reputation, whether they feel it is justified or not, so on some level they want a dog with that reputation. Food for thought.