Sixteen month old Destiny Marie Knox is dead after being attacked by a dog. The information coming in about the story is spotty, at best, at this point, but here is what we think we know.
Destiny was supposedly staying at a babysitter's mobile home off County Road 87 just outside of New Ablany, MS. The dog was one of at least 5 'pit bulls' on the property that were always left chained up outside. However, the dog somehow slipped out of its collar as the family was bringing groceries into the house, got through the open door, and attacked the young toddler.
While the story itself is tragic, what may be more tragic is the reaction of the officials that were interviewed that are already taling about "legislation" and "dog laws". But none of that will fix the problem we have here.
New Albany, like much of Missisissippi, has a very high percentage of its population living below poverty level (Mississippi as a whole is nearly 20%, New Albany is just below that). And this isn't the first incident of a significant tragedy along this stretch of County road 87 outside of New Ablany. Eighteen months ago, a child was killed due to child abuse along the same county road. Also on the property, which happened to also be a puppy mill, were over 180 dogs -- many of which were also victims of cruelty.
While it is "easy" for officials to blame a particular breed of dog in this incident, it's much more difficult for them to acknowledge a larger social issue at play here -- one that is at play in many parts of the country. In pockets across the US, we have have groups of people who are low-income and poorly educated....and many of these areas suffer a lot from violence. It appears that this stretch of County Road 87 is no different. And while we can talk things like dog breeds, it is really a distraction from the much larger issue -- which is that as a part of the overall lack of education that comes in these poor areas, so follows the lack of education on how we should properly keep our pets. Chaining continues to show itself as a horrible way to keep a dog as its primary form of containment -- and often leads to other issues -- including, often, aggression -- especially among those it has not been socialized with (in this case, a toddler who was not a member of the home).
Until we start realizing tragedies like this for what they are, a small part of a larger social issue, we will never make any progress in solving the problem. Breed of dog does not matter...but how the dogs are cared for does.
My heart goes out to all of the families involved in this tragedy.
I'll post more updates as they become available. At this point, only the Tupelo Newspaper and two of the local Tupelo TV stations are covering the incident, so information is coming in pretty slowly.
I usually try to add this as part of the weekly roundup, but there have been some great posts from around the internet the past 10 days or so and I just really want to put them out there for some excellent reading. I really do encourage you to click through -- some great stuff out there.
Sam theDog Trainer has a very good new article on some of the causes for dogs biting young children. The keys are supervision children and dogs, providing proper training and exercise for your dog, and not creating a stressful environment for your dog.
Great news from Austin Pets Alive -- the Austin city council unanimously passed the resolution to make the necessary steps to make Austin a no-kill city. Here's a link to the shelter recommendations on how they plan to achieve no kill.
The folks at Animal Ark Foundation in Minneapolis have a great You Tube video they put together on how the animal welfare industry lost their way -- based on the book Redemption. It's very much worth watching -- it's 20 minutes long but goes very quickly.
Fred at One Bark at a Time has a really great article about dog bites. The reality is that most dog bites happen for a reason -- and it is usually caused by something the human did wrong. The more we understand dog behavior, the more we can properly assess whether a biting dog is truly aggressive or not. Fred shares a couple of personal stories that provide great examples for discussion. I'm a fan of Fred's writing (and photography), but I think his telling of personal stories like this are him at his best.
Christie had a great article in the San Franscisco Chronicle about why dog advocates aren't moving on when it comes to Michael Vick's unpaid dues. Vick's actions went far beyond dog fighting and into nearly unspeakable animal cruelty...for which Vick has never shown even the slightest bit of remorse.
This one is seemingly a bit random, but this is an article by John Stossel one what he feels like is a double-standard that journalists seem to have about bias. When Stossel first started as a journalist, he mostly reported about companies that were trying to screw over consumers (he has some interesting thoughts on this), and when he was doing it, other journalist liked him. But now that he has turned his focus onto the government and media and its constant fear mongering. I think it's a pretty good read following my series on the Science of Fear a few weeks ago. For what it's worth, I did a write-up about Stossel's Series: Fear Mongering in America back in 2007 - -you can read those installments here, here, here and here.
PBRC has launched a new blog called Pitter Patter. The site is mostly really cute pictures of 'pit bulls' in really funny moments and with funny headlines. Think of it as the LOLcats for 'pit bulls'. Nearly guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.
YesBiscuit has a good commentary on "What if we all neutered our pets today?" in response to the push for mandatory spay/neuter in Northeast Georgia.
The idea behind animal shelters is simple. Sometimes people are jerks, or careless, or victims of bad luck -- and the dog they committed to "for life" ends up homeless. The animal shelter the last resort for animals that have nowhere else to go.
I could use this column to go on about how shelter kill more healthy dogs and cats than any other cause of death. They call it euthanasia, but the end result is still death for the animal.
But today I won't. Today I want to ask, what happens when the dogs end up in a shelter where the people who run the shelter who don't really care about animals? Where the abuse they suffer is worse than it would be if the dog was just left out on the street?
Sadly, it happens. And it apparently did in amazing fashion recently in Memphis. On August 18, the dog pictured to the left entered the Memphis Animal Shelter as a seemingly healthy, vibrant puppy.
On September 4th -- only 3 weeks later -- the dog was found starved to death in the shelter. And this puppy wasn't the only case -- but was actually one of three dogs in the shelter that was found starved to death. Veterinarian reports note that the dog had not eaten anything in at least 72 hours prior to his death.
What -- the- hell?
The city animal control department is responsible for actually enforcing the city's animal cruelty laws -- not violating them on their own. And apparently, problems have been going on for awhile --- as the death rates in the city shelter have risen sharply over the past few years -- from 75 animals dying in the shelter in 2006, to 119 in 2007 to 193 in 2008.
The Memphis Mayor, AC Wharton, seems legitimately concerned about the issue -- and has halted all shelter euthanasia (which is at 250 animals per week -- 13,000 animals a year) until the criminal investigation is complete.
We can, and must, demand better from our animal control departments. These departments are tasked with not only providing public safety from animals -- but providing safety for animals from the public, both in terms of cruelty and abuse, and in terms of minimizing and eliminating shelter euthanasia. Memphis is major need of a dramatic overhaul of the entire department -- and I hope someone sees jailtime over this one.
Hat tip to YesBiscuit! on this, who has been following the story from the start:
Here's her original coverage on the raid.
And her understandably emotional response to the story about the puppy above (including the "after" image)
And For the Love of Dogs has some very thorough coverage of the events there as well.
It was a tough night for local politicians who favored Breed Specific Legislation throughout the country yesterday.
In Whitehall, OH, Jaquelin Thompson was voted out of office on a recall vote with 75% of voters saying she should be removed from office. Thompson was responsible for not once, but twice, trying to ban pit bulls in the community of Whitehall. She was removed from office two years before her term was up. Also in Whitehall, the only other council member who voted in favor of a ban on 'pit bulls' when it came up for a vote last year, Leslie LaCorte, was also voted out of office in favor of Van Gregg. LaCorte got only 41% of the vote.
(Special thanks to my friends at Help Fido for their Twitter updates last night to keep me up to speed on the latest news in Whitehall).
Meanwhile in Sioux City, IA, incumbant Jim Rixner who supported the city's breed ban last fall was voted out of office. Even Rixner admits that the new dog ordinance most likely cost him the election:
"The vote was split because people were angry about dog ordinances and the Chamber's furious effort to make sure I didn't get re-elected," said Rixner, who was running for his second term on council.
Both he and Rappolt received endorsements from labor organizations, but Rixner said he believes a lot of people "plunked" for Rappolt "because they wanted to see the (vicious) dog ordinance changed."
Rixner supported passage of a stricter vicious dog law and endorsed the pit bull ban, defending both votes during the campaign."
These politicians have followed others around the country, in places like Kansas City, MO; Merriam, KS; Raytown, MO; Overland Park, KS; and Omaha, NE who have been voted out of office shortly after their irresponsible dog legislation was passed -- or, after they proposed a ban on particular breeds of dogs in their city and it did not pass.
People are becoming increasingly aware of the realitities of Breed Bans - -and that they are costly to cities, impossible to enforce, ineffective, and not based on rational decision-making. It ignores all science and the public positions of every single nationally-respected organization that has expertise in canine/human interactions.
And because of this, people are beginning to consistently vote politicians out of office who favor this irresponsible legislation. And I've written about it before, but I do think that BSL can serve as a pretty solid litmus test for candidates.
And hats off to the people in these communities who are taking a stand against irresponsible legislation and the politicians who support it. We can make a difference by being involved politically and getting politcians in office who are animal-friendly.
If you're not involved politically, you are no longer a victim of what politicians do to you, you're a participant.
Over the past few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about a mantra that I read a lot in news articles, from rescue sites, from commentors defending pit bulls on various websites, etc. The mantra, and if you've been around "pit bull" rescue people for very long at all you've heard it: "Pit Bulls aren't people aggressive, they're dog aggressive."
Is this true? And if true, what is the severity of this truth? And what implications (if any) are there?
Last year, three researchers, Deborah L. Duffy, Yuying Hsu and James A Serpell, got together and published a scientific paper on dog breeds and aggression. And when they looked at aggression, they looked at four different kinds of aggression: Aggression toward the dog's owners, aggression toward strangers, aggression toward other known dogs, and aggression toward unknown dogs.
The research paper also has a great intro that talks about the reason for the study to be to analyze a correlation between "breed" and "aggression" -- and why "traditional" approaches of doing this based on dog bite statistics are dramatically flawed.
The research is based on completed questionaires based on the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionaire (C-BARQ). And while the researchers admit that as with many studies, there is some research bias involved as there is some sample bias and some bias that would go into the respondent's responses -- but I will say the overall results pass the sniff test of not being complete BS. I wouldn't want to base all of my decision-making on the results, but I do think they provide an interesting look at how dog breed may or may not influence "aggression".
The study shows reports on 33 different breeds of dogs -- based on these breeds being the ones that they had a large enough sample size to provide accurate data. All "pit bull" breeds were grouped into one "pit bull" category, so does not account for behavioral differences among the different breeds in the category.
Stranger Directed Aggression
A couple of breeds appeared really high in this category with Dachshunds and Chihuahuas leading the way. A few other breed, Australian Cattle Dogs, Australian Shepherds, Bichon Frise and Doberman Pinschers (in that order) also pretty consistently scored above average.
Greyhounds and Siberan Husky's were by far the least-aggressive in this category.
The mean score for "pit bulls" was below average on this type of aggression -- while the high end of their spectrum was above average (as it was for 22 of the 33 breeds) -- their overall scores were below average. The closest comparison for "pit bulls' in this category are Great Danes and Soft Coated Wheaton Terriers -- with "pit bulls" scoring slighly lower than Boxers, Beagles and Poodles in this category.
Owner Directed Aggression
Most dogs showed no aggression toward owners, so the scale on this was significantly lower than others. However, there were 6 breeds here that were significantly higher than average in their aggression toward their owners: Dachsunds, Beagles, Chihuahuas, Cocker Spaniels, English Springer Spaniels and Jack Russell Terriers.
The four lowest breeds in this category were Rhodesian Ridgebacks, "pit bulls", Doberman Pinschers and Bernese Mountain Dogs. None of the dogs in these breeds scored above the all-breed average.
Dog Directed Aggression (unknown dogs)
The five highest breeds in this category (in order) are: Akitas, Dachsunds, Chihuahuas, Jack Russell Terriers and 'pit bulls'. Other breeds that were above average include: Australian Cattle Dogs, Australian Shepherds, Border Collies, Boxers, Doberman Pinschers, English Springer Spaniels, German Shepherds and Soft Coated Wheaton Terriers.
The lowest breeds in this category were Greyhounds, Whippets, Collies, and Bernese Mountain Dogs.
Twenty two of the 33 breeds were above, or statisitically possibly above, average in this category.
Dog Aggression toward known dogs
Because these are known dogs, these numbers were again much lower than the unknown dogs:
Again, in order, the top 7 breeds here: Chihuahua, Jack Russell Terrier, Dachsund, English Springer Spaniel, "pit Bull", Beagle, Border Collie.
The lowest in this category: Labrador Retrievers, Brittany Spaniels, Golden Retrievers, Portuguese Water Dogs, Rhodesian Ridgebacks.
The pit bull's closest comp here is probably either the English Springer Spaniel or the Beagle.
Thoughts
Again, I would caution anyone from using any of the information as an end-all-be-all report on aggression by breed. Not only is the study subject to sample and survey bias -- but it is also important to note that any results do not indicated a causal relationship between breed and aggression -- only that a correlation may exist. I think this is an important point still with this study.
That said, I thought the results were interesting enough to share and I do encourage people who are interested to purchase the study at the link provided above (cost is $31.50 -- I cannot legally make the study available for you).
As it turns out, based on this study, it turns out that there is some truth to the old addage that "pit bulls aren't human aggressive but are dog aggressive". In fact, there are few breeds that performed bettter in friendliness toward people -- particularly the dog's owners (which should help people understand why so many people are attracted to these types of dogs as pets -- they tend to be extremely friendly and loyal). It should also be noted that test scores from the American Temperament Test Society echo this notion that 'pit bull' breeds do well in temperament tests involving people.
As for aggression toward other dogs, it does appear as if 'pit bulls' do tend to be a little more aggressive toward other dogs than what is average. But I think it's important to note that they are not some weird statistical outlier here -- that are infinitely more aggressive than other breeds of dogs -- and in fact scored below several breeds of dogs in this category.
A slight tendency toward aggression toward other dogs is NOT something that is unique to 'pit bulls'. In fact, many breeds scored similarly to them in this category -- including many breeds people would not generally associate with being "aggressive". The reality here is that there is a wider difference among dogs within a breed category than there is among most different breeds.
Based solely on this information, there is no scientific evidence that would in any way justify legislation targeted at specific breeds of dogs (any breeds), particularly 'pit bulls'.
The more we dive into what actual science has to say about dogs, the more we begin to realize how flawed all Breed Specific thinking is. That it is 100% based on emotion (often driven by media hyperbole) and not off of rational, scientific thinking.
Meanwhile, my hope also is that when 'pit bull people' talk about their dogs, they realize that the "dog aggression" they talk about is not something that is "unique" to 'pit bulls' -- but something that is somewhat common among many breeds of dogs. And that there is often much more difference in temperaments within particular breeds than there is between breeds.
