If a Pit Bull - or any aggressive dog, for that matter - bites a person, should that dog automatically be put to death?
That was the question facing a judge in Thibodaux, La., after a dog bit a woman last week, severely injuring her left arm. The woman, 48-year-old Tecla Smith, will require several reconstructive surgeries as a result of the bite.
Local sheriff's officials sought to have the dog, a three-year-old Pit Bull, euthanized, but an animal rescue organization in St. Tammany Parish stepped in and volunteered to care for the dog while its owners make their home safe for keeping a dog deemed dangerous.
The judge, Jerome Barbera, agreed to spare the dog and gave his owners, Jerome and Lillian Jarreau, time to comply with state and parish laws. They include building a fence for their yard, buying a kennel and placing a sign outside their house warning the public of the dog's presence.
"It was an unexpected, pleasant surprise," said Mike Jimenez, sheriff's staff attorney. "We never wanted to have the dog killed, but our greater duty is to the general public. I think with this compromise, everybody will be safe and it will give the Jarreaus a chance to become responsible dog owners."
The dog will be kept by the Pontchartrain Humane Society until the Jarreaus have their home prepared to care for the dog.
I'm happy a dog's life will be spared, but I sure hope the owners exercise better responsibility from now on. When dogs are dangerous, it's the fault of the owners, not the dog.
I was never much of a fan of the TLC reality show "Jon & Kate Plus 8," but I recall that they added a couple of dogs to their brood at one point - two beautiful German Shepherds that seemed to enjoy roaming the family's expansive grounds.
Well, the breakup of the marriage between Jon and Kate Gosselin turned out not to be a good thing for Shoka and Nala, who were returned to their breeder in September.
At the time, Kate Gosselin said "They'll come back, but for now I needed a break." The Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call reports that Kate also said she "never intended to give them back," but the dogs "needed more than I could give them."
Hmm. I don't mean to sound skeptical, but I wonder whether the dogs were little more than a storyline for the TV show. Give the family a couple of dogs, let them wreak havoc on the house for a week or two, then slip them into a few background scenes as the series moves along.
I hope not. But as USA Today blogger Anne Godlasky points out, on the video showing the Gosselins originally picking out the dogs, Kate says, "I could go my whole life without having a dog."
I'm a sucker for dog stories with happy endings. Here's one about a family of four dogs that appears to have been rescued by a Chicago-area family after their owners were killed in a motorcycle crash on Labor Day weekend.
The dogs belonged to Mike and Susan Kelms, who died last month but whose wishes were that the dogs be kept together if anything happened to them. Now it appears a family is willing to take them in, said Kathy Deets of the Chicago Canine Club in Burr Ridge, located southwest of Chicago.
Many villages in the area have a limit of three dogs per house, but Deets' club has worked hard to make sure the Kelms' dogs stay together. There's another problem: Their new adoptive family has owned dogs in the past but never more than one at a time.
"The family has not made a decision yet," Deets told the Web site Chicagobreakingnews.com in an email last week, "but things are going well."
Here's hoping the family chooses to keep the dogs. My wife and I have three Dachshunds and are about a welcome a rescue Greyhound to our family. We're proof it can be done.
A couple of months ago, I wrote about a woman who saved a dog's life by performing CPR after it was choked by a leash in a fall. It turns out the notion of giving mouth-to-snout resuscitation to our pets isn't so strange to many of us.
In a poll conducted for the Associated Press and Petside, 58 percent of pet owners - including 63 percent of people who own dogs - said they would be at least somewhat likely to perform CPR on their pet in a medical emergency.
No surprise there, if you ask me.
It goes beyond the fact that pets are an investment. We bond with them, nurture them and protect them in every way we can. In return, we receive their love and loyalty. Doesn't it stand to reason we would be willing to do whatever we could to save them?
In the poll, conducted Oct. 1-5 by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media for AP and Petside, more women said they were likely to give CPR to their pets than men, 65 percent to 50 percent. But we're not as prepared for an emergency as we should be: 20 percent of pet owners have a pet first-aid kid at home, and 54 percent don't have an evacuation plan for their pets in case of fire.
Would you be willing to give mouth-to-muzzle to save your dog?
This news will probably come as no surprise if you're a dog owner, but it's worth telling someone you know who's considering adoption: Pet ownership is good for your health.
The Washington Post reported recently that our pets can help us lead healthier lives, and not just because we enjoy taking them for walks - although that helps.
In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, it was found that of 421 adults who had suffered heart attacks, those who owned dogs were significantly more likely to still be alive one year later than those who didn't.
Various other studies have shown that we get more exercise from walking our dogs (I can vouch for that), and that we enjoy more social interactions because of people we meet through our dogs. Some studies also indicate that owning a pet lowers heart rates and blood pressure.
But I bet you already knew that.
