James Chapple
i was following an interesting debate between april 29 and terrierman last week until it suddenly ended. the terrierman forfeited the debate when he realized he was seriously outclassed and losing. terrierman had no response to this:
Well Patrick, I am pleased that you have not called me a fear monger, or a misinformed,delusional liar in the last 24 hours. I do not much waste my time on the run of the mill pit enthusiasts who run to comments about "I am the proud owner of a red nosed pit and he would NEVER hurt anyone, he lives with kittens, butterflies and unicorns." You are far too intelligent to be doing PR work for pit bull advocacy.
The numbers you ask for are found in medical chart records and, as you know, medical charts are private and that privacy is protected by Federal law. There was hope that recent changes in medical coding would include this information but that change did not come about. If that information was available and was released the response of pit bull advocacy would be that nobody can identify a pit bull and that the numbers are valueless for that reason. You and I both know that we can both identify a pit bull, as can Karen Delise. Ms. Delise sent an e-letter to the editor of the Annals of Surgery over the very article that started our discussion. BTW, Ms. Delise failed to disclose the status of the NCRC as a subsidiary of the AFF (mission statement "securing equal treatment and opportunity for pit bull dogs)in her e-letter to the editor and did not explain that LVT following her name stands for Licensed Veterinary Tech. It is not likely that many doctors saw this letter, one must be a subscriber, log into a secure site with your password, and go looking for it. The letter is a classic of pit bull advocacy.
This a quote from Ms. Delise' letter to the editor of the Annals of Surgery "There is no documented evidence from any authority that either dog involved in this incident were "pit bulls." To determine whether the breed attributed to these dogs could be visually substantiated by a recognized expert, I submitted photographs of both dogs to Dr. Amy Marder,VMD, CAAB. Dr. Marder reported the breed(s) of dog could not be reasonably determined by visual identification." The dogs involved were family pets owned by the grandmother of the victim, she knew what she had. The child was mauled to death. The family never challenged the identification of the dogs but Delise is not convinced, and asks an "expert" who is unable to identify any dog without registration papers. Ms. Delise goes on to dispute the cause of death of James Chapple, stating "Mr. Chapple received severe injuries but fully recovered and was discharged from the hospital." Among other injuries, Mr. Chapple lost his left arm and his right arm was mauled. The injuries were so severe that television cameras were brought into Mr. Chapple's hospital room so he could testify from his hospital bed on changes in state law regarding vicious dogs, written in response to his attack. State law was changed. There is no full recovery from these injuries. As a medical professional, I know there are more reasons for hospital discharge than full recovery. We discharge patients when there is nothing more that we can do for them, they go home with family care and home health nurses. There is no question that the death was due to the injuries suffered in the attack. We can't have chart records but we can know about attacks in the news and that information would make any thinking person stop and think.
You bring drunk driving and drunks falling through windows into the conversation as a means to change the subject. This is not as big a change as you suspect. Alcohol is considered dangerous and is regulated, who may buy it, how old they must be, where they may purchase it, how much they may be served, safe blood level for driving, no open containers, taxes are paid on the product. A great deal of the change in attitude toward drunk driving is due to victims who told their stories to legislators and demanded change. This was the MADD campaign, a huge public policy success. Pit bull advocacy fights any attempt to regulate a situation that does not benefit the dogs and does not benefit the public. The dogs change hands for the price of a carton or two of cigarettes, they are fought, dumped on the streets or turned in to shelters for aggression or a change in living situation of the owners. Taxes are not paid but taxpayers support the shelters that will house, and likely euthanize these animals.
When is enough, enough? When will somebody say "the emperor has no clothes?" This is what victims are telling legislators. MADD was a victim advocacy movement and a huge public policy success, we have a long way to go but hope for the same. You are on the fence and blaming both sides. Your blog is read by dog enthusiasts, you are preaching to the choir, preach to the congregation, preach on the street.
april 29
so he opted to not publish it.
but some comments are just too good to waste.
79 comments:
I think that being mentioned in the same context as MADD is a good thing. That's why victims -- and all of us who are potential victims -- should continue speaking up. The tide is starting to turn in our favor.
He was kind of being a jerk there. He insinuated that people who care do so because they are selfish.
I don't care about dog bites just because it could happen to me- i care because it could happen to anyone, and I have seen what disfiguring injuries do to people. There isn't a national health system here so it also means that people usually get financially ruined too. There is nothing shittier than seeing all the fundraising fliers families put up around hospitals; I saw countless posters of this sort on rehab floors. Spaghetti dinners and car washes and such, because there isn't any protection for people who get injured. Its horrible.
Holy shit, April 29! GOOD FOR YOU!
I enjoy Terrierman's blog and I think that his pit bull articles are pretty good. I've also read him recommend them to people as family pets and he has (or had) blogging privileges at pitbull-chat.com. I almost got into it once with him when I asked him why someone would want a pit bull as a pet when there are so many other dogs which pose no comparative risk to other pets or people. He didn't land on me with both feet, but he was very, very firm (to be fair, perhaps it was rude of me to confront him to brusquely in his house, aka blog).
I retreated. I figured that if we tangled and he was hostile with me, I might not be able to enjoy his blog, and I didn't want to give that up.
You've got sand, April 29, and your comment is excellent. You should be proud of yourself. He's an intimidating dude.
Can't wait to read the larger debate at his blog. I will post once I do.
It is shitty and stupid. He also said that if april29 wanted to get something done, it is the pit bull owners and advocates that must be reached and convinced. BS They will just continue to make more and more outrageous excuses a la Delise
They are the ones that will be dictated to. This issue will be resolved when it is planted firmly in the realm of public health and safety.
Bravo April29! And how very low of terrierman to not publish the reply.
very weaselly of him to not publish that comment but then again, how could he and remain king of his domain?
exactly skeptifem. the canadian craven readers don't realize that medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. paula ybarra lost her home after she was nearly killed by her neighbor's mutants - pit bull and ambull.
Good job April 29!
I left a comment last night after your last published one to back you up and provide a framing consistent with yours.
It wasn't published either. His insistence that all dissent must be based upon new numbers or, at least, explicitly reference his own is utterly wrongheaded and pompous.
He can list X and Y and then draw conclusion Z, but how dare someone question the way he is viewing the data or framing things.
It's his blog, so he can do as he pleases, but his idea that he is taking the intellectual high ground with the strict enforcement of his comment policy is a joke.
I left this comment on Terrierman's blog after he mentioned horses were dangerous too. It won't get published either. Hoping it's okay to share here. (Thought I'd added this already, so if it pops up twice, my apologies).
I am a horseman and a dog owner.
Yes, horses kill more people than do dogs. Here is a quote from my friend's grandfather, an ex-cavalry man, "The only safe horse is a dead horse". The problem with your analogy is that the person killed by a horse is 99.99% more likely to be the rider or the handler than someone walking down the road past the pasture. Hmm, you wanted numbers so you might want to add more 9's after the decimal.
There ARE strict requirements for horse ownership that perhaps you aren't aware of. You can't let them wander about. Can't house them in a city or suburb. Can't have a stallion unless it has specific housing. It must be stalled or within a six foot fence and two strands of hot wire in my county, even if it's a 10 hand mini. Kind of overkill, but stallions WILL attack people, not all, most are just as nice as other horses, so why the sexual discrimination? Hmm, maybe because people were tired of the destruction they caused. I bet it wasn't the STATISTICAL evidence. Weren't too many number crunchers around when the word stallion evolved from stalled-one.
Oh yeah, I'm also a math major. I find it funny you want people to fight with numbers, people don't think in numbers. You might, I do, but come on, if people understood numbers, the housing bust wouldn't have happened and neither would the banking fiasco. And those last folk were paid numbers guys. Go figure.
Personally, I've never been bitten by a dog, and up until recently I thought like you did. But lately, I've see too many idiot kids being dragged down the road by out of control pits, and in the woods, and in the vets' office.
The turning point for me was the kid who brought in his nearly 70 lbs (heard them weigh it later) pit into the vet's office (in harness, no collar), sat down and then got dragged halfway across the office when the dog spotted a tiny puppy on the shoulder of the woman at the counter paying her bill. Two thoughts went through my head, where do I stash my border collie so she's out of the way, and can I get to that dog with my knife before it knocks the woman down and eats her pup. The dog was totally out of control. Took the boy AND his girlfriend to drag it back out to the car.
Wasn't the NUMBERS that changed this mathematicians mind, it was the adrenaline.
There's a perfect storm brewing, terrierman and unless you can get the CDC to gather the data you need to make up your mind, you and your dogs (and my dogs) are going to be caught in it.
Here's my math:
Too Many Idiot Owners
+
Too many dogs bred for aggression
=
ALL dog owners lose their rights, no Privilege, to own and enjoy our dogs.
Patrick is using a variation on the "coconut argument", and I honestly can't believe he would go there.
before you click publish on a comment at terrierman, be sure to copy it and post it here. he has a sometimes strict policy about publishing anonymous comments.
dubv, i think terrierman has had a couple of epiphanies. the first being a drop in his readers, the second being his son who is now a pit bull owner.
we should expect an overall change in his pit bull tune.
Terrierman sends his dogs down holes in the ground to an uncertain fate to kill animals that are a nuisance to farmers but that most people simply just shoot with a high powered rifle.
He obviously views a few things, like risk, a bit different than most other people.
Sorry about the anonymity. It's an accident of technology, and my forgetfulness.
cazz
A jerk happily poses with a smile and a thumbs-up in his booking photo after being charged for animal cruelty. He left his dog in a hot car, where the animal died.
Guess the breed of the dog.
http://blog.sfgate.com/hottopics/2012/07/05/after-dog-dies-in-his-hot-car-owner-smiles-in-booking-mug/
Animal lovers, take heed: What kind of people own pit bulls? This kind.
Way to go, April 29th! It's interesting, because I thought Terrierman was on OUR side based on his other pit bull articles. Too bad he is too chicken to post well-thought out comments like yours. I can see not allowing trolls to comment, but there is absolutely nothing trollish about your well-reasoned commentary. Anyway, I'm glad it was saved and posted here. A shame to let good writing go to waste. Keep up the great work!
Terrierman has been a big asset to the working dog community, which I am a part of with my working border collies. It stuns me to see him argue the other side, the side that says "all dogs are the same", but many of us dog owners have our heads well buried in the sand.
We don't want to see tougher legislation on any dogs because, consciously or not, we are afraid "the public" may someday come after our dogs. (Herding dogs bite, terriers are genetically cranky).
We, the working dog owners, think that by screaming at the top of our lungs, over and over that it's "Bad owners", we can somehow make people who get these dogs less stupid.
With over a million pits and pit types being euthanized each year, the problem isn't going to get better by just talking about it. We have FREE spay/neuter for pits up my way and STILL CL is crammed with pit pups. Drive by any Walmart parking lot on a sunny day and there's someone selling pitpups.
Every day it gets worse, every day we do nothing. How dare he ask for numbers when he should know damned well the stats he's asking for are unavailable.
He wants stats, then this is what needs to happen:
EVERY dog should be DNA tested upon licensing and/or incident.
A database MUST be setup that the CDC feeds ALL dog bite information into, including dog "type" and severity of the injury and DNA of the attacking dog.
AC should be required to submit the same information on any dog that bites another animal. Type, DNA, severity.
Wait ten years. Mine the data for type + DNA relationship.
We have the technology to do this. But do we have the time or the money?
I don't think so. CAZZ
"EVERY dog should be DNA tested upon licensing and/or incident."
I'd be careful what you ask for. Determining the breed of dog from DNA tests is not very reliable. It is one thing to match two DNA samples (1 from a crime scene, the other from a suspect) or to determine close familial relationship (Maury Povich paternity testing), but it is much more difficult to test a dog, especially a mix, and then determine the breed.
Pure bred dogs given DNA tests for breed come back with wild results often.
This is why the little pit bull advocacy poster where they take mixes, have shelter workers guess mix, and then DNA test it is a joke. The way to actually do a good test is take known pure breeds and known mixes (you know what they actually have in them) and then have AC guess and then try the DNA test. My guess is that trained humans will have a better overall accuracy.
Even PBurns agrees
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-accurate-are-dog-breed-dna-tests.html
The DNA testing for breed is a joke, I agree, as is the concept of "purebred".
We can identify your relatives from your DNA tests. I'm betting we can identify strains of psychotic dogs within 10 years time from DNA tests.
I'm not talking breed here, I'm talking tendency. I'm betting there's going to be a strong correlation between certain genetic strains (what we'd call "type") and aggression.
Ten years is several generations in dog time. Should be able to get plenty of data by then.
The technology exists. The data does not.
cazz
Aggression will most likely be a polygenetic trait with a many-to-one relationship between genotypes and phenotypes. The dog genome has been mapped, but that does not mean at all that we have seen all the alleles or have a transformation from genotype to phenotype for many traits. Finding alleles for aggression in dogs will be much more difficult than you are conceptualizing.
When you take DNA from a specific dog, you do not know its genome. Research must find a link between a set of gene sequences and aggression, and it must be guided toward a specific goal because simply getting full DNA sequences of many dogs and then looking for correlations with behavior is prohibitively time consuming. For instance, to know the full DNA sequence of one dog, it takes multiple labs several years.
I appreciate that a mathematician is ambitious about using analytical tools, and this is kind of a big math problem; but unless DNA processing speeds up and extra resources are available I don't see what you suggest happening in the next 50 years, unless a few geneticists take it on as a specific project.
Maybe not, but why not collect the data now? IF this could be done, you're out of the breed argument all together.
It is a pitbull or isn't it? Who cares? It's a genetic timebomb.
Terrierman, and others, want stats. I don't see another solution for those who demand HARD numbers to back up an argument. Numbers that can't be said to be over inflated by a "hysterical media" or "mis-identification".
BUT, my belief is that this battle isn't going to be won with numbers anyway, there are simply too few dog attacks (being reported).
Numbers would help speed things up, however. I'm just TRYING to come up with ideas.
cazz
I'm only trying to help you come up with ideas, as well, by giving some information I have that you might not yet know.
You would have to preserve a sample from the dogs in question so as not to degrade the genetic material. Then you have to decide what to do with it. If you are wanting to know the DNA sequence of all those dogs, right now it would take all the genetics labs in the country and they would still have a backlog.
DNA fingerprinting is relatively easy. You cut the genome at certain sites and simply see how long the strands are between cuts. You can then come up with probability statements regarding such things as two different people having the same exact cut sites and hence same length between cut strips. You know practically zelch though about the DNA sequence (A,T,C,G) between those cuts and these cuts are a vanishing small % of the genome. To know the full sequence is very difficult as the genome of a dog is billions of base pairs long.
Yep. I'm an idiot.
I don't think that at all. Most of the ideas I've had in my life will not work or if they will then they have already been thought of before!
That was a submissive gesture. The second, I think. So, please stop biting me already.
The only problem I see in the idea is the speed lab DNA processing, if I'm reading you correctly. I've probably been in comp sci too long and I expect the speed of things to double every two years.
So, what are these "test a breed" people doing with DNA samples anyway, if not testing them somehow? Or are they reading them like tea leaves, and not looking at sequencing at all?
And if anyone wants to throw ideas out on the following problem, please do.
How do you talk to 'dog people', especially 'working dog people' who are deathly afraid of BSL (because many of our dogs use their bite in their work) or ANY increased dog legislation? Terrierman is surely one of those, as well as the father of a pit owner.
cazz
"Patrick is using a variation on the "coconut argument", and I honestly can't believe he would go there."
Yeah, DubV, I was pretty amazed when I read it, myself. I thought exactly the same thing.
That Mr. Burns, of all people, should take issue with a piece of peer-reviewed research in a journal of medicine, is a fucking head-scratcher.
I'd eat my shorts if 2,000 people--almost all of them SURGEONS--read that article world-wide.
I didn't post a comment because it's anecdotal evidence, but I was good friends with a reconstructive surgeon for several years. He worked on a lot of dog bites (among other things), sometimes with other surgeons. He wasn't a political man and he didn't care about dogs or animals. The extent of his political activism was voting, basically.
He thought pit bulls were an absolute menace to public safety. He would cross the street to get away from them. The stories I would hear. "They leave empty holes!" It was so gross. He talked about trying to reattach cartilidge from a dog's stomach after it bit it off a kid.
These test don't test for breed they test for family relations. Because our breeds are so inbred you only need the profile of a couple of hundred examples of a breed to compare to your sample. See DNA of one of the stud dogs and you know your dog belongs to this breed. That's why you can't test a dog from England in the USA. They wouldn't be as closely related.
"I figured that if we tangled and he was hostile with me, I might not be able to enjoy his blog, and I didn't want to give that up."
i have struggled with the very same dilemma. even though i am in agreement with terrierman more often than not, it is hard for me to overlook his perverted pastime of turning his dogs out on innocent wildlife for fun. what he does is like hog dogging, it is more sadistic than dog fighting and should be outlawed and criminalized. i have nothing against hunting for food but when your idea of hunting is letting dogs tear up other animals, well that's just fucking psychopathic.
i agree with others here too, terrierman appears to be creating more falling coconut arguments. who fucking cares if a drunk falls through a window! i don't think our government should be protecting us from OURSELVES, only from others. same with this statement: Pit Bulls are mostly a danger to themselves. in the big picture, who fucking cares! and frankly, i am sick to death of the "40 million pounds of pit bulls" mantra. why do pit bulls enjoy a higher status than the animals they are killing? in michigan a couple of years ago, two pit bulls killed 40 sheep or in terrierman lingo, 150 pounds of pit bulls killed ~4000 pounds of sheep. WTF? what about the 10 billion animals that we eat each year? you can tease out these bullshit arguments indefinitely. it's a distraction from the real issue cuz they have nothing left to support their arguments.
I am very disappointed in Patrick....as much as I am a dog lover, the humane euthanization of a pit bull is not a tragedy directly proportional to a human death or mauling. His response to Carol, who was respectful and articulate, was insulting....I am not sure why he felt the need to mock victims of pit bull attacks.
His suggestion that victims need to provide "hard data" to advocate for regulation of pit bulls is ridiculous...this issue is being fought at the local level. My town has numerous laws and ordinances governing what type of animals I can own and how many. No one needed "hard data" to restrict chickens and livestock in my suburb, it was considered a public health,and quality of life issue that was covered by local zoning laws.
Multiple attacks on residents, pets or livestock, large numbers of abandoned pit bulls flooding local shelters, numerous calls and complaints to police or AC about aggressive or nuisance pit bulls, LEOs being confronted by aggressive pits while serving warrants or making arrests, or a problem with dog fighting in the area are all reasons for a community to regulate these dogs. No one needs a statistical analysis to recognize a public safety/quality of life issue, and most communities that choose to enact local ordinances regulating animals don't use scientific statistical analysis to pass local laws. They use feedback from residents and municipal departments that would be dealing with the issue.
I have always wondered why Patrick doesn't just disable comments if he does not want to watse his time with people responding to his writing. That would be a lot easier than expending so much energy telling everyone why they are stupid and wrong.
I'm always baffled when people let themselves be pulled down that road that gives dogs more or less human rights (and even Constitutional rights). The DNA discussion seems to me to be in that category: heaven forbid we put down any dog without spending huge public resources to determine...what was it again? Whether it's a pit / pit mix? If it is, whether it has some warrior gene (so we can spare the poor, poor pits that don't have the warrior gene)?
I don't mean to insult anyone, but this is yet another red herring the pit fans have put out to distract people. It's clear that the impulsive aggression and certain physical traits that make pit-types what they are, are genetically determined. Now the freaks have got us arguing about identifying the specific genes plus the specific genetics in each individual dog before we're allowed to do anything about the problem or even about a single undog.
Visual identification is enough. We won't get all the pit mixes, but we'll get most of them. We might PTS an innocent (eg) Lab mix that really has no pit in it, but at least it's a gentle death by lethal injection, not a being ripped apart alive. Besides, we PTS millions of dogs every year without a qualm, why would it be a tragedy to at least select which go first by visual pit-suspicion inspection? That would empty shelters out enough that the normal, clearly non-pit-type dogs would have much more time, more chance.
Meanwhile, it looks like Burns has gone down that road where no matter what science and statistics you present to him, he'll say they're no good. Becoming a typical pit nutter. Can't wait for the day when he says 'yeah, but my SON'S pit...'
@ Cazz: "Maybe not, but why not collect the data now? IF this could be done, you're out of the breed argument all together."
Aside from genetics, we could get out of the breed argument altogether by summary PTS for any dog that seriously injures another living creature -- Cazz's bite-work dogs excepted as long as they've never seriously injured a human or other animal outside their active police duties.
Burns wouldn't like that of course, cos I suspect Burns nowadays wants his son's undog protected no matter the cost to others, besides his own 'right' to let his smaller killers tear apart wild animals alive (thanks Dawn). Maybe Burns doesn't really see much difference between what his little terriers do and what the pit-type undog does when it rips apart bigger animals (including us, dogs and horses)?
Dawn said...
"what he does is like hog dogging"
Exactly, he uses smaller dogs going after smaller (ground)hogs, but he doesn't use a knife. He instead lets the dogs finish them off. I'm sure dog men have spun a tale where their dogs are better or more humane than the other options, however. But I think they simply don't care too much about "vermin" and the dogs they own that they put at risk.
Dawn said..
"frankly, i am sick to death of the "40 million pounds of pit bulls" mantra. why do pit bulls enjoy a higher status than the animals they are killing? in michigan a couple of years ago, two pit bulls killed 40 sheep or in terrierman lingo, 150 pounds of pit bulls killed ~4000 pounds of sheep. WTF? "
Excellent. For every pound of pit bull, I wonder how many pounds of innocent canine and feline victims of pit bulls we spare? I don't want pit bulls to die in shelters, I want them to never be born to begin with. None of us can help what their traits are. They are traits that should be marginalized. They might have some positives, but they do more harm than good to themselves and others. So, unlike PBurns, I'll lump their negative activity towards themselves and others as a one big group of negative. It is time to decrease this substantially.
@ Cazz: “We don't want to see tougher legislation on any dogs because, consciously or not, we are afraid "the public" may someday come after our dogs. (Herding dogs bite, terriers are genetically cranky).”
Huh? Do you have any idea how many herding dogs I’ve known and worked with that don’t ‘bite’ if by bite you mean inflicting injuries? [Thousands.] If your border collies are delivering uninhibited bites, it’ll be due to mistakes you’re making in how you raise and handle them. It’s not fair to project one’s own dogs’ behavior, which is inevitably influenced by how one behaves, onto not only an entire breed but then also onto all herding dogs.
Then you do it to terriers. How many terriers have you known and worked with? That terriers are genetically cranky is one of those silly myths used by incompetent owners to put the blame for their mistakes on the dog. The only terriers I’ve ever known that showed genetically determined pathological aggressive behavior were a few short-legged Jack Russells – a breed created by mixing in English bull terrier (a fighting / baiting breed) so as to get that athletic look. The other terriers I’ve known [hundreds] have all been perfectly normal, very tolerant and charming, not at all cranky dogs unless the owner had made them so.
I wonder if you also believe that it’s impossible to train recall in a husky? You know, huskies just genetically don’t come when called, nothing to do with owner incompetence in training the recall.
What I mean to say by this is that I don’t think you or anyone else needs to fear BSL for whatever you call ‘my breed’, as long as your ‘my breed’ isn’t one of the aggressive breeds (genetically engineered for no other purpose than the ability and will to kill). There’s no reason why banning or regulating these killer breeds would lead to banning types of dogs that maul or kill once every ten years (or never). This is the slippery slope fallacy.
Meanwhile, bans / regulation of killer breeds could save some other breeds from being victimized and ruined by the same human foolishness that created the killer breeds. For example, it might scare the crap out of the GSD and Malinois clubs that are breeding now for nervousness and diminished impulse control (stupidly thinking that this makes better guard and police dogs).
I don’t mean to hurt or insult anyone, just to get some thinking going. I can’t let these mythical statements about normal dogs pass, partly because it’s not fair to them and I am one of their defenders, partly because it clouds the issue so much. There’s a huge difference between dogs that deliver uninhibited bites because of owner error, and the undogs that do this no matter how correctly the owner did everything just simply because they were genetically engineered to kill (and to love doing it). You really don’t need to worry that if the aggressive breeds are banned your border collies and Jack Russels will be next.
Dawn said.. "frankly, i am sick to death of the "40 million pounds of pit bulls" mantra."
Hey DubV I'd like to respond to this too. I agree with your and Dawn's remarks...but I've used the '40 mln pounds yearly of born then unwanted dead pits' mostly in an attempt to show that the pit-freaks don't really much care about pits at all. That they are the ones who, as they fight any and all regulation or even insurance requirements, are utterly indifferent to what this means not only for us, our children, and what they call curs, but also utterly indifferent to what it means for the undog they claim to love.
A way to discredit their claim that for them it's about animal rights and welfare, even about pit bull rights and welfare, but only about personal narcissism.
I hated Burns's post. I hate seeing someone who seemed intelligent go down the plug-hole of nutterism. But... Even if Burns is using the mantra in a nauseating way, if he does use it to get at least less pits among us, then I hope he continues. What if all the pit freaks suddenly decided they didn't want a mln a year killed as unwanted and demanded regulation? I wouldn't care if they did it (in their minds) only for the undogs' sake. Who cares what motivates them, as long as the rest of us get some relief? In fact, I bet Machiavelli would greatly approve of moving the nutters to demand regulation...
"Exactly, he uses smaller dogs going after smaller (ground)hogs, but he doesn't use a knife. He instead lets the dogs finish them off."
Really? I was under the impression that the dogs were used to route the groundhog from its tunnel, and then the groundhog was shot.
Groundhogs are big! Wouldn't it take a long time for Jack Russels to kill a goundhog?
I also didn't think that he killed foxes. He seems to be fond of them. I thought he just hunted them and let them go.
I'm with you, Branwyne. His response to Carol was mean, and I don't get it.
I've been reading his blog a couple times a week for years now. This pit bull stuff is not congruent with the rest of his documented philosophy. It looks like: stripes stripes stripes CIRCLES stripes stripes. This man is all about Empiricism, and then he asks for data NOBODY can provide right now. He understands the limits of research. I don't get it.
@ DubV: "I don't want pit bulls to die in shelters, I want them to never be born to begin with."
This is what all ban BSL has dictated -- an end to births, with a grandfather clause for pits already born when the ban was adopted.
It's the culture of violence consumerist nutcases that still absolutely have to have a pit, thus have the undog born knowing a death sentence is hanging over its head, then blame us if they get caught with their illegal undog and it's put down.
All the same, shelter killings of pit bull type dogs drop dramatically everywhere they're banned. See for example:
http://17barks.blogspot.nl/2012/06/pit-bulls-and-shelter-bankruptcy.html
I have never had a problem with the shelter killing (gently, on the vet's table, by first sedation and then a lethal injection) of any pit-type dog. This is because I was sick and tired of witnessing what the pit would otherwise do to other animals. Still am. I don't really have a problem with a mln pits a year put down in shelters. If they must be born (due to the nutter narcissistic idiocy), better that than having them out among us.
When we put an animal down by lethal injection, it doesn't suffer. It's us who suffer by knowing what we're taking from the animal. But I suffer more from knowing what every killer-type dog will take from some other animal (including us human ones) than by what we're taking from the killer-type dog. You know, the undogs not only take lives, they take them in the most horrendous, long-drawn-out suffering way, again and again if we let them. No need to do to them what they do to others, but gently taking their lives isn't a tragedy.
I'm not contradicting you here, just adding some thoughts. If we can't stop the births, then I'm all for the peaceful deaths the instant any pit / mix / derivative shows up at a shelter.
"number one cause of bankruptcy in the U.S." LMAO! ya, ok
so, now that this comment is out there....what does that make "the score"? Are you 10 winning yet?
Ryan is wrong. Shocker, I know.
"Medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2007, according to a study by Harvard researchers."
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db2009064_666715.htm
It's all over the web and you can Google Scholar it if you want to read the abstracts.
Can't you read?
So you all don't like the idea of DNA testing to find familial lines, I get that, but that's no reason to assume I'm against you.
I'm pissed off and frustrated because it's been twenty-five years since my GSD mix was shredded as it was out on a run, ON LEASH, on a public road when two pits, who had torn their way out of their enclosure, latched on to her.
Twenty-five years and the PB proliferation is twenty-five times worse, from what I'm seeing. I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong, in fact, I think it's fantastic. Blogs and websites and stats, the ones you can get, but where's the "Next Idea Think Tank" and how do I apply for it?
Also the statement "herding dogs bite" in now way indicates my dogs are sheep shredders. Come on, that's a personal attack on somebody you don't even know. If you know herding dogs AT ALL, you know they bite/nip/grip, whatever you want to call it, cattle, sheep, horses, children, etc. when their instinct kicks in, especially when they lack training as most dogs do. Nowhere in the statement "herding dogs bite" does it say my dogs were running around biting willy-nilly.
You want to discuss how and when a proper grip is delivered, let's get away from the folks that don't give a damn.
Terriers, well maybe I've been unfortunate in my experience with them. I know two JR breeders. One, I can't say anything bad about, the other has one dog that's bitten half a dozen people. If anyone reaches for it, it bites, yet she insists on dragging it into public. I also got to see a death match break out between two of her bitches, and the only way the could separate the two was putting them in the sink and running water over them. After which I said, "You breed this things?"
cazz
There is nothing that is going to change the number of pit bulls being born, short of legislation. Nothing. That's the paradox...the types of people who want to own and breed a dog genetically designed to attack and kill other dogs don't care about animal suffering. Period. They are not trying to prevent animal suffering by "advocating" for pit bulls, they are trying to preserve their right to make money breeding and selling pit bulls.
I have posted before that Massachusetts has NO dog overpopulation problem, and we have to import dogs from out of state to fill the demand for adoptable dogs. The exception to this is pit bulls, who still are abandoned, and flood shelters, in record numbers, despite the fact that there is no pet market for them amongst responsible dog owners.
If Patrick Burns, or anyone else, thinks that appealing to pit bull fanatics sense of shame over the fact that millions of the dogs are euthanized, he is wasting his time. We have free and low cost s/n for pits here in Ma, most shelters won't adopt out without the dog being fixed first; we have leash laws, and educational programs, and traning support and free vacinations, and on and on, and it doesn't help.
The only thing that pit bull advocates do here is relentlessly promote these dogs as the greatest family pet imaginable through aggressive PR campaigns designed to make the dogs MORE POPULAR. They lie about their genetic propensity for animal aggression, call them nanny dogs that are "great with children". Even though we are flooded with unwanted pit bulls here, we have shady rescue groups IMPORTING pit bulls from out of state into Mass to be adopted!
Massachusetts is a state that shows us that it is a myth that you can help pit bulls by appealing to pit bull "lovers". Organized pit bull advocacy protects back yard breeders, including dog fighters and criminals who are abusing these animals. Mandatory s/n laws, microchipping, and insurance requirements for owners would keep pit bulls rare, and help ensure that only responsible, stable people owned them.
normal person to pitter:
"you breed these fucking things ? "
pity
Ryan is a fucking idiot and I have read nothing he's posted which dissuades me to the contrary. I gave him the benefit of the doubt as long as possible--I am really too much of a softie--but he's dishonest, intellectually lazy, and contributes JACK SHIT to the exchange. He is not even an effective troll.
I found that fact in 2 seconds and I looked up the peer-reviewed research--and other studies that support it--in about 20 seconds.
how frustrating is it not having an audience?
"Really? I was under the impression that the dogs were used to route the groundhog from its tunnel, and then the groundhog was shot.
Groundhogs are big! Wouldn't it take a long time for Jack Russels to kill a goundhog? "
I don't know specifically what Patrick does. I'm sure he has something to finish a groundhog off that is pulled from the hole. I know that these dogs fight and often kill the groundhog in the hole. I must admit ignorance to whether they are trained or bred to pull them out alive or attempt to kill them first. This is very dangerous to dogs, even if they like it.
"Groundhogs are big! Wouldn't it take a long time for Jack Russels to kill a goundhog?"
They are insanely tenacious and very strong for their size. They remind me quite a bit of pits.
pitter-nut
would u be smiling still in the unlikely but quite possible event that one of your rescues or fosters attacks your young son on one of his structured visits? would your mugshot resemble that turds who baked his mutant in his bimmer?
There is nothing that is going to change the number of pit bulls being born, short of legislation. "Nothing. That's the paradox...the types of people who want to own and breed a dog genetically designed to attack and kill other dogs don't care about animal suffering. Period. They are not trying to prevent animal suffering by "advocating" for pit bulls, they are trying to preserve their right to make money breeding and selling pit bulls."
Agreed. Pit bull advocate education programs rely upon responsible people to begin acting irresponsibly by adopting pits into their homes and for irresponsible people to begin being responsible by spay/neutering, etc.
It ain't gonna happen.
re jr's
its all down to the owner and owner responsibility. please dont be so ignorant and bias to say that jackies were bred to kill vermin. i knew one bitch that suckled a whole litter of orphaned baby rats and drove off a pair of rampaging pitbulls to protect her babies. so, get your head out of your asses and dont be so close -minded , go out and get laid or something . lol
forty million pounds of deactivated mutant flesh.
makes me smile.... mind-u ,what a terrible waste of animal protein.
Garnet -
Great summary. Even I could follow it. In fact, I may print it out so I can read from it the next time I get into a heated argument about BSL with one of my dog owning 'buddies'.
cazz
here is terrierman's youtube channel. i only watched a couple of videos. you might find better ones on other channels.
even if he shoots the animals after his dogs drag it out of the hole, it is perverse to engage in this behavior for "fun". just stay home and pulls wings off of flies and spare innocent creatures the psychological torment of being being ripped from their homes.
but the bottom line is terrierman is a fucking hypocrite. he cares more about dogs than he does about cats, sheep, horses, badgers and ground hogs but his panties get in twist when people like me and april 29 care more about beagles, collies, pointers and labs than pit bulls.
i barely like the human race but to claim that these 40,000,000 lbs of pit bulls are somehow the equivalent to human life is crazy talk. in the big picture of humans killing animals, 1,000,000 dead shit bulls is a fucking rounding error. 25,000,000 animals are enslaved and killed in laboratories, 200,000,000 animals are killed by hunters and 10,000,000,000 are raised, transported and killed in the most inhumane ways for food. so fucking what if 1,000,000 pit bulls die a humane death. yeah, i'd rather they not be born too but they are.
i just wiped a smile from pit nutter's face,
that felt kind of good.
"Excellent. For every pound of pit bull, I wonder how many pounds of innocent canine and feline victims of pit bulls we spare? "
yes and add to that weight of all manner of equine, livestock, wildlife and humans....
"Ryan is a fucking idiot... he's dishonest, intellectually lazy,"
yep. that is the definition of a pit nutter. when i was a pit nutter, i bought the nurture argument. the difference between me and them, they will seek out information that supports their existing opinions. i regularly seek out information that contradicts my opinions.
"While 'most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence,' the research found that actually 'we often base our opinions on our beliefs ... and rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions.' These studies help to explain why America seems more and more unable to deal with reality. So many people inhabit a closed belief system on whose door they have hung the 'Do Not Disturb' sign, that they pick and choose only those facts that will serve as building blocks for walling them off from uncomfortable truths." Bill Moyers
Dawn James and DubV: I'm sold. Breakups suck, but I'm breaking up with Terrierman.
Garnet: EXACTLY!!! This is medical research in a scholarly journal for PHYSICIANS. Who can object to it? It's not even a policy journal. It's about things relevant to surgeons. Apparently, they think dog maulings are important enough to write about to their own people. Who are we to argue. And this smart guy who's all about positivism, Terrierman with a MASTER'S DEGREE, is bitching.
BOO!
Sad day.
pitbulls make very loving pets and they take care of your kid when u go out to score meth or get skank at the local bar. u make me smile, pit-nutter.
"even if he shoots the animals after his dogs drag it out of the hole, it is perverse to engage in this behavior for "fun". just stay home and pulls wings off of flies and spare innocent creatures the psychological torment of being being ripped from their homes."
Agreed. My dog is half doxie. He sniffs around where groundhogs have been and gets pretty amped. No way in hell I'm letting him down in a hole to get tore up, let alone the damage to the groundhog.
here's the terrierman comment that pushed me over the edge:
it holds true for Pit Bull demonizers who do not salute the inherent risk in life.
WTF?
"it holds true for Pit Bull demonizers who do not salute the inherent risk in life."
Sounds like poorly worded macho bullshit to me. Terrierman is way too fucking impressed with himself.
snarky, here is the flip side to the skankmethbar nutter
you got that right DubV.
if im one of those evil pit bull demonizers then i say you brave pittiephiles should embrace the risk of severe ankle damage from the smaller breeds. mind u , ive not heard theres much call for ankle reconstruction due to nonmutant attacks.
lol ankle reconstruction
DubV: I TOTALLY TOTALLY understand your point--and I would never do anything to let my animals get hurt, either.
But--for the sake of philosophical argument--working dogs love to work. They'll work--like dogs at the Iditarod or the WTC or the OKC bombing by Timothy McVeigh--until they collapse.
The dogs want to do it. It seems to be joyous to them. Why is it bad to hunt with them?
I am not trolling you, DubV, I really like your contributions here. I would appreciate your opinion.
Hey back off terrierman. He consumes his prey in one way or another. Nuthin goes to waste.
PossumPie
CoonBurgers and Chicken Fried GroundHog
Fuzzy Critter Slippers
No problem, I like some back and forth, it's a great way to improve yourself.
The argument of letting working dogs do the work they enjoy can also be used to justify allowing to game pit bulls to fight each other.
When a dog is working and even put at risk to provide a significant benefit to humans that cannot be had any other way, then I see that as no problem. That covers SAR dogs, etc.
When a dog works at something that is of no risk to itself and does not harm to any other living things. Again, no problem.
Now, when a dog works at something that causes no harm to any other living thing, but might put itself at increased risk (such as iditarod sled dogs). Eh, a borderline case perhaps the start of a problem, but nothing to split hairs over.
When a dog working puts itself at risk, hurts another living thing, does something that can be done more humanely and at less risk to themselves (an entire type of firearm is called a varmint rifle), and is engaging in a work pleasure that can be garnered in another way or replaced so as to leave the dogs OK mentally......clear cut problem. Is it as bad nuclear proliferation? Nah. But as least as bad as falling coconuts ;)
I wonder where his photos of the injuries his dogs have sustained are located?
Terrierman said "it holds true for the pit bull demonizers who do not salute the inherent risk in life."
Lets look at the risks of Tyzhel McWilliams, 8 months old, the risk was living in a household with pits in it. Tyzhel died.
The risk for Makayla Darnell, age 3 days, living in her grandmother's home. The family dog was a pit bull. Makayla died.
Risk for Maryann Hanula, age 73, caretaker for her 93 year old mother? Standing in her own front yard with pit bulls living next door. Ms. Hanula died.
Jazilyn Mesa, age 15 months, her risk was living in her father's home, daddy had a pet pit bull. Jazilyn died.
What was the risk for Clifford Wright, age 74? His son lived in his household and that son recently acquired a pit bull. Mr. Wright died.
How about James Hunt, age 92? Did he know the risks of working in his own garden when he had a pit bull living in the neighborhood? Mr. Hunt died.
Kylar Johnson, age 4 years. His risk was living in a neighborhood with pit bulls in it. Kylar died.
USPS employee Diane Jansen,age 59. Obviously she knew the risks of delivering mail. She was attacked by pit bulls and suffered a massive stroke after her attack. She went unresponsive at the scene. Ms. Jansen died.
Jace Valdez, age 16 months. He should have known the risks of visiting his mother and grandmother. They had a pit bull in the home. Jace died.
Yep, you gotta accept the risks in life. These are just the deaths of 2012 to date. Don't even think of those who lived, who will never have be the same, may never have full physical function, who will never pay off their medical bills and may face bankruptcy. Owners of pleasant dogs must accept the risk of walking their pets on the sidewalks of their communities. How many of these pleasant dogs are attacked, many of them killed, these stories turn up in the news every single day?
It appears that Terrierman is simply saying "take your mauling and shut up about it."
Btw-since I started posting here I adopted Winston and have placed 3 pitbulls in 3 separate homes in New England. You're Welcome.
I wonder if Ryan Nutter's first meet and greet with a potential adopter are BYOB (bring your own breakstick)?
he thinks we should thank him ,presumably for placing mutants in responsible homes.
newsflash ryan : we dont swallow all that horseshit u pitters try to feed us about it being down /up to the owners to make sure nothing bad happens . its not wrong and its not right and we dont like it either way.
GREAT PIT BULL HEROES IN HISTORY:
Congratulations to Mr Sean Vorel of Nebraska who earned the 28th Carnegie Lifesaving Medal awarded to an individual that saved a life during a Pit Bull attack.
Pit Carnegie Number 28
*Note...39 Carnegies have been awarded for non-rabid dog attacks in North America...28 of them have involved Pitties
**Disclaimer...You Can't Make This Up!!
seven out of ten , pretty good odds on your daylight nightmare having a pitbull in it .
I was about to reflect on what snark noticed. 28/39 is roughly the proportion of fatalities associated with pits as well. Interesting when independent sources of data converge like that.
"Regulate" and "ban" are two different words with separate definitions. Choose one and stick with it.
"Regulate" and "destroy" (I've grouped all the words used to describe the concept into the easy-to-understand "destroy") are also defined differently.
Most dog and even bully breed advocates would support reasonable and enforceable regulation of ownership. There are exceptions, of course... but as I've mentioned, fanaticism is fanaticism. Breed banning and/or eradication is not the answer. Either way, those intent on breaking the laws will find ways to do it.
"Regulate" and "ban" are two different words with separate definitions. Choose one and stick with it.
two different words used by two different people.
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