Dog Bites – Page 4 – Animal Welfare Movement

The leading cause of dog bites are dog owners. Most dog owners are oblivious to the fact that their dog has the potential to bite and callous of the conditions that might lead up to their pet biting. For that reason, one of the most common phrases that a dog bite victim hears prior to being bitten is the voice of the dog’s owner yelling, “Don’t worry, he won’t bite.”

This is one of the greatest threats to our community in which dog owners fail to step up and accept responsibility for the dog bite potential that their pet presents. Failing to accept that responsibility places people at risk.

Dog bites have become so common that people have become judicial witnesses based on “junk science” that attempts to win dog bite cases by blaming dog bites on the victims rather than recognizing the behavior of the dog. The notion is that the dog has a reason for biting a person, but we just don’t understand what that reason is; so a self proclaimed individual will take the stand in court, claiming to be a profession witness, to explain what the victim did to justify the bite.

These “experts’ have created a niche in which they make the dog owner the victim on an unjust justice system that puts humans before animals. These “professionals” are lifted up by their followers that own potentially dangerous dog breeds.

To be honest, some people provoke dogs to the point of getting bit. That is one more reason for dog owners to consider their liability in owning a large dog and failing to provide proper boundaries between their dog and potential victims. Some dogs have less tolerance towards being provoked; some dogs don’t need any provocation.

The first pitbull arrived in my city in the mid 1980’s. The owner wanted to have a breed with a reputation; this dog did not live up to that reputation’ it was a very friendly dog. The original desire to own a pitbull was for owners to claim that their dog was the meanest on the block. For that reason, breeders began breeding dangerous characteristics into the breed. Clearly, the breed was attracted to the worst pet owners.

Since bad pet owners do not believe in sterilizing their pets, pitbulls have become the most dominant breed in animal shelters. This has created a difficult time for shelters trying to become no-kill; to maintain their adoption numbers with their shelter intakes being 50% pitbulls.

Pitbulls are not necessarily a bad breed, they just require an unusually responsible pet owner. As pet owners have become increasingly lazy, finding a good owner for a pitbull is problematic. It is not a breed that you can just take to the dog park and turn loose; as with any powerful breed they require constant oversight.

Incidents of dog bites is proof of poor pet ownership. Foolish pet owners fail to realize the bite potential of their pet. There is a growing group that will try to tell unsuspecting potential adopters that the pitbull is no different than any other breed. This is a false narrative. Although pitbulls are one of the most loyal breeds, the breed has genetic traits towards aggression. The aggressive traits can be controlled, but require a watchful pet owner. Most acts of aggression by pitbulls are the result of the owner being too lazy to accept their responsibility for keeping the breed.

Due to the unpredictability of the breed and the bad owners that were attacked to the breed, many communities decided to protect themselves by banning the breed. Pitbull owners were eventually able to circumvent the ban by identifying their pitbulls as a service animals. Due to the abuse by reckless owners, many airlines stopped permitting “emotional support animals” in the passenger section of the airplane unless the animal is “professionally certified.” This brought a new internet business of pet owners being able to obtain fake certifications.

There has been a great effort to turn people’s attitudes away from seeing the pitbull breed as a potentially dangerous breed. The problem that this breed faces is that they belong to owners who fail to accept the dog’s potential to do harm. We continue to see incidents of people injured by the breed and it all due to the stupidity of the dog’s owner.

I appreciate seeing news reports of pet owners being charged with reckless endangerment when their dogs have repeatedly bitten people. I hate to see animals destroyed for the stupidity of their owners, but euthanizing an aggressive dog is the only way to protect the community from an ignorant pet owner. Unfortunately, we have far too many of them in our communities.