Commentary & Editorial Pieces:
Public Safety Issues
Two variations of the same theme:
This is the tale of a stranger in a small town. To get acquainted with folks, he went to the village square and saw an old-timer with kind of a mean-looking German Shepherd. He looked at the dog a little tentatively and asked, "Does your dog bite?" The old-timer said, "Nope." So, the stranger reached down to pet him and the dog lunged at him and practically took off his arm, and the stranger as he was repairing his shredded coat turned to the old-timer and said, "I thought you said your dog doesn't bite." The guy says, "Ain't my dog!" ~~~ attributed to Warren Buffet
Clouseau: Does your dog bite?
Hotel Clerk: No.
Clouseau: [bowing down to pet the dog] Nice doggie.
[Dog barks and bites Clouseau in the hand]
Clouseau: I thought you said your dog did not bite!
Hotel Clerk: That is not my dog.
(From the movie “The Pink Panther Strikes Again”)
Regardless whom you attribute the quote to, it brings home the same conclusion in the end – never make assumptions with dogs or humans. Both are unpredictable and can answer (or react) in a manner you are totally unprepared for.
For the generation of us who grew up with Lassie and Timmy of the Martin family in the 1950s, we were instilled with perceptions of what man’s best friend was capable of and could be expected to do in any given situation. As we grew up, we carried on the beloved Lassies and Rin Tin Tins of our childhood memories, assuming that whenever we meet a Collie or German Shepherd, we can expect them to act the same way today.
And you know what they say happens when you ‘assume’.
It is also said there are no bad dogs – only bad owners. Unfortunately, bad owners don’t walk around with a sign on their shirts saying they are bad owners. It’s no different than with drivers on our highways – we assume they know how to drive, are insured and have a driving license along with the fact they would NEVER drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs. There are bad owners out there who don’t even realize they are bad owners to begin with. And there are bad owners that, well, are just bad and don’t care they are bad owners.
This makes it very difficult for us in the general public to avoid dog bites and attacks, for the dogs don’t always indicate they intend to bite or attack either. Ask any postal worker how many dogs were wagging their tails before latching onto their ankle. And while the size of a dog can indicate the bite power and/or probable damage, a small or tiny dog has the same ability to break skin during a bite and do damage to human tissue.
In our country’s efforts to insure all citizens are treated fairly and receive equitable considerations under our nation’s laws, many times we bend over so far to be fair, we end up collapsing in on ourselves. In the end, we defeat our goal of being fair to all as some citizens’ rights become trampled in the process.
Two issues immediately spring to mind in this regard – breed specific legislation (BSL) and mandatory spay/neuter laws (also known as ‘speuter’). Those that favor certain breeds cry out in alarm whenever BSL appears in their locality’s agenda, citing the numerous dogs with vicious reputations are not all cut from the same cloth. Breeders cry out just as loudly about speuter laws, despite the fact intact dogs and aggression have been proven to be closely connected.
Guard dogs and those used in law enforcement are specifically left intact to increase their aggressiveness. There are specific breeds that do exceptionally well in the discipline of security and protection. We assume we have to be fair to everyone to safeguard each person’s rights guaranteed under our Constitution.
There goes that word ‘assume’ again…
One might point out that many years ago in the mid 1800s, doctors prescribed morphine as a cure for opium and alcohol addiction. It took over sixty years and a nation spiraling down into the dredges of massive addiction until the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 was enacted, curtailing the huge free market of narcotics and opiates. But at the time of its discovery, morphine was hailed as the next best thing to sliced bread!
From this, one can easily see how society’s perceptions and assumptions can eventually be changed – but usually only through many hard lessons learned along the way. View today’s newspapers and you will find 90% of the dog bites and attacks are from intact dogs. If the dog happens to be a pit bull, it will make the news for sure. Other breeds don’t readily get as many headlines, unfortunately. We ‘assume’ that most dog bites and attacks come from pit bull types, but there’s little evidence to suggest any one breed is more likely to bite or attack than another. The CDC’s data is old and outdated. Researchers now concentrate on the triggers for dog bites and attacks, instead of the breed.
Because most dog bites and attacks occur on small children and toddlers, this country might need a few more deaths of children before we begin to look deeply at this problem – how tragic and yet how real this fact might be. It seems to be society’s nature to not take action until very hard lessons have been taught. And again, a known dog biter doesn’t go around with a red tag in their ear to indicate they have a propensity to bite, no more than the owner’s home has a huge red “X” across their front door. So how is the general public to know ahead of time what they might be faced with during their walk down a sidewalk in their community? You can’t readily see a female who has been spayed, nor a male with long hair unless you are ready to provoke an attack as you investigate.
We simply can never assume a dog will not bite, nor they are with a responsible and community-minded owner either. Even with laws and the education available regarding the greater health of speuter dogs and that they are less likely to bite, owners still refuse to take this step to insure the best possible for their dog.
Lassie was a fantastic dog, but ‘he’ was a ‘she’ which most of us never knew until we grew up and did our own reading and analysis of the information we’d mentally gathered along the way. Maybe we need to stop making assumptions and take positive actions to stem the growing epidemic of dog bites and attacks – spaying and neutering our pets would be a positive step in the right direction for sure.
(name withheld by request)
I live in Rialto, California, a community that grieved the lost of a 25-day old child by "man's best friend", the dog. This child was killed by two UNALTERED backyard breeding dogs.
In the Inland Empire between the years of 2001 and 2004, there have been four children killed by dogs -- putting us at the top of the list for the country. The State of California is number one in the nation for dog bite fatalities, far ahead of the second state (Texas). Last year an adult was killed in Phelan by a pack of owned dogs. ALL THE DOGS INVOLVED IN THESE ATTACKS WERE UNALTERED.
They were different breeds but with one thing in common- they were all unaltered. Karen Delise, FATAL DOG ATTACKS, states that her studies show unaltered male dogs are 6.2 times more likely to attack and unaltered female dogs are 2.9 times more likely to attack.
The pediatric associations advise to alter dogs since dog bites are the second leading cause of children going into emergency rooms. According to the Insurance Information Institute, one in five to one in three homeowner policy claims every year are for dog bites. And the Injury Institute estimates that over a billion dollars is lost from the American economy because of dog bites.
To me, mandatory spay/neuter is necessary to reduce the mauling and death of children.
(name withheld for privacy reasons)
Did You Know?
This clip from a National Geographic experiment demonstrates the shear power of a domestic dog bite. It Compares a Pitbull, a German Shepherd and a Rottweiler.
Logging a bite force of 328 pounds, a massive 100 pounds more than the second placed dog........