I love how people will argue about it being the dog not the owner when it comes to violence. I suppose it's a mere coincidence that all the loving well behaved pits I've met were owned by smart people with the time to properly train and care for them. I cringe when I see people with pits who don't realize the massive amount of energy the breed has or the time it will take to train them. I feel that way for any dog with irresponsible/ignorant owners but more so pits because they already have such a bad rep and the shelters are full of them :(

National Cannine Research Council

http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/


Karen Delise: Director of Research

In an effort to improve our understanding of the circumstances surrounding the rare instances of severe and fatal canine aggression, I have been researching such incidents for approximately 20 years. My conclusions are consistent with those of the Centers for Disease Control, the American Veterinary Medical Association, and virtually every animal welfare organization in America.

I published FATAL DOG ATTACKS: THE STORIES BEHIND THE STATISTICS (2002). It was, at that time, the most complete discussion and analysis of the extremely rare instances of fatal canine aggression then available. But even that compilation was not enough. After five years of further research, I completed and published THE PIT BULL PLACEBO: THE MEDIA MYTHS AND POLITICS OF CANINE AGGRESSION (2007). PLACEBO is an historical discussion of changing American attitudes toward specific breeds of dogs, as well as a more sophisticated analysis of the factors that contribute to severe and fatal canine aggression.

In researching these two books, and in the years since, I have accumulated the most extensive data file of these incidents available anywhere. I have extensive documentation (autopsy reports, crime scene photos, incident reports, etc.). I have interviewed police investigators, animal control officers, coroners, forensic pathologists, veterinarians, health department officials, dog owners, and eye witnesses. I maintain a record of all the names, dates and notes for every interview I have conducted. In my books, I provided more much information and detail than is available anywhere else. Each case or fatality noted is fully documented. I extensively footnoted both books. Both books include data sets in tabular form for easy reference.

A case study of my methodology is attached. As you will read, the complete investigation took more than a year. In the end, however, I had obtained what I believe is an instructive result.

My approach in both books was historical and investigative. Based upon my research, I specifically rejected a statistical/epidemiological approach. I have always concurred with the American Veterinary Medical Association Task Force on Canine Aggression and Human-Canine Interactions which stated, ?Dog bite statistics are not statistics, and do not give an accurate representation of dogs that bite.?

For the purposes of adding to the data in the frequently-cited study ?Breeds of dogs involved in fatal human attacks in the United States between 1979 and 1998,? (JAVMA, 2000), the lead author of that report, Dr. Jeffrey Sacks, was kind enough to give me a copy of his data set, which I have since added to and/or corrected, as needed. A summary of my result can be found in ?Zoonosis Update: Animal Bites,? by Gary J. Patronek and Sally A. Slavinski (JAVMA, 2008)

I have on file information concerning approximately 600 incidents. With respect to incidents that occurred prior to 1984, my records are limited almost exclusively to news accounts. After 1984, information began to be more accessible, as many law enforcement, medical examiner and animal control files were not old enough to be purged. Record-keeping was gradually being computerized. Also, an increasing number of the police officers, deputies and/or animal control officers who had responded to the scene or investigated a fatal dog bite incident were still employed in their respective offices.

Dr. Sacks and his collaborators reported that they were uncertain of the breed attributions they had obtained, and were unsure how to account for dogs that were reported as mixed breed animals. Their study only covered a particular 20-year period, 1979-1998; and they also reminded readers that the breeds identified in fatal attacks had changed over time.

The CDC has published a statement that the single-vector approach in ?Breeds of Dogs? does not ?identify specific breeds that are most likely to bite or kill, and thus is not appropriate for policy-making decisions related to the topic.? The AVMA has published and distributed a comparable statement.

The AVMA Task Force went further: ?An often-asked question is what breed or breeds of dogs are ?most dangerous?? This inquiry can be prompted by a serious attack by a specific dog, or it may be the result of media-driven portrayals of a specific breed as ?dangerous.? . . . singling out 1 or 2 breeds for control . . . ignores the true scope of the problem and will not result in a responsible approach to protecting a community?s citizens.?

Dr. Randall Lockwood, one of the authors of the CDC?s ?Breeds of Dogs,? as well as a member of the AVMA Task Force, submitted an affidavit in 2007 in opposition to the breed ban currently in effect in Denver, Colorado. He stated, in part: ?Focusing on a single breed as the ?source? of the dog bite problem reflects a 19th century epidemiological mindset that attempts to identify the vector of a public health problem and eliminate that vector. . . The dog bite problem is not a disease problem with a single vector, it is a complex societal issue that must address a wide range of human behaviors in ways that deal with irresponsible behavior that puts people and animals at risk.?

In fact, all of the professionals involved in these earlier studies have come to the same conclusion: breed attributions yield no useful understanding of fatal attacks that have occurred, and do not offer a way to reduce such incidents in the future.

My study of fatal attacks occurring over the past five decades has identified the poor ownership/management practices involved in the overwhelming majority of these incidents: owners obtaining dogs, and maintaining them as resident dogs outside of the household for purposes other than as family pets (i.e. guarding/ protection, fighting, intimidation/status); owners failing to humanely contain, control and maintain their dogs (chained dogs, loose roaming dogs, cases of abuse/neglect); owners failing to knowledgably supervise interaction between children and dogs; and owners failing to spay or neuter resident dogs not used for competition, show, or in a responsible breeding program. (See Chapter 14 of THE PIT BULL PLACEBO, ?The Real Causes for Dog Attacks,? for a more detailed discussion.)

Investigation into incidents of canine aggression that goes beyond a simplistic single-vector approach has necessarily entailed much more work than any researcher hitherto imagined. However, only an historical, relational approach such as I continue to employ can yield a true understanding of these rare tragedies, and produce the outcome that we all hope for: safer, more humane communities.

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This has to be the dumbest conclusion I've ever seen reached in regards to why they see so many pit bulls as pets. It's a shelter- where the hell do you think all the pit bulls come from? Yes they keep restocking every time someone adopts one- it's all part of a grand conspiracy to make sure everyone in JC has a pit bull waiting to maul and attack you. It has nothing to do with stupid people getting pits as a status symbol and then realizing that they are high energy dogs who need a lot of attention and training.

It's ignorant people like you that keep great dogs from having homes. I walk dogs at LHS and the majority of those dogs are more well behaved than the ones I see in people's homes.

Just because there have been situations where a pit bull has attacked doesn't mean the entire breed should be discarded. We don't do it with humans so why should we do that with dogs?

grovepathetic will always be a hater.

GrovePath, you are paying to feed, shelter and promote these dogs with every tax dollar you pay and there is nothing you can or will do about it.

unless you leave JC.

old news.

Call it whatever you want.
The fact is there are a lot of Pitbulls that need and deserve a home.

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Binky, you sound like a Holocaust denier -- it is hardly a "Pitbull Phobia" -- just read the news for the countless maulings of children and seniors -- not to mention the rest of us!

Click here for latest Pitbull maulings - same news on any given day!

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I tend to agree with this. Recently I've been looking to adopt two cats/kittens and in visiting some of the shelters in the area I noticed the inordinate amount of Pitbulls in these places. I would say that 75% of the dogs in them were Pitbulls......very sad.

Maybe its the other way around.
Maybe because there are so many abandoned Pitbulls, and so many people with phobias like your's, LHS has to work extra hard to find homes for all of those dogs.

Liberty Humane's whole website seems like a giant ad for Pit Bull ownership -- No wonder there are more and more Pits on Jersey City streets everyday -- Is this what our tax dollars are paying for???

http://www.libertyhumane.org

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From a marketing point of view your link should go directly to the info for "free cat adoptions page" and not just the main page. My sister has a pit so I have no dog in this fight, but many, including GrovePath, do not like pits and particularly those who are "cat-centric" probably do not like seeing a photo with "pit parade" on what they thought would take them directly to the "free cat adoptions".

Good luck with all the excellent work that you do for cats and dogs!

Obviously it is LHS' header -- that is what is so sad about it!

If you look again what you are seeing is just a header photo on the page listing LHS "News and Events". Look below the photo and there is the information about the fee waived cat adoption promotion.

Why does LHS' Banner Ad for Free Cat adoptions link to a celebration of Pit Bulls -- "Pit Parade" -- Jeez!!



The picture that comes up when you click on this jclist top of the page banner ad is really pro-pitbulls and pretty scary -- "Pit Parade"