Oregon House Bill 2852 - pit bulls

My neighbor just a few weeks ago had their Pit Bull removed from their house and destroyed. We have had several complainants against this family and their dog and it took having 2 snohomish county police officers being charged by the dog in question to get anything done. I have had many dealings with this dog and when i called animal control they asked me if took a picture of the dog charging me. I could not believe they would ask me that. But in general i do not blame the dog it is the low life family that created this mess with how they treated and raised this dog. Pit's can be great dogs in the hands of responsible owners. i will have to read this and see what it has to say. Thanks for sharing.

 

Unfortunately the individuals who make up the majority of Pit Bull owners are those who view having one of the dogs as part of their "tough guy" persona. I doubt there is one person amongst us who has not witnessed at least one young thug type parading down the street with a a pit straining on a log chain with the intent of intimidating other people or animals.
As ST&A mentioned it us usually the individuals who have the dogs that are the real problem to begin with.

 

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I can remember seeing at Home Depot a guy with a pit on the hardware isle buying the largest chain HD sold to make in to a collar. The dog looked to be nervous and skittish. These is the exact recipe for disaster that makes the evening news. An owner who wants a status symbol dog but is clueless on how to train or even handle a dog that requires a large amount of responsibility. And an unstable dog who will be put into situations by its owner, where his only reaction is to defend himself. The end result is the dog is branded a menace to society and put to death, while the owner gets a fine and a new dog to start the process all over again. These dogs were bread to heard and control bulls and such needed to be stubborn as well as powerful. Put in to the hands of someone who does not know how to control one is a loose cannon.

 

the owners are most of the problem!!!!


nt

 

Where do we go from here, what other dogs will make the list due to the ignorance of a few and the uninformed of many. The sad thing about most laws are they only affect the upstanding law bidding citizens (we can keep an eye on them), hell don't get me going on the gun laws!!!! Too many people in this world have the "Why/what do you need that for" well that's what the constitution is all about, or shall I say was about.

 

Nothing to do with cars and the only relationship to the Northwest is pending legislation. If I wanted to get angry, I can go to P&R or Fox News. Sorry, but just my humble opinion.

 

Yeah, but it's hard not to look at a trainwreck when it happens in front of you. I let my subscription lapse solely because I didn't want to see the P&R threads anymore. I got addicted during the 2008 presidential campaign and needed to kick the habit. I'm sooo glad I did.

 

And they should be required by law to pay the insurance premium on a dog that is no more dangerous than a golden retriever?

This whole thing stinks.

 

Dogs have been bred and modified by people over many hundreds of years, the same way that products are manufactured by people, i.e. for particular purposes and with particular performance envelopes. Dogs are unique animals insofar as they can all be of one species yet be so morphologically different. Do you know of one other species that has a range from shih-tzu to great dane? Domestic horses and cats, bred for centuries as well, have a much narrower range.

A pit bull is qualitatively different from a golden retriever at birth. To argue that there is no genetic component to personality and that dogs are equal in their emotional lability (not a typo--real word) except for the treatment by their owners, flies in the face of every reality we know.

(this is why I bailed out of P&R; I gotta learn to walk away from this type of stuff. Shame on me).

 

No shame needed, however I should have qualified my statement. I, by no means, am implying that pitbulls are no more dangerous than a golden retriever. However there are circumstances where pitbulls are bred and raised properly and those specific dogs are not a threat. My statement referred to those exceptions, the people whose dogs are not a threat...at least no more a threat than any other working/guard/protection dog...should they also be penalized?

 

There is a very important distinction with American Pit Bulls. Like many dogs (and humans, for that matter), there are many genetic issues. The most distinctive and pertinent is that their brains grow faster and for a longer period of time than their skulls. The result is that a significant percentage of the overall population of the breed will suffer complications from pressure to the frontal area of the brain as a direct result of the normal aging process.

In humans and dogs alike, when the frontal part of a brain is injured, the result is a loss of impulse control and severe aggression. Walk through any nursing home and you'll see the similarities between an older Pit Bull and an older human.

Unfortunately, Pit Bulls suffer natural brain injury at a much younger relative age and well before their body strength goes.

Much like my Great Uncle Abe, who boxed for cash during the Depression in NYC and in his 80s still stood 6'4" and 225 pounds, when his Alzheimers got bad, he was dangerous to the staff at Portland's Robeson Home. A couple times he was strapped to a wheelchair, but bent it enough to hobble on his feet down the hall. Had his frontal lobe area been this way in his 20s, he would have certainly killed someone...luckily, though, he was a sweet, nice, funny guy who only "turned" when Alzheimers hit later in life.

So as much as we'd all like to blame stupid owners, there is no getting around the genetic liabilities of the breed. It's the same reason the government doesn't allow private citizens to own a jaguar or rhino.

The last national statistics I saw on dog bite injuries from ERs nationwide showed that Pit Bulls (and the associated breeds), Rotweillers and Dobermans were responsible for 16 percent of the dog attacks victims treated in American hospitals. During the same year, these dogs only represented just over two percent of all dogs in homes. That's a huge and scary relationship, which helps to dispell that ownership plays such a large role, since a larger population of "bad owners" have other breeds.

I actually don't see a problem requiring ALL dog owners should have to carry liability insurance for personal injury and property damage. This is no different than requiring car insurance or legal malpractice insurance. The insurance actuarials can easily create a pricing model based on statistical risk for breeds that is reasonable and fair.

 

That is pure and unadulterated BS. The same was said about Dobermans. I have owned one or more Dobbies for 37 years now and all of them have been trained. Some way more than the average and not one has ever taken it upon themselves to go after a person or child for no reason. Yes a couple have taken chunks out of perps, so what. You reach for Dad or Mom with a weapon and you are going to get smiladon. A crushed bone or a few fingers less and they will not do it again anytime soon.

Meet the best dog a man could ever wish for. 110lbs of "Hello there, how you doin"
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can this PLEASE be moved to P&R?