I read your op-ed from yesterday’s Baltimore Sun and sadly was not surprised by this new level that you’re willing to stoop. Fluidly passing blame onto endless dogs that you’ll never know or care to know is nothing new, but trying to tie the rescue community into your attacks by aiming to delegitimize that process in general is no less harsh than any action that you’ve taken since 2007. Readers of your commentary may unfortunately leave with a stronger fear towards shelter dogs and of the process that goes into saving one, and that’s a shame, since wonderful dogs of all breeds are routinely killed in these facilities every year.
Honestly, it was a horrendous thing that happened to your son Dominic. That’s something we can all agree on. Any human being with an ounce of empathy in their body never wants to see another human being hurt, in any fashion, ever. Dog attack or otherwise, most people are fully capable of recognizing a tragedy. What your family experienced was a tragedy on many levels. As a Pit Bull owner myself, I have no reservations with immediately stating as much. I am so sorry that this happened to your family. Truly.
We all want safe communities for everyone–those that we love, those that we know, those that we don’t know. Safety is of the utmost importance to anyone that has a genuine care for people and for animals alike. But with that, my dog is not to blame. And further, pointing out that Dominic’s attacker was a loose dog who was out running at large, which directly correlates to the recklessness of its owner, is not “minimizing” what happened to your child. That’s simply a real and apparent dynamic that sadly allows any individual dog, with whatever level of bad temperament, to act freely and without any level of supervision. To dismiss focus on that is to do a massive disservice to both your community and all of the law-abiding dog owners (of all breeds and types) across the country.
It’s also routinely shocking to me how much you constantly go out of your way to state how so-and-so is not a “dog expert.” May I ask you a question? What then makes you one? You somehow harnessed this energy into a 70-some page e-book that spends much of its space on propagandizing against literally millions of dogs based solely on the way that they look. You’ve also been a central character in passing one of the most egregious and discriminatory pieces of legislation, one that institutes precrime as policy, and yet you are always so quick to eliminate anyone else from the discussion who dare have a differing opinion to yours. Why? Just ironic is all.
Killing millions of dogs that you and you alone deem unsuitable for life on earth will not take back what happened to your son.
Thankfully Dominic is alive, and I wish him nothing but the best. He was a victim of a senseless and preventable incident. I say all of this, even as you are out wishing that my dogs be dead. Even as you are out perpetuating stereotypes that will surely result in the further abandonment and mistreatment of these dogs. Even as you are out trying to create precedent for taking away housing, and for relentlessly fear-mongering behind the notion of liability. And lastly, even as roaming dogs, chained and tethered dogs, and the non-supervision of children are consistently the common denominators in almost every single dog-related fatality that you can pull up from any random calendar year.
I’d argue that from a “public safety” standpoint the covering up of that information, the ignoring of it (both the information and the reckless owners themselves), is the biggest crime of all.
Those paying attention know that your vague and all-encompassing language is cheered and reprinted by individuals like Colleen Lynn, head representative of DogsBite.org, a website that poses as a balanced public safety resource but in reality is nothing more than a Pit Bull hate group. You even noted her, and her evidence-free “stats,” in your op-ed. Ms. Lynn had a 2007 incident with a “Pit Bull” in Seattle, one whose details she keeps revising over time, and has been on a crusade to vilify them into extermination ever since. If that’s what you call a “rational” and “reputable” source for anything then we undoubtedly read from different dictionaries.
Fortunately the truth will always shine through, and further, the truth will repeatedly lay waste to those aiming to criminalize millions of completely innocent dogs, or groups of anything else, who have been generically and unfairly deemed to universally fit some negative connotation as a whole. That is fundamentally wrong on every level. People are individuals, and so are dogs. If you treat them in the opposite ways then you not only discriminate wildly but also resoundingly fail to even attempt to address the problems associated with the individual incidents or “attacks” that have jump-started these debates in the first place.
Truth is that dogs are incredibly safe. Truth is that there are 72+ million of them in this country alone. Truth is that there is well over 300 million people in this same country. Think about how many daily interactions that creates. No, seriously. Take a moment. Dogs are incredibly safe. Pit Bulls are dogs. Throw whatever cherry-picked, unverified, media-reported statistic out at me that you want… 99.9999999999999% of all dogs, of all Pit Bulls, and no matter the breakdown–by breed or type or city or county or state–have never done anything to anyone. That is a stat that you cannot refute. And if you continue trying to make monsters out of these individual creatures, dogs that you have no business in the world speaking on (for many reasons, one being that you’ve never met them), well, it just solidifies the utter fact that you are fusing your life’s work and energy towards adding to the wrong side of history. That is not exactly something to be proud of.
Thank you!
Josh,
Very well said and thank you! The ignorance of the public and the continued breeding of the pit is a tragedy. As a grandmother I now have two and meet more and more of my generation who are willing to adopt pits, Thank God. They a lovely animals so over bred by the younger generations. Responsible dog ownership starts with any breed. Please keep up the fight protecting and educating the public. Above all people spay and neuter!!!!!
Hello, I happen to be Tony’s brother and for the last 7 years I’ve pretty much kept my mouth shut on the subject of pit bull dogs, that is, publicly. But, just last week my 5 year old son was attacked by a pit bull dog in the home of his friend. My wife and I are divorced and she has primary custody.
I’m currently staying Phoenix and she and my son and daughter are in North Carolina. It was hidden from me at first because I’m not exactly what most people would call an animal lover to begin with. I pretty much tolerate the fact that people seem to give dogs and cats human attributes.
With that said, had my son been bitten by any another breed of dog I would have been very upset. But, now knowing that it was a pit bull I’m furious. This happened within the last week and I’m still trying to find out whether my ex-wife knew the kid’s mom owned a pit bull or not. The fact is, it’s a dog that was bred to be vicious. On top of that, the typical owner can be pretty easily stereotyped, but I’ll just say irresponsible. Case in point, you had to rescue the dogs.
The bottom line is, if you really care about the dogs, why not use your energy to educate people to not breed them. What the hell is the point of owning one? As i say that, I’m also talking about other not so dangerous breeds that have health issues due to breeding. It seems insane to me that so-called dog lovers would continue to breed dogs that knowingly will have health issues, but it’s damn near intolerable to imagine breeding a dog that is inherently harmful to children.
The one place where my brother and I part company is that I don’t believe in more legislation. This country is already ruined from way too many laws. My best answer is to stop being politically correct about these dogs and the vast majority of their owners. The fact is, people generally own these dogs because they themselves are cowardly and the dog gives them a feeling of false bravado. I’ll be glad to see the day when people are afraid to own them for fear of ridicule.
Phil, I’m sorry that your young son was attacked by a dog. But it’s a dog. If you want to get “madder” because it was an alleged Pit Bull as opposed to say a Husky or a German Shepherd then that’s your hang-up. I’d hope that you’ll eventually come to see it differently over time, but that’s ultimately on you and your personal belief is really none of my concern beyond that. Where these vitriolic opinions do become my concern is when someone like your brother goes out and attempts to pass sweeping legislation that not only would affect an endless amount of innocent dogs but also has its verbiage steeped in attempts to criminalize these millions of dogs out of the gate for simply looking a certain type of way. That’s wrong and we all know it.
As far as what dog attacked your son and how it was bred, you have no idea how that individual dog was bred. Instead you’re just speaking about a specific background of an individual dog with no insight or ability to even be specific. When does the debate ever rise? You also openly censor yourself about stereotyping a “typical” Pit Bull owner, which is just really inaccurate and makes you sound ignorant.
In regards to having to rescue dogs, as if that’s an insult or something, that means nothing except that you are basically a short-sighted jerk. Thousands of dogs of all breeds and types are “rescued” every single day. Get out of your hyperbole cloud and come join reality. You want to talk about Pit Bulls as if you know anything about anything, but clearly you pontificate from this space of already viewing them a certain way as a whole, with this secondary layer of looking down on the concept of shelter dogs and not deeming them in any way worthy.
You don’t get to tell me whether I love dogs. That’s the same rhetoric that Tony uses. You know nothing about me. You know nothing about my dogs. You don’t even know a thing about the dog, whatever dog it was, that bit your son. Just deal in specifics and stop talking from the podium of insanely meddling in other people’s lives. Your annihilation-based ideology is nuts, no matter how you try to cover it in false justifications.
It’s both sad and funny that you’d dare accuse me of “political correctness” by just stating the obvious, that Pit Bulls are dogs. That has nothing to do with political correctness. It’s a scientific fact. The vast majority? You are completely backwards. The vast majority haven’t done a thing to anyone. Do the math. You can’t just ignore that there’s millions of these dogs in this country alone, millions more that would get labeled as being some level of a mix due to subjective opinions that are never consistent, and that they are clearly one of the most popular types of dog in a land that is gaining people by the year. Get out of here with “vast majority” and even daring to throw everyone under the bus. You have literally no clue what you are talking about. You are speaking about countless people that you will never know, and countless dogs that you will never know, as if you have these equally pertinent insights into each and every life that you are massing together. You aren’t factual. You are wildly wrong. And the only thing that is likely to be ridiculed is your way of viewing this diverse world.
Again, I’m sorry that your son was bit by a dog. 1 dog. 1 dog out of nearly 80 million dogs. I hope that your son is okay. But that doesn’t give you a right to now become captain control freak. Your brother already plays that role.
Thank you!!! As a child, I was attacked by a dog. The breed does not matter because I do not blame the entire breed for that one incident. I am a responsible owner of three dogs of different breeds, one of which is a pit bull mix. What people don’t realize is that the hate for one breed will eventually evolve to include other breeds.
I think that was well written and made the point. I couldn’t have even written it better than that. Well done!!
ONE QUESTION FOR YOU, AM I WRONG TO ASSUME YOU HAVE NO CHILDREN?
Having read this I believed it was rather informative. I appreciate you finding the time and effort to put this informative article together. I once again find myself spending a lot of time both reading and leaving comments. But so what, it was still worthwhile.
Don’t feed the Solesky trolls. They thrive on attention, without it they wither. One fancies himself an expert, grandma thinks all the women who own”those dogs” are childless and unhappy which is why they turn to”those dogs”. Some of these fools consider pinups for pitbulls part of some strange sexual cult involving our dogs. And Mr. Solesky is running for public office with that potty mind? I prefer to stick to not engaging them on their level; their level is too…ooky…
REALLY, is that all you GOT! That kind of banter only reinforces the truth about what I have said and will continue to say about this breed and anyone that intentionally adopts this breed. If it is not for the propensity of this animal to be a watch dog then what other reason do you have. OUR DOG,that tells it all. With all the wonderful breeds available as PETS, you chose too adopt a PIT BULL. There is a reason for that and I don’t think you have given us or yourself an HONEST ONE.
BY THE WAY, Grandmom, happens to be a great grandmother so I’ve been around a long time and I can tell you I NEVER heard of anyone adopting a PIT BULL breed until the last ten years. It is the underdog and unless you have a purpose for this animal Why wud anyone want to take the chance of owning one. All DOGS BITE, clearly if this breed attacks it can KILL and has. If not for the great JHH I wud have lost a grandson. I am 77 years old and I had never heard of any breed animal causing this kind of horrendous injury.