Wednesday, December 31, 2014

What is BSL?

What is BSL?

BSL stands for breed-specific legislation. It need not apply to banning dangerous dogs but is also a useful tool applied in managing humane breeding standards in physiologically problematic breeds, the care and management of sporting breeds, etc.. 

As is most relevant here, breed specific legislation is legislation and ordinances passed to regulate or 'ban' dangerous dog breeds, such as pit bulls and other blood-sport dogs from the mollossar group.

Some common misconceptions or even outright deceptions propagated by the anti-BSL camp are;

Myth: dogs are identified arbitrarily by sight, and by 'random' professionals that could have little or even no experience with identifying dog breeds./Only a DNA test can verify breed.
While it is true that more sophisticated methods--such as DNA tests--cannot distinguish 'pit bull' as an individual breed... (in fact, many fanciers laugh about the fact that their purebreds/prize winner DNA tests come back with absurdly wrong results, KNOWING their dogs are full well not just pit bull, but take pride in them being the epitome thereof), pit bulls are as readily identifiable as any long-standing, distinguishable breed by the cluster of lists identifying specific traits and body ratios according to UKC standards (or in the AKC under the guise 'American Staffordshire Terrier').

In reality, in areas with pit bull bans, a dog in question must be identified by a cluster of attributes by animal experts like veterinarians, animal control, and shelter workers. For example; in Miami Dade County, there is a 47 point identification for establishing a dog as 'pit bull'.

Myth; BSL punishes 'good owners'. Many people don't realize this, but BSL doesn't equate an outright ban. In many BSL areas, breed-specific ordinances may be a combination of any of the following;

  • (dogs must be) licensed
  • spayed/neutered
  • micro-chipped
  • muzzled in public
  • housed according to specific containment standards
  • insured with a certain minimum of liability insurance
All of these are reasonable parameters for responsible dangerous dog ownership. Truly responsible owners would be following such measures already and only those deviant and seeking to avoid responsibility for the management of their dogs would feel 'punished'. Many owners of other breeds, including toy breeds, already take such precautions because they understand that, much like driving a car, you must assume responsibility for ALL aspects of a privilege to maintain such privilege.  "Insurance/licensing/etc. punishes good drivers" is not an excuse or logical reason to throw automotive regulations out the window.

Dangerous dog ownership is a privilege, not a right. Car ownership is a privilege, not a right. A car must be inspected, insured, and up to safety protocols; and these are inanimate objects with no free will of movement. That free will of movement is what makes it all the more important to appropriately maintain a high-risk animal. 

There is also the animal itself to consider; the benefits of neutering and spaying are myriad, and a dog that gets loose is subject itself to dangers; toxic substances in the environment it may consume, harsh elements, abduction, being hit by cars, etc.. Ergo, proper containment and micro-chipping are preventative and crucial tools in safe-guarding a pet, respectively.

Myth; BSL hurts/kills innocent dogs. Hysterical anti-BSL lobbyists rail and compare BSL to the holocaust, invoking images of dogs being rounded up and euthanized en masse. The reality is; in the history of BSL, there has never been a mass round-up and euthanasia of banned breeds. When a ban is enacting, existing dogs are grandfathered into the area, and can be kept till the end of their natural lives according to the city's protocol--meaning adhering to micro-chipping, insurance, etc within a reasonable period. Owners that refuse to comply with such measures are issued a generous grace period in which to re-home their pet elsewhere. That same grace period is generally given to those who relocate into the area with banned breeds, as well.

In reality, BSL can save innocent dogs; "[from] ANIMALS 24-7 does not believe that animal rights, animal welfare, or even just being kind to animals is advanced by protecting backyard breeders of fighting dogs from the passage of effective breed-specific legislation to prevent the births of a million pit bulls per year who will repeatedly flunk out of homes and be killed at the average age of 18 months."  In areas with BSL, the rate of euthanized dogs and shelter overcrowding drops dramatically, easing the burden on taxpayer shelters and Animal Control.  For example, in Aurora, Colorado;
"...the dogs placed a tremendous burden on city staff. According to city documents, before the ordinance was enacted in 2005, up to 70 percent of kennels in the Aurora Animal Shelter were occupied by pit bulls with pending court disposition dates or with no known owner.  That number is now only 10 to 20 percent of kennels."

Myth; BSL doesn't work.  Mountains of evidence in areas with long-standing BSL beg to differ; here's a list of cities with successful BSL and the relevant data accompanying each.  A few snippets;

Police records show Sioux City police officers responded to 37 percent fewer dog bites in 2013 than they did in 2007, the year before the breed ban was passed. During that time, the number of reported bites declined each year but one.
In 2004, the last full year before the ban, there were 984 licensed pit bulls in the city and 168 reported bites. Last year there were 501 pit bulls registered in Toronto, and just 13 bites. That’s right — the number of reported bites went from 168 to 13.
The ordinance the city adopted prohibits pit bulls and mixes of the breed, as well as any other vicious or dangerous animals, from being in the city. In the almost 20 years since it was adopted, Antigo has had no attacks, no maulings, and no dogs killed by pit bulls or other dogs.
the city of Greenwood both have similar bans on pit bulls and dangerous animals... the city has had no attacks and issued no citations.
According to statistics taken from the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, as reported in the News-Leader March 12, for the three-year period beginning in 2004, there were 42 "vicious" animal attacks recorded in the jurisdiction covered. After passing the local ordinance banning or strictly controlling the ownership of pit bull or pit bull types, the number of attacks has dropped dramatically. For the five-year period from 2007-2011, there was a total of 14.
in March, Aurora released statistical data showing a significant reduction in the volume of pit bull attacks and pit bulls euthanized after adopting a pit bull ban in 2005.
For the four years leading up to the ban, from 2000 to 2003, officers responded to 71 incidents of biting or scratching involving pit bulls in Pawtucket, a majority of those, 51, involving attacks on people.
In the 10 years since the ban was put in place, police responded to 23 total attacks involving pit bulls, with only 13 of those involving attacks on people. 
[Since the city adopted mandatory spay/neuter BSL for pit bulls] San Francisco has impounded 14 percent fewer pit bulls and euthanized 29 percent fewer - which is a "significant decrease," said Rebecca Katz, director of the city's Animal Care and Control department. 
In January 2013, the Nebraska Humane Society reported that pit bull bites dropped to 31 in 2012, down from 121 in 2008 (a 74% reduction), the year that Omaha enacted a progressive pit bull ordinance.
The number of dog bites reported in Toronto has fallen since a ban on pit bulls took effect in 2005, public health statistics show.
A total of 486 bites were recorded in 2005. That number fell generally in the six years following, to 379 in 2010.
Provincial laws that banned 'pit bulls,' defined as pit bulls, Staffordshire terriers, American Staffordshire terriers, American pit bull terriers and dogs resembling them took effect in August 2005. Existing dogs were required to be sterilized, and leashed and muzzled in public.
Bites in Toronto blamed on the four affected breeds fell sharply, from 71 in 2005 to only six in 2010. This accounts for most of the reduction in total bites. 
The county saw a 9.6 percent decrease in dog bites in the year since the spay/neuter program was instituted. (San Bernardino, CA)
And on and on it goes...

Myth; BSL is too costly to enforce.  Again, the existing data disproves this.  Pit bull lobbyist Karen Delise's 'BSL cost calculator' is skewed against BSL by exaggerating enforcement costs and failing to account for the broader scope of the issue.  BSL has existed for decades in many jurisdictions with no catastrophic fiscal ramifications.  Additionally, dramatic reductions in euthanasia rates and shelter overcrowding reduce the strain on city coffers.  

The community is more productive in the absence of debilitating, brutal pit bull attacks.  Unlike most other breeds, a pit bull attack often entails life-long disfigurement and disability, both physically and mentally.  This creates people dependent upon the system for life, which would otherwise have become or continued to be productive citizens contributing to their communities.  

The cost in quality of life, perhaps one of the most important factors, is incalculable.  Communities are irrefutably better off when the citizens aren't held hostage in their own homes by dangerous dogs that frequently defy containment, with citizens intact, possessing all their limbs and body parts and faculties to enjoy and shape the environment around them.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Taken Where They Slept

"It’s unknown how the dog got so close to the baby in the middle of the night."


It well may be found that the dog simply approached the baby wherever she was sleeping and inserted itself into the infant's space to maul her. If you read about infant maulings and fatalities, you will find multiple instances of pit bulls attacking a baby while he/she slept in their crib, on a bed, in a bassinet, in a baby swing, in a car seat, or even sleeping next to his/her parents. http://www.dogsbite.org/dogsbite-search-results.php…


These are only a handful of such tragedies;

  • 11 day old Mya Maeda was mauled to death in her crib by the family's pitbull mix 
  • 9 day old Daniel Smith was mauled to death in his crib by the family's 9yo pitbull 
  • 15 day old Darius Tilman was mauled to death his crib 
  • 2 week Brian Lillis was sleeping in his car seat when the family pitbull mauled him to death 
  • A 5 day old girl was mauled to death in her bassinet by the family pit bull 
  • A 13 day old baby was killed in his baby swing by the family pitbull 
  • Newborn Thomas Carter Jr. was killed by the family pitbulls while sleeping next to his father 
  • 8 week old Iopeka Liptak was mauled to death by the 5yo family pitbull while sleeping on his mother's bed 
  • 3 month old Rayden Bruce was mauled to death by his father's pitbull while sleeping on his father's bed 

If you read about pit bull attacks in general, you will notice a disturbing pattern of just how stealthy silent these dogs can be. These dogs can be so quiet that a person need not be impaired or intoxicated in any way to miss the sounds of attack; and in the case of no doubt sleep-disturbed parents of a newborn, it can only be more so.http://www.dogsbite.org/dogsbite-search-results.php…

It's possible there is some wrong doing on the part of the parents in this case (we just don't have enough information), but please, please, remember... the overwhelming common factor in pit bull attacks are not environment or stimuli, but the dogs themselves. Nutters love to say 'get educated'. I did, and the truth the led me here. 

Please do venture forth and form your opinion on this; but read ALL sides, and pay attention to the victims, not just the dogs. That is where you will be able to discern for yourself just what makes this breed dangerous; look for common factors, if any, compare and contrast the information from pro pit bull, victim/awareness advocacy, and verifiably neutral sites (the NCRC and ASPCA are not neutral) and think critically.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

The problem with ad hominem

As so eloquently illustrated in Jeff Borchardt's editorial 'Hounded', and as is the experience of virtually every outspoken dangerous dog victim and awareness advocate (including meself!), nutters love to cyber-stalk a person and pick apart their lives in a ceaseless smear campaign.  They attack anything and everything they can; the way a person dresses, talks, where they work, where they live, what pets they have, how many children they have, their weight, their diet, their skin/hair, their religious views, their hobbies, political views, past experiences and mistakes, etc.. 

 They deserve no further recognition, but nutters run various hate pages on Facebook and blogs, updated daily (so I hear, I avoid them for the plague and garbage they are, and though I know you mean well, folks who contact me about this crap, I follow the golden rule when it comes to bullies--ignore them, do not feed them, they want your energy and attention, they desperately need validation of any kind). 

 They do these things in a puerile attempt to raze a person, in the vain hopes that besmirching a person's character is the key to destroying their credibility and shutting them up.  This kind of personal attack in response to a well-stated argument is, unfortunately, a common evidence of the failure of our educational system, because anyone with a basic education should be well aware of what this is--ad hominem.

A flawed character is not grounds for dismissing the validity of a person's extra-personal observations and assertions.  Insisting that nothing a person says is valid in any area because they have been less than stellar people in another area is not only fallacious but utterly unrealistic... because no human being is perfect in all aspects of life--mistakes and flaws are a promise of human existence itself.  If only perfect, infallible people are to be believed, we must discard the observations and achievements of virtually everything we know and everything that makes us intelligible, civilized creatures.  This is the problem with ad hominem (personal attacks, impugning ones character in a fallacious attempt to discredit the person issuing the argument, rather than discrediting the argument itself).

The only time, say, calling someone a liar is going to effectively work in discrediting their argument is if you
 1.) can verifiable prove the person is a liar
 2.) with evidence that is relevant to the argument. 
 #2 is the biggie!  #2 is non-negotiable.  Saying Joe Blow cheated on his taxes is not relevant to arguing, say, what the most efficient smelting method is at the foundry.  If you were arguing money matters, perhaps, but for something wholly unrelated it just isn't pertinent.  A real life example;

Albert Einstein's personal life was considerably less honorable than his academic achievements; he fathered an illegitimate child with his first wife before they were married, and the baby disappeared from documented existence.  He set strange rules for his wife, detailing that "she had to serve three meals day, to stop talking if he asked her to, and to expect no intimacy from him."  However, he had enough intimacy to spare to court many mistresses (though in his writings he claimed their affection was unwanted too; however, not unwanted enough to avoid extramarital affairs with them); among them his first cousin paternally (and second cousin maternally), whom he left his first wife for, to marry.  Mental illness was a specter in his family; his second son, Eduard, was deeply afflicted with schizophrenia at age 20 and spent his life in and out of (at the end, perpetually in) asylums.  

However strange and deplorable his personal romantic exploits, one cannot use them to fault and argue on the validity of his other work; the theories of relativity, gravitational fields, particles, motion of molecules, light photons (photoelectric effect), the principles of equivalence and adiabatic invariance, the injustice of racism (he was a member of NAACP), his academic teachings on theoretical physics, thermodynamics, and analytical mechanics, and research on uranium and chain reaction (nuclear fission, the Manhattan project).

No, to discredit Einstein's scientific bodies of work would take something in kind--other bodies of scientific work, evidence, etc..  Where Einstein chose to sling his trouser snake has nothing to do with  the math of quantum mechanics. Were Einstein's work the research, study, and teaching of dangerous dogs, no doubt every little aspect of his personal life would be open game to the critics (nutters), even his unfortunate schizophrenic son.  I know SABSL* advocates with autistic or mildly disabled children and the vocal ones have had those innocents attacked and smeared in the vicious, frothing frenzy that is angry dog fanatics. 

 The scope and intensity of their virulence is precisely why the term 'nutter' exists... and as an aside, for those new to the issue, 'nutter' does not encompass ALL dangerous dog owners; just those who are deceptive, aggressive bullies and/or stalkers.  A pit bull owner with an open mind that truly listens and does not worry a debunked claim like their dog with a bone, but instead absorbs and seeks to learn anything they can to be as cautious and careful as they can--truly understanding all the facets of their dangerous dog breed... is not a nutter.  Little known fact is there ARE dangerous dog owners in SABSL groups who get along just fine, and do work together toward creating safer communities. 

 These are the people who understand that their dogs aren't fit for public consumption and were perhaps acquired with the best of misguided intentions.  However, now having all the evidence before them, they stop with perpetuating dangerous myths and stop with excusing (any/every attack) and abusing (victims, victim blaming, wild speculation, etc.).
Sadly, these people are far too rare.
I digress.

What is SABSL? An umbrella acronym for safety/awareness/breed-specific legislation advocates.

Other Bad Boys in History
Oscar Wilde
Pablo Picasso
Julius Caesar
Errol Flynn
Elvis Presley
Alexander the Great
King Charles II
Percy Shelley
John F. Kennedy
Benjamin Franklin
Lord Byron
Howard Hughes
Sir Walter Raleigh

Rational Wiki has an excellent article describing the ins and outs of this logical fallacy known as ad hominem.  From this Wiki:

Defining ad hominem

The phrase ad hominem argument (often called an ad hominem attack) comes from the Latin "to the person." It also sometimes applies to any argument that centers on emotive (specifically irrelevant emotions) rather than rational or logical appeal.

As most people use the phrase in recent times, an ad hominem argument occurs when one attacks the person making an argument rather than the argument itself. It is therefore a special case of the broader category of formal logical fallacies, the non sequitur, in which the conclusion urged, e.g. that the disputant is incorrect, does not follow from the premise asserted, e.g. that the disputant is a dick.[1] Even if the ad hominem attack is true, e.g. the disputant really is a dick, that fact has no bearing on whether the disputant's argument is logically sound.
          How ad hominem works

Ad hominem arguments work via the halo effect, a cognitive bias in which the perception of one trait is influenced by the perception of an unrelated trait, e.g.treating an attractive person as more intelligent or more honest. People tend to see others as tending to all good or tending to all bad. Thus, if you can attribute a bad trait to your opponent, others will tend to doubt the quality of your opponent's arguments. 
Subtle uses

Often, ad hominem attacks are used subtly in order to influence the views of spectators. There are many forms of this, such as pointing out bad things they (the opponent) have done in the past in arguments about morality (they are not attacking the person's points about morality, they are attacking the person), or using exclamations (for example, "Jeez!") to imply that the person is incredibly slow at understanding your point. 
Blatant uses

Ad hominem attacks are hardly ever used plainly, and people who do are generally trolls who want to provoke people to fight. These are often partnered with not even responding to the person's post, using arguments that make no sense, and thus have never been heard of, then mocking their opponent when they fail to find a rebuttal, and many other such techniques. 
False positives

Ad hominem attacks are strictly fallacious when the attack has little or no bearing on the argument at hand, for example, dismissing a female scientist's opinion on a subject because she is a woman would be a fallacious ad hominem argument - dismissing it on grounds of insufficient qualification or experience would not be, although it may fall into other fallacious categories and may constitute a Courtier's Reply. Similarly, pointing out someone's known track record on a subject would also not count. For instance, YouTube creationist VenomFangX has a past history of filing false DMCA claims, and it would not be an ad hominem attack to bring this up should he file another. It would be an ad hominem however, if it was brought up to refute one of his YEC claims.
Calling someone an idiot when you have explained the evidence five times and they still refuse to address it, or provide counterexamples, is not an ad hominem attack, but rather a valid logical conclusion based on their actions. Similarly, tacking an insult onto the end of any argument might be bad form, but it doesn't automatically make it an ad hominem. It's only an ad hominem if you say the other person must be wrong because they are an idiot - not the other way round.
Creationists sometimes make the mistake of calling a personal insult an ad hominem attack when it is not intended to address the truth or falsity of the creationist's claim, but merely to denigrate the creationist. Likewise, creationists are known to mis-characterize logically sound arguments as ad hominem attacks in an attempt to obscure the soundness of the argument or their burden to respond by making an emotional appeal.
A criticism is also not an ad hominem argument if a person's merits are actually the topic of the argument. A habitual liar is not physically incapable of telling the truth, and therefore dismissing their claims entirely is not valid, but it is certainly not incorrect to weigh their testimony as less trustworthy than that of someone with a reputation for studious honesty if comparing contradictory claims by the two.
SRUV put it best when they wrote "An entire genre of the advocacy movement has developed based not on evaluating the data but on character assassination." (In regards to the constant assaults on investigative journalist and humanitarian Merritt Clifton, but it is a route taken with all scientists, investigators, victim advocacy groups, and writers whose findings defy the propaganda machine; dogsbite.org, Animals 24-7daxtonsfriends.com, Walk for Victims of Pit Bulls (and other Dangerous Dogs), Barbara Kay, Alexandra Semyonova, Jeff Borchardt, etc.)  In fact, these raze-the-ground tactics are such a default modus operandi of 'pit bull advocacy' that exposes on these crimes against human decency are myriad enough to span an entire blog; Scorched Earth: The Politics of Pit Bulls.  

Sunday, December 7, 2014

One Breed, A Million Excuses.

(crossposted from Topsy Turvy & Bloodshed)

One breed, a million excuses. At what point does one stop to consider, "hmmm, why does this particular breed require militant advocacy and excuse after excuse? Why does it require publicity and PR managers aggressively managing the 'breed image'?"

One of the wisest things I ever heard was from my father, "Never be with someone you have to make excuses for." The reason the issue is so complex is precisely because so many excuses have been disseminated so thoroughly they have been blindly accepted as fact.

If Myth Busters did a pitbull series they could easily run several seasons on it. Ridiculous.

The incessant stream of "it's the lie/fault of (insert anything/everything)!!" is like the abusive psychopath who blames the rest of the world for his self-created problems... any and every excuse, no matter how wrong or ridiculous... to deflect blame...

I don't even know if I can list all the excuses, lies, deflections, and smokescreens used by pit bull (and other dangerous dog) 'advocacy'. In the coming weeks--THIS POST WILL BE CONTINUALLY UPDATED*--I will attempt to provide information debunking every fallacious, empty 'talking point' issued by sociopaths eager to unwittingly perpetuate the wide-scale suffering and death of animals, people, and even the very breed they claim to love.
*note; updates will most frequently and first appear on Topsy-Turvy & Bloodshed and be secondarily edited here

The trash that needs to be taken out;
  • The media has it out for pitbulls. (over-reports, misreports, under-reports on 'other breed attacks', 'never posts good stories', etc.)
http://thecaninegamechanger.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-media-is-plotting-against.html
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/05/13/barbara-kay-attack-of-the-pit-bull-advocates/
http://www.daxtonsfriends.com/canine-myths-2/

http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2013/08/la-times-opinion.html
http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2014/05/anachronisms.html
http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2011/06/natural-consequences.html
The Huffington Post is notorious about the SABSL community for deleting or outright blocking comments altogether from intelligent advocates posting hard facts and tragic evidence in response to their myriad fluff pieces that continually churn out tired and debunked myth after myth.  Presenting self-proclaimed shucksters that pronounce blatant falsehoods (like 'nanny dog' and 'man biters were culled' as gospel) as experts and pit bull lobbyist groups like they were sanctioned safety groups (the NCRC farce) decimates their credibility so much I read 'HuffPo' with all the consideration I give to The Onion or Fark threads.
  • People can't/misidentify pit bulls (crucial in insinuating the attack/kill counts by pit bulls is much smaller than issued). ...and the related;
http://thetruthaboutpitbulls.blogspot.com/search/label/breed%20misidentification
http://blog.dogsbite.org/2014/01/2013-fatal-dog-attack-identification-photographs.html
http://www.daxtonsfriends.com/canine-myths-2/
The issue is further confused by the fact that shelter workers deliberately misidentify breed and many misguided animal workers will fraudulently issue a mislabel of a pit bull as a boxer-lab mix or some such to skirt BSL, landlord restrictions, or fraud insurance premiums.  Masses of people present these animals as something other-than, and the average Joe-blow would be hard pressed to comprehend breed as a result.
  • Staffordshire terriers and pit bulls are totally different breeds.
http://thecaninegamechanger.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-name-change-game-staffordshire.html

  • BSL and/or mandatory spay/neuter is like the holocaust.


http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2013/05/breed-holocaust.html
  • Pit bull is not a breed.
http://www.daxtonsfriends.com/canine-myths-2/
    • No dog has ever "scalped" a child.


      http://blog.dogsbite.org/2009/11/collection-of-pit-bull-scalp-attack.html  Since 'moving the goalpost' is one of the most frequently employed nutter tactics (albeit still falling far behind ad hominem and outright deceit), I can't help but wonder how Miss S___ is going to try to disqualify the NINETY little humans scalped by dogs between December 1975 and September 2014 as 'children'.  If you include adults in the scalping count, the list easily topples 100.
      note; the author of this blog is not F_____ W____, so if you want to contact me, hunting with those parameters won't work (that's what comments are for).  She is a mighty fine individual though.
      • Pit bulls are only dog aggressive.
      https://www.facebook.com/pitbullskilledmypet/timeline
      http://www.animals24-7.org/2014/03/22/how-many-other-animals-did-pit-bulls-kill-last-year/
      http://www.fatalpitbullattacks.com
      http://walkforvictimsofpitbulls.blogspot.com/ (warning; GRAPHIC images)http://cravendesires.blogspot.com/2010/01/happy-new-year.html (warning; GRAPHIC images)
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2186433/Dog-bite-hospital-admissions-rise--especially-children.html#ixzz23AkD4Eoa
      http://dogsinservice.blogspot.com/2012/08/pit-bulls-and-other-dangerous-dogs-keep.html (warning; GRAPHIC images)
      http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-remedy-for-commissioner-philbrook.html
      • Pit bulls are great service dogs.
      http://thecaninegamechanger.blogspot.com/2014/02/not-service-breed.html
      http://thetruthaboutpitbulls.blogspot.com/2010/08/nanny-dog-myth-revealed.html
      http://cravendesires.blogspot.com/2013/05/badrap-surrenders-to-facts.html
      http://www.daxtonsfriends.com/canine-myths-2/
      https://www.facebook.com/BADRAP.org/posts/10151460774472399

      • Falling coconuts kill more people than pit bulls. (wins the award for most ridiculous claim ever)
      http://www.daxtonsfriends.com/2014/07/do-coconuts-kill-more-people-than-pit-bulls/
      • Pit bulls were bred as farm dogs (or for any purpose other than dog-fighting and blood-sport).
      http://blog.dogsbite.org/2010/07/pit-bulls-by-gary-wilkes-21st-century.html
      http://dogsinservice.blogspot.com/2012/04/first-i-want-to-say-that-reason-i.html (warning; graphic image)
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2186433/Dog-bite-hospital-admissions-rise--especially-children.html#ixzz23AkD4Eoa
      • Pit bulls were once so popular they were 'America's Dog'.
      • Any/all dogs bite/kill.
      http://www.dogsbite.org/pdf/1979-1998-breeds-dogs-involved-in-fatal-human-attacks-us.pdf
      http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2011/08/all-dogs-bite.html (warning; graphic images)
      http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2013/04/dogs-being-dogs.html
        • Pit bull attacks are rare.
        http://dangerousdognews.wordpress.com
        And really, if you Google 'pit bull attack' http://goo.gl/j9GqZO on a weekly basis, discounting repeat stories, you'll easily find at least a dozen attacks, several of which are guaranteed to be unprovoked attacks on humans. (Lately, there has been a pattern of at least one life-flight a week--these attacks are severe.) 
        Do this for a few weeks and even the most drug-addled, ADHD afflicted, sleep-deprived, half-literate spazmonkey will be able to discern some patterns--or at the very least the fact that these attacks are the exact opposite of rare.  The website I linked above is actually staffed by several people and they cannot keep up with reporting every attack.  All you have to do is pay attention.
        • Only abused/neglected/fight-trained/provoked/unsocialized/untrained pit bulls attack. (Notice a lot of the self-countering there? They must be trained to fight/they must be trained not to fight, etc.?) ...and the related;
        • It's the owners not the dogs.
        http://thetruthaboutpitbulls.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-truth-about-pit-bull-owners.html
        http://www.daxtonsfriends.com/canine-myths-2/
        • (While not pit bull specific it is still relevant to the conversation...)  Dogs are descendants of wolves/operate under a dominance hierarchy/need a strong pack leader/anything by Cesar Millan.
        http://www.nonlineardogs.com/100MostSillyPart1.html
        http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/02/barbara-kay-delusional-pitbull-owners-and-their-predictable-denials/
        https://www.akc.org/press_center/article.cfm?article_id=5811#.VIkTzG1wRzE.facebook

        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21475022
        http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2011/06/premacks-second-principle.html
        https://www.akc.org/future_dog_owner/find_breed.cfm
        http://www.animalplanet.com/breed-selector/dog-breeds/laid-back-dog-breeds.html
        http://www.animalplanet.com/breed-selector/dog-breeds/easy-to-train-dog-breeds.html
        http://www.animalplanet.com/breed-selector/dog-breeds/family-dog-breeds.html
        http://www.animalplanet.com/breed-selector/dog-breeds/energetic-dog-breeds.html
        http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/articles/puppytemperamenttest.htm
        http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/gun-dogs/2013/03/hunting-dogs-best-dog-breeds-every-game-species
        http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2012/02/gameness-viii.html
        http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/p/are-not-equal.html
        • BSL kills innocent dogs/punishes good owners.
        http://www.animals24-7.org/2014/09/14/pit-bulls-the-personal-is-political/ 
        (in the comments by site owner, writer, humanitarian, and decades-long dog statistician Merritt Clifton; in response to a comment claiming "What troubles me is that breed specific legislation does not take into account those individuals who indeed are not dangerous."

        Clifton reveals; "This statement is categorically false. No breed-specific legislation has been enacted in either the U.S. or Canada which did not “grandfather” pit bulls who had been licensed, vaccinated against rabies, kept safely, and had no dangerous history.")

        In many jurisdictions, part of the grandfathering clause may also require micro-chipping the dog, mandatory liability insurance, and specific containment/enclosure requirements. For any truly responsible owner well versed in the nature of their breed (it's extraordinary ability to defy normal dog measures of containment, for example), these are reasonable measures that--it could be argued--a truly responsible owner would already be taking.  
        They certainly would be found no more 'punitive' to a 'good owner' than baby-proofing a home, using a properly installed, to-date car seat, regular pediatrician appointments, and the like are 'punitive' to a good parent.  Those who would find such measures 'punitive' would have to be lazy, miserly, ignorant/in denial, or as reckless as those who feel entitled to drive their vehicles without liability insurance, operate several ton equipment with the proper licensing, etc..

        http://www.animals24-7.org/2014/09/10/obsessed-about-pit-bulls/  
        BSL can save innocent dogs; 
        "ANIMALS 24-7 does not believe that animal rights, animal welfare, or even just being kind to animals is advanced by protecting backyard breeders of fighting dogs from the passage of effective breed-specific legislation to prevent the births of a million pit bulls per year who will repeatedly flunk out of homes and be killed at the average age of 18 months."
        • BSL doesn't work.
        http://blog.dogsbite.org/2010/06/cities-with-successful-pit-bull-laws.html
        http://www.animals24-7.org/2011/06/15/texas-fatal-dog-attacks-bring-proposed-life-sentence-new-breed-specific-injury-data/ (see; the section on Catalonia)
        http://www.animals24-7.org/2014/08/24/four-year-old-killed-by-pit-bulls-because-miami-dade-law-was-not-enforced/
        http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2014/12/is-bsl-ineffective-expensive-and.html
        http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-remedy-for-commissioner-philbrook.html
        http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-ava-on-dangerous-dogs.html
        http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2014/12/coordinated-campaign.html
        http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2012/06/29/injuryprev-2012-040389.full.pdf+html
        • "man-biters were culled."
        http://thetruthaboutpitbulls.blogspot.com/2012/01/culling-manbiters-and-desecrating-truth.html?m=1
        http://cravendesires.blogspot.com/2010/01/happy-new-year.html (warning; GRAPHIC images)
        http://sruv-pitbulls.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-remedy-for-commissioner-philbrook.html
        http://www.fatalpitbullattacks.com
        Not only do pit bulls consistently attack and kill human beings since their inception; the rapidly ascending number of annual fatalities correlates with the spreading popularity of the pit bull as a companion and family pet.  An allegedly non-aggressive fighting dog should become less aggressive as it is proliferated for a different purpose (that of companion/pet), not more.  An animal handled under the auspices of love, nurturing, affection, and solace should have far less cause to bite than the brutally abused and mishandled fighting dogs that were allegedly 'dog-only' aggressive; and yet the tragic facts are showing us the inverse.  Neither history nor logical deduction support 'man-biters were culled'.
        • Pit bulls rate better on temperament tests than other common family breeds/are a safe/stable dog.
        http://thetruthaboutpitbulls.blogspot.com/2010/08/there-are-three-kinds-of-lies-lies.html
        http://www.daxtonsfriends.com/canine-myths-2/
        http://www.fatalpitbullattacks.com
        • (insert name of person supporting BSL/exposing pit bull related lies/sharing pit bull related science fanatics don't like) is a bad person, look at (insert any manner of defamation methods a person can attempt). Essentially, a claim in the form of a personal attack; "don't believe anything this person says because they are a bad person."
        http://thecaninegamechanger.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-problem-with-ad-hominem.html
          • "Your breed is next./In the (insert decade here) it was the dobermans/rottweilers/German shepherds/(insert allegedly maligned breed here), now it's the pit bull..."
            • BSL supporters are nothing more than 'haters', 'ignorant', 'have never known/owned/loved a pit bull'.
            • dogsbite.org is a bunch of lies made up by a pit bull hater.
            • Animal experts support (insert any of the above claims).

            Monday, October 20, 2014

            Some disturbing parallels

            I'm writing a paper on secession for a US History class.  Part of that assignment is to present a chosen state's Ordinance of Secession (OoS)  http://www.lsjunction.com/docs/secesson.htm
            My group was assigned TX, and I must pinpoint the states stated reasoning for it.  Many of these illogical assertions parallel the victim bullying, victim blaming, wrong recusing, and fact denying assertions of the pro pit bull movement.

            First, it claims the union is denying a person's state-constitution rights; it is a Texan's right to own slaves!  So, too, it is with pit bull fanatics  who rally against BSL; it is a RIGHT to own a fighting breed dog no matter the cost; however, reasonable people understand this is not so.  

            It should not be so.  Why?  Because we have a long standing precedent of regulating animal ownership for the collective safety of the communities we live in.  A person cannot own apex predator animals in the community at large; you cannot bring a bear or a tiger into highly populated area for the undeniable threat they pose to the surrounding people.

            In many places, other animals are restricted from city/town propers for the same reason.  For example, in some areas, you must obtain a permit to bring a horse into town.  These animals are irrefutably less vicious* than pit bulls.  However, their biology makes them powerful and skittish.  Pit bull biology makes the dogs powerful, bold, unstable, and devastatingly destructive when they go off.
            *note; there are equestrian related deaths, however these are the result of a rider without a helmet falling from the horse and sustaining fatal head injuries.  The horse does not attack a person, or consciously seek to harm them.

            A person cannot import exotics into certain areas because they are highly problematic as an invasive species--they threaten the ecosystems around them, indirectly so to humans.  It is not so as pit bulls. You'd be hard pressed to make a week without an occurrence of a pitbulls breaking off lead/containment to attack members of the community.

            Another portion of the ordinance classify the few fatal skirmishes between law enforcement protecting freed slaves as "murders". It is truly sad when anyone or thing dies as a result of violence, but classifications of homicide are issued according to context (self-defense, unforeseeable accidents, and acting under military orders are not classified as murder, for example).

            Even when a person's child or animal is mercilessly attacked and they have no choice but to kill the dog to end the attack(1), even when a police officer is charged full-on by a pit bull--even when said pitbull had just commenced an attack on another person or animal, even when police fire upon a pitbull because the pit bulls own family is being mauled relentlessly and BEG him to do it.... (2)  Pit bull fanatics cry foul, make a martyr of the aggressor, label the officer a murder, hold protests against him, and demand his termination. (3)  Acting as a public servant to fulfill their sworn duty to protect and serve, or to save yourself or your loved ones from a vicious attacker hell-bent on killing is not murder.

            Secessionists cried natural law and that slavery is a divine institution sanctified by The Creator.  We all know this is not so.  Scientific evidence--fact--proves to us that differences among the races are arbitrary At best.  It's plain physiology.  

            The scientific physiology of a pit bull is riddled with dangerous biological markers. (4)  If you've ever heard someone call a pit bull a "ticking time bomb", this is why; Pitbulls are endowed with brain structures that are exaggeratedly different; their impulse control is greatly diminished, Their brain rewards idiopathic (unprovoked, suddenly without warning, and extreme in severity and duration) aggression with a powerful cocktail of opioids and dopamine.  It physically rewards violence.  Their blood clotting factor is supreme above all canids  to keep them "in the fight" for as long as possible.  

            The observable precedent of behavior (which we all acknowledge as being able to be discerned as innate through observation in collies herding, labs retrieving, etc.) that plays out on a daily basis is that these dogs  Are spontaneously violent, their attacks incredibly implacable, and that they are not target specific.  

            They will maul people--any person, including family, not solely aggressors or abusers), animals of every kind, and even vehicles when they are in the zone.  Science proves pit bulls are a significantly elevated risk to life and limb just as it proves that, among human races, no one race is smarter, stronger, or cleaner than another.

            The OoS states the union was on a power trip and sought to destroy southern institutions.
            Fanatics howl that SABSL proponents are seeking to--for no reason imaginable--to destroy dog ownership and that other breeds are ominously next.  This is a wholly unsubstantiated claim designed to recast those championing a safe society for all as hate filled extremists who relish in "destruction" for destruction's sake... And wholly ignores the fact that even pit bulls themselves benefit from regulation. In areas where even mild BSL is present, the rate of severe bite injuries and fatalities plummet dramatically, leaving less "negative press" for the breed, in addition to plummeting dog-fighting, dog-abuse,  crammed-to-the-gills (and therefore compromised standards of care) shelters, and pit bull euthanasia rates. (5)

            In the OoS, there is also an assertion that abolition fractured and divided people, and while this is true, that does not make abolition wrong.  Disagreement is not grounds for ignoring an issue.  Anything but.

            The South issued that the north was acting vicious economically, seeking to destroy southern industry to somehow (the regions largely traded wholly different products--manufacturing, fishing, timber, textiles, etc.  In the north, sprawling plantations and cash crops in the south) fill their own pockets.  Basically, it's all about money.  Pit bull fanatics claim victims are just frauds seeking to solicit charity moneys for personal gain, and even proclaim that dogsbite.org pays large sums of money to people to "make up stories".  This ignores the fact that behind every attack is a victim with very real, crippling, lifelong, or fatal injuries.

            These injuries are evidenced by witnesses and medical treatment, and they are not "easy" ones--missing eyes, ears, noses (6), scalps (7), limbs (8), permanent nerve damage (9), loss of function (10), brain damage (11), etc..  Many of these People have medical bills that exponentially soar above the alleged "bribe", additionally, singular bribes would be grossly ineffective in "converts".  

            A much more effective and profitable endeavor—taking a page from the pitbull advocacy play book) would be to generate propaganda films and "documentaries" (another parallel--the early 1900s saw the production of race based "documentaries" espousing the alleged inferiority Of non-whites (12), peppered with gross amounts of junk "science" to support it.) and aggressively and Consistently make media fluff plays.

            When Kevin Vicente had his face partially torn off, his family set up a fund that received a measly 5K for months, while a "save Mickey"--the dog that mauled him--campaign received tens of thousands of dollars and support in a few weeks. (13) This is not uncommon... It is substantially more lucrative to generate money through a pro pit bull scam than a victim plea.

            Man stabs pit bull in defense of tiny Westie 
            Family begs cop to shoot pit bull 
            Pit bull protesters want police officer fired 
            4 Pitbull physiology 
            Successful BSL 
            Mauled faces--eyes, ears, noses
            Scalped pit bull victims
            Pit bull victim amputees
            Nerve damaged pit bull victims
            10 Disabled pit bull victims
            11 Brain damaged pit bull victims
            12 Racist Propaganda films (and other media)
            13 Kevin Vicente and Mickey the pit bull