At this point everyone has their roles ready and their lines down pat.
When 6-year-old Nephi Selu was attacked, mauled and killed by a pit bull (or pit bull mix) in Union City, the pit bull critics and the defenders already had their scrip...ts ready to go.
Most of us said what we always say when a pit bull mauls someone — that breed is dangerous. Dr. Alan Beck of Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine put it well when I interviewed in 2005 after a “friendly” pit bull mauled an 88-year-old woman who had interacted with the dog without incident countless times.
“We are not surprised when a pointer starts pointing,” he said. “Or when my dachshund starts digging. Everyone expects that. But if we start talking about a low tolerance for pain and a propensity to attack, it’s wrong.”
But we know the defenders will soon be in full cry. It’s not the dog’s fault, they’ll say, it is the owner. The child should never have put himself in that position. There were other factors we don’t know about.
Someone once compared the pit bull apologists to the National Rifle Association. They have a prepared script, they are vociferous and they are tireless. They’d love to get into a debate with you because it goes on and on and on. They send three e-mails to your one. They have self-serving statistics from advocacy web sites that they can quote for hours.
But here’s the puzzler. They are also often incredibly, uncontrollably angry. All of us in the news business take on the pit bull issue from time to time and we all have stories of threats — “Someone needs to stop you,” was the most recent I got — and warnings. They scream, they insult, and they stoop to racist, offensive language.
But someone died.
A child in this case. An elderly woman in another. In San Francisco in 2005 a woman left her 12-year-old son, Nicholas Faibish, in the basement with two pit bulls. While the parents were away the dogs were put in a room with the door propped shut with a shovel.
When the mother returned her son had been mauled to death. It was, she insisted in an interview with me, a complete surprise.
“My kids got along great with (the dogs),” Maureen Faibish said. “We were never seeing any violent tendencies.”
It happens over and over and it seems there’s never any change or consequence. The city of Denver passed “breed specific legislation” in 1989, targeting pit bulls and dogs with “the major characteristics of one.”
Miami did the same that year, banning pit bulls, and it has held up. Last year a ballot initiative to repeal the ban lost by a resounding 63-36 percent.
Passing an ordinance like that in San Francisco would be hard. But more than that it would be unpleasant. Although the Miami vote indicates that the majority of ordinary citizens aren’t buying the happy chat about pit bulls, few want to take on the insults and anger of the fanatics.
So, apparently, we will stick with what we have — periodic maulings and death, followed by arguments that go nowhere.
And pit bulls roam the streets, wait in back yards and make headlines every time they maul or kill.
And when that happens, pit bull advocates always say the same thing: This was a complete surpriseSee More
When 6-year-old Nephi Selu was attacked, mauled and killed by a pit bull (or pit bull mix) in Union City, the pit bull critics and the defenders already had their scrip...ts ready to go.
Most of us said what we always say when a pit bull mauls someone — that breed is dangerous. Dr. Alan Beck of Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine put it well when I interviewed in 2005 after a “friendly” pit bull mauled an 88-year-old woman who had interacted with the dog without incident countless times.
“We are not surprised when a pointer starts pointing,” he said. “Or when my dachshund starts digging. Everyone expects that. But if we start talking about a low tolerance for pain and a propensity to attack, it’s wrong.”
But we know the defenders will soon be in full cry. It’s not the dog’s fault, they’ll say, it is the owner. The child should never have put himself in that position. There were other factors we don’t know about.
Someone once compared the pit bull apologists to the National Rifle Association. They have a prepared script, they are vociferous and they are tireless. They’d love to get into a debate with you because it goes on and on and on. They send three e-mails to your one. They have self-serving statistics from advocacy web sites that they can quote for hours.
But here’s the puzzler. They are also often incredibly, uncontrollably angry. All of us in the news business take on the pit bull issue from time to time and we all have stories of threats — “Someone needs to stop you,” was the most recent I got — and warnings. They scream, they insult, and they stoop to racist, offensive language.
But someone died.
A child in this case. An elderly woman in another. In San Francisco in 2005 a woman left her 12-year-old son, Nicholas Faibish, in the basement with two pit bulls. While the parents were away the dogs were put in a room with the door propped shut with a shovel.
When the mother returned her son had been mauled to death. It was, she insisted in an interview with me, a complete surprise.
“My kids got along great with (the dogs),” Maureen Faibish said. “We were never seeing any violent tendencies.”
It happens over and over and it seems there’s never any change or consequence. The city of Denver passed “breed specific legislation” in 1989, targeting pit bulls and dogs with “the major characteristics of one.”
Miami did the same that year, banning pit bulls, and it has held up. Last year a ballot initiative to repeal the ban lost by a resounding 63-36 percent.
Passing an ordinance like that in San Francisco would be hard. But more than that it would be unpleasant. Although the Miami vote indicates that the majority of ordinary citizens aren’t buying the happy chat about pit bulls, few want to take on the insults and anger of the fanatics.
So, apparently, we will stick with what we have — periodic maulings and death, followed by arguments that go nowhere.
And pit bulls roam the streets, wait in back yards and make headlines every time they maul or kill.
And when that happens, pit bull advocates always say the same thing: This was a complete surpriseSee More
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