Pit Bulls

By Carl Nelson

            One week ago, a pit bull escaped out the door of its owner’s home, a couple blocks from our house, while the owner was struggling to leash another dog for its walk. The escaped dog then travelled nearly two blocks to a driveway alley on the edge of our lot, where he must have heard young children in our neighbor’s back yard. They were headed out to their truck for a shopping trip.

The dog reportedly raced down the alley to lunge at the leading child, biting her on the back and the groin. The attack was interrupted by the mom, who tore the girl away while kicking at the dog – rolling it under the truck. The mom then intended to shoot the dog with a gun she either carried or kept in the truck dash. But when she rounded the front of the truck to locate the dog, she was surprised to find the owner (a male teenager), who had leashed the animal and was shouting “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” (I don’t know whether he meant himself, the dog, or both.) The proximity of the kid to the dog discouraged the mom from firing her gun.

(This all occurred midday behind my garage office, while I was away doing my regular lap swim.)

The girl was treated at a nearby medical facility and released. They reportedly had to snip away “a bit of meat sticking out from the groin bite”, in her mother’s words. Animal control later evaluated the incident, classified the dog as not dangerous and the dog was quarantined to its house and yard for ten days. (Which was the very situation preceding the incident, with the additional restriction of the dog not being permitted to leave in order to be walked.)

A month or so previously, a different neighbor’s Pit Bull escaped out the front door of a home a block and a half in the opposite direction from our home. Either the daughter or a visiting friend had left the door open for the dog to escape. This Pit Bull travelled enough to maul a smaller dog on the porch of a neighbor on the next block, a half a block north of our home. The grandmother with dementia who was also on the front porch was bitten also, when trying to rescue her dog. There was blood all over. The mauled dog was taken to the vet. But the damage was so extensive that its owner could not afford the vet services required, and it was euthanized.

These two attacks were the basis of some indignant conversation within our neighborhood network, during which time I also found out that the fellow three doors down (in a third direction), who repairs cars and boats in his driveway and parking strip, also had a Pit Bull – which had recently bitten his girl friend who had required stitches.

After the first Pit Bull attack I purchased some bear spray online. After the second attack behind my garage I began wearing it as a belt clip-on, when I regularly walk my dachshund Tater. We do close to a mile afternoons, covering a wide perimeter.

Smaller dogs, cats and animals are said to trigger the attack reflex in Pit Bulls. So I supposed that my walking of my small ginger dachshund, Tater, was like chumming the waters. And I did not want to become chum, either.

Online I found that “The top three most banned or restricted dog breeds are Pit Bulls (targeted in 96% of BSL ordinances), Rottweilers (13%), and wolf-dog hybrids (11%). Also noted were that there were no breeds presently banned within the State of Ohio.

It is hard not to notice that in the homes and yards I passed there were often dogs. Quite a few were big German Shepherds, and I would often see a Pit Bull barking out at me from behind a metal screen door, or staring at me from a porch along with their gazing redneck owners. In fact, it seemed about one Pit Bull per block. And, of course, Tater saw them all and was not chary of answering their challenges. (I keep counseling him that he is “a big dog in a small body” – but he doesn’t listen.)

After listening to various secondhand variations of the Pit Bull encounters from my neighbors, I decided to visit the various people involved in the two events to claim an accurate account of the events. Once I had done this, and looked up the applicable law, I intended to contact the County Dog Warden for his determination, judgment and explanation thereof. And then I figured I’d know enough to decide what action I could/should take. (It was from these encounters that I constructed the previous above account of the events.)

After all, ours is a fairly normal small Ohio River town neighborhood. There are small children riding bikes, waiting for the bus, playing outside, chalking the sidewalks, etc. throughout the day and evening hours. Besides this there are others walking their dogs, working in their yards, service people coming and going, and the mail person doing their rounds. It doesn’t seem prudent that an untethered Pit Bull with a breed history of unprovoked, predatory attacks should be allowed to wander about freely.

The mom was rather a tomboy, wearing worn jeans and round toed boots. She was the grown daughter (living elsewhere) of our next door neighbors. She responded strongly, as any mother would, towards the attacking dog, and calmly described what she did and had intended to do next as I spoke with her, as if getting out a gun and shooting the animal were just common sense. She didn’t though, as by then the dog and its owner (a local boy) were entangled and finally tethered, as I’ve mentioned.

I spoke with the boy, (maybe 15 years of age), when I met him on a side street walking his other dogs. “What’s your name?” I asked after we’d acknowledge each other.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“You can’t tell me your name? I’m a neighbor.”

“My mom doesn’t want me giving my name to strangers.”

Which seemed weird to me, but for wont of a better strategy I decided I’d just call him “George”.

George appeared shy and wore a black hoodie everywhere, in spite of the ninety degree heat, humidity and glaring daylight. My wife had talked to him previously about his dogs leaving their poop on our parking strip. She said his reply had been that he “thought the city handled that (its removal)”. She told him the city didn’t and set out some dog biscuits with some plastic poop bags outside my garage office door for him use. He didn’t use them, but we later noticed him walking by with his dogs while carrying a large cardboard box for waste. Rather comical.

George seemed reasonable enough, and I give him credit for walking his dogs daily. Probably over half the owners around here don’t trouble themselves to do that. Tater and I pass quite a few lonely dogs barking from behind their fences, front screen doors and windows.

Anyway, I had caught George while he was out walking two of the other dogs, one of which was a Pit Bull also, albeit the friendlier female. I knew they all lived in a small cottage with quite a few others (rumored) and I asked him how many dogs they had.

“Four,” he said.

“Four?” I was a bit surprised.

“Why, is that a lot?”

I considered their tiny cottage. “How’d you get four?” I asked.

“Well, first we had two. And then we had two more.” He grinned slightly.

I nodded, and asked if his dad were around.

Apparently his dad wasn’t around. He mumbled a string of words with “meth” in them. I asked him what had happened to the dog which had bitten the girl, and George replied that the dog had been quarantined to the premises for ten days. And that was that.

I thanked him for letting me know. He continued on.

The woman whose dog had been mauled previously by the other neighborhood Pit Bull owner, was several homes north of us. I stopped at her home on another afternoon while returning from my walk with Tater. In the aftermath, she had had a six foot cyclone fence installed around the front steps to her home which attached to the elevated porch. The result was ugly. However, it served the purpose. No predatory animal was going to get up on her porch again.

I had initially tried speaking with her mother who wandered the porch cradling a plastic doll. When I mentioned the dog attack, she got very agitated, and this brought her daughter out, who explained matters. The daughter was a very pleasant woman, and as she was speaking with me I couldn’t help reflecting on the relatively precarious and trying situations a large number of the people living in our neighborhood endured. (Apparently the wire fence enclosure was not only to keep dogs out but to keep her senile mother in.) This woman was managing two kids and a mother with dementia all on her own. When the Pit Bull had come up on the porch in an unprovoked attack on her smaller dog, the grandmother had tried to interfere, getting hurt on the arm.

Later, while again walking Tater, I passed the home of the owner of the Pit Bull who had attacked her small dog. I strode up and identified myself and my concern. He said that they had turned the Pit Bull into the Animal Shelter. I asked if this had been ordered by the Dog Warden, and he said somberly, that it was “a decision they had come to”. I thanked him for letting me know.

A few days following, I spoke with his neighbor, who I happen to chat with whenever I pass with Tater when this neighbor is outside on his porch. This neighbor said that they had been quarantined by the dog warden for ten days, or so, but the owner had had the dog put down after it had bitten him. (I guess that ended him giving his dog an owner’s benefit of the doubt.)

I posted a brief summary of the attack on the small girl on Facebook and the responses were generally not in the dog’s favor. But they had a distribution:

On the one hand, a woman posted: “Pitbulls are actually very loving an trustworthy animals. IF they’re raised correctly with love. Too many people get pit bulls, rottweilers and dobermans, because they want to feel macho, and in control. They have a desire to bully others, but they don’t have the guts to do it themselves, so they use their dog. After working at a veterinary clinic, for years, I can say that the problem with any dog is due to the owner or past owner.”

At the furthest end of the opposite view, a man posted: “My views concerning Pitbulls are simple and easily stated. I worked 12 years in various emergency departments in Houston. During that time I saw several pitbull fatalities, and a great many more pitbull mutilations. I’ve see somewhere in the vicinity of 10 children who had their faces completely ripped off by an attacking pitbull. The owners litany was always the same… Oh, he’s such a good dog, they must’ve done something to provoke him. Horse crap. These dogs are genetic monsters that should be eliminated from the face of the Earth down to the last dog. If that ticks off any of you pitbull owners, you would have to measure my concern for your anger in negative numbers.”

And one took the behavioral attitude: “Pit bulls are good for only one thing – dog fighting. That is what they were bred for. They cannot be trained as guard dogs and make dangerous pets, even for their owners. With so many other breeds of dog available, there is no reason why anyone should be keeping, or raising these dogs.”

I found all of these opinions to be true.

As a little back-story, when I first met my wife, she lived alone in a home with a Pit Bull/Labrador mix (we believe) who she saved from being gassed at the pound. (My wife is from Appalachia. And she also had a loaded sawed-off shotgun on top of the armoire beside the front door.) She was not looking for a rough dog, but was taken by her serene behavior while in the rear of a cage of yapping, desperate canines headed for the chamber. Her adopted dog, though female, already had the name Charlie.

Charlie had been turned in for “being aggressive towards other dogs”. But my wife is quite good with animals. She is incredibly patient, and seems to intuit what is going on in their minds. (She surmised Charlie’s initial cringing behavior was likely due to repeated beatings.) She, and her boyfriend at the time, worked with Charlie, and Charlie turned out to be a wonderful dog. In fact, I’ve never seen another dog quite like her. She never initiated a fight. But she would protect all of the cats my wife had. She would play well with the other dogs at the park. Charlie had one particular move in which she would race alongside the other dog and step so as to trip them, forcing a tumble to the right. As they tumbled, Charlie dominated them topside.

As I said, I never saw Charlie in a fight. What would happen is that when another dog became aggressive and charged, Charlie would bark – and they stopped. It was kind of freaky.

One day I was walking Charlie in my old neighborhood of SE Seattle. There were a number of residents who enjoyed chaining their vicious dogs in the front yard with just enough chain to stop before the sidewalk. They enjoyed sitting on the porch watching their dog charge out and scare the passing pedestrian half to death.

On this day I was walking Charlie and passed this home where the owner had a large, unchained German Shepherd who came charging out as Charlie and I walked past. The owner was sitting there on the porch watching. Charlie barked at the dog.

The German Shepherd stopped in its tracks, turned and ran whimpering back around the house. I’ve never seen anything like it. The Shepherd’s owner was spitting mad.

Anyway, Charlie was just a wonderful dog. So I feel each side of the issue.

I tried several times to contact the County Dog Warden to discuss his reasoning for the handling of both affairs, but could never reach him. I specified my questions in a voice mail, but he never left a voice mail in return. What had essentially happened in both cases was that the dogs were declared not dangerous and put on quarantine for ten days. This meant that they were essentially returned to the same situation as before the attacks, but would miss being walked for the ten days. (This certainly wouldn’t improve their temper.)

According to Ohio law:

“Dogs that have bitten a person must be quarantined for 10 days. It is the Dog Warden’s discretion on whether the dog is quarantined with the owner or at the Humane Society of the Ohio Valley.

(1)(a) “Dangerous dog” means a dog that, without provocation, and subject to division (A)(1)(b) of this section, has done any of the following:

(i) Caused injury, other than killing or serious injury, to any person;

(ii) Killed another dog;”

It certainly seemed this were so, in both cases. But nothing was done.

So, as I noted, I’ve begun wearing my bear spray canister when walking Tater afternoons. My wife asked the postman how he manages dangerous dogs which he might encounter. He carries a two pack deterrent. The first is a small compressed air horn. If this doesn’t dissuade the dog, he tries the pepper spray.

My neighbor called and asked our mayor – who happens to live just a house or two away through a vacant lot from the location of the Pit Bull who bit the small girl – what she advised he do if the matter should occur again. He was concerned about the legal ramifications.

“Shoot him,” she said.