Dangerous Dogs Winning the Battle For the Streets of Pennsylvania
The victim isn’t the only one who survives a dog attack: so does the vicious dog, in most cases. Animal control departments too often lack the resources, the legal authority, and/or the willpower to rid our communities of killer dogs.
For example, the Knox County, Tennessee animal control department failed to take away a gang of pit bulls that the department had declared to be vicious after the dogs attacked a police car, threatened an animal control officer, and routinely were allowed to run free. As a result of the department’s inaction (as well as the dog owner’s refusal to comply with the department’s order), 21-year-old Jennifer Lowe was savagely mauled to death. Her community members suffered from the department’s negligence, not only because they had to endure the dogs as well as the memories of her horrific killing, but because Knox County had to pay wrongful death compensation to her family, after Attorney Wayne Ritchie Jr. and I filed a wrongful death case on their behalf.
That’s only one example. WPXI (Target 11) Investigator Rick Earle now has released data showing that:
- Of the 165 dogs declared dangerous in Pennsylvania in 2008, 70 were euthanized.
- But in 2009, only 50 of the 163 dangerous dogs were put down.
In other words, dangerous dogs and their dangerous owners are winning the battle for the streets in that state. The WPXI article quotes a Pennsylvania dog owner saying, “I have a Chow/Ridgeback mix I brought back from New Orleans who mauled 5 to 6 people. Most would euthanize a dog like that, but I’m not your average pet owner.”
As these dogs mate and proliferate, those of us who are “average” pet owners will see greater risk to our children, greater prejudice against our “average pet,” and rising insurance costs. All to protect dogs that bite, that maul “5 to 6 people.” One must wonder why the rest of us must continue to endure dangerous dogs in our communities.
How long — how many lives like Jennifer’s — how many court cases and news reports will it take before citizens demand stricter laws and zero-tolerance enforcement?
Dog Bite Law Blog 
“WPXI (Target 11) Investigator Rick Earle now has released data…(on dangerous dogs)…
It is worthy of note that none of the reporters that contacted the National Canine Research Council during the press coverage of the recent attacks in Philadelphia found it newsworthy to print the following facts about dog attacks in Philly/PA:
Reported dog bites in Philadelphia have decreased drastically over the past decades: from about 8,000 per year in the 1970s, to approx. 1,200 per year in recent years.
Over the past 45 years they have been only 19 fatal dog attacks in the state of Pennsylvania: The recent attack on Christine Staab was the FIRST case that involved a pit bull or pit bull-type dog.
These facts could have quelled some of the hysteria that was rising in Philly and put the human-dog bond, and the risk associated with dogs, in a more balanced, and accurate, perspective.
Karen Delise
National Canine Research Council
Karen Delise
February 27, 2010 at 11:41 am
These incidents are not isolated, nor hysteria as Philadelphia has a problem with Pit Bulls mauling children. Pit Bull breeders sell suffering….
http://journals.lww.com/plasreconsurg/Abstract/2009/08000/Pediatric_Dog_Bite_Injuries__A_5_Year_Review_of.28.aspx
Methods: Investigators performed a retrospective review of emergency room records of a single tertiary pediatric hospital. Records of all patients who were evaluated for dog bite injuries between April of 2001 and December of 2005 were reviewed. All demographic, patient, and injury details were recorded.
Results: Five hundred fifty-one patients aged 5 months to 18 years were treated in the emergency department after suffering dog bite injuries during the study period. The majority of injuries (62.8 percent) were sustained by male children. Dog bite injuries were most prevalent during the months of June and July (24.1 percent). Grade school-aged children (6 to 12 years) constituted the majority of victims (51 percent), followed by preschoolers (2 to 5 years; 24.0 percent), teenagers (13 to 18 years; 20.5 percent), and infants (birth to 1 year; 4.5 percent). Injuries sustained by infants and preschoolers often involved the face (53.5 percent), whereas older children sustained injuries to the extremities (60.7 percent). More than 30 different offending breeds were documented in the medical records. The most common breeds included pit bull terriers (50.9 percent), Rottweilers (8.9 percent), and mixed breeds of the two aforementioned breeds (6 percent).
Triple A Andy
March 1, 2010 at 8:43 am
The study you posted and quoted concerns dog bites – not hospitalizations – not fatalities.
Yes, dogs bite. You cannot expect dog bites to be reduced to zero. To do so, is unrealistic and unreasonable.
However, despite the significant increase in the pit bull (and dog) population over the last two decades, reported dog bites in Philadephia are at the lowest rate in 3 decades.
The study you cite simply does not support your claim that pit bulls (or dogs) are a serious, or increasing, health problem in Philadelphia.
Karen Delise
March 1, 2010 at 12:08 pm
I would say Philly has a severe pit problem. According to this article when PACCA (under Nathan Winograd’s “No Kill Equation” program) was kicked out, there was found to be a 95% pit/pit mix population in the shelter. That is an indication of a severe problem with pits.
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/38473294.html
“In Philadelphia, this would be problematic. On a recent visit to the PACCA shelter, about 95 percent of the dogs housed there were pit bull mixes. Pit bulls commonly make up most of a shelter’s canine population because that’s what’s left over after advocacy groups comb the intake population and funnel specific breeds into placement networks.”
And the audit done by the city reports that records were not kept accurately including bite cases. People ended up having to undergo rabies treatments. This is probably due to trying to cover up what pits are actually doing in Philly. After all it is the NKE program that says pits get a bad rap. I say that we get the bad rap from this program with the lies it supports about pits.
And I recall that Delise was quoted as saying the pits in Philly had “cabin fever” causing their attacks. How ridiculous.
P.
March 1, 2010 at 11:11 pm
There was another Rottweiler DBRF in Oregon yesterday…Must have been from the unseasonably cold winter they are having…not a breed specific problem with Pit Bull and Rottweiler breeding.
PA is in trouble with their Dangerous Dog tracking as there were recently two horrific maulings of children with dogs that should have ben monitored better.
Who can forget how James Harrison’s “Patrone” ended up on Craigslist a mere three weeks after he attacked three people?1? After an outcry from the public the ad was pulled and Patrone now serves as an advocacy Pit with Furkids Rescue. Patrone never received a Dangerous Dog declaration….Unacceptable.
Triple A Andy
March 2, 2010 at 11:59 am
Karen Delise is a living, walking, talking non-sequitur. Hardly worth rebutting were it not that she pretends to an unearned status. For those out there with a bit of analytic capability and/or scientific training:
1) Delise consistently switches from apples to oranges, as fits her propaganda goals. First she says ‘all dogs bite’ and pretends that dog bites are the same as sustained attacks. You know, Serpell’s point that dachhunds bite too and this is just as bad as a PB attack. But later Delise objects to statistics on dog bites because published statistics don’t separate out bites vs. sustained attacks and fatalities. Gad, she even makes this switch in a single comment here (March 1, 2010). Can you get more confused in your reasoning, or more transparent about your personal agenda?
2) Delise is herself partly responsible for the failure to separate statistics on mere bites vs. maiming/killing attacks. No wonder, since her entire book about slippers and balloons depended on keeping the distinction vague.
3) The book Delise gained fame with was a non-sequitur to begin with, though the PB-fans did latch onto it. All the things she cites in that book as causing accidents — slippers, balloons and such — do exactly that: cause accidents unrelated to the goal they were designed for. None of the things Delise mentions in her book were specifically designed to kill, as PBs are. Delise would have been more scientifically legitimate if she’d compared PB-inflicted deaths with deaths inflicted by firearms. You know, at least take two things that were designed to kill and compare those.
4) Another thing Delise omits in her book is the fact that a thing as simple as a household ladder comes with an extensive label warning of the risks and what precautions to take to minimize those risks. It’d be a crime to falsify such label, stating that you can put a ladder on the most unstable of surfaces and then stand on the top rung. Yet this is exactly what Delise is doing re the PB. She not only omits to mention the risks, but actively denies them. It would be nice if at some point she were held as liable for this as the maker of a ladder with a lying label would be.
5) That Delise works at a place called the National Council of Canine Research sounds impressive, until you go look and see that this is an organization that she founded herself. In the usual line of manipulative deception the PB fans use, Delise has chosen a name for her organization that SUGGESTS it’s a government run research center, thus an objective institution. It’s not. It’s just the umpteenth propaganda and lobby club that has chosen to hide behind a deceptive name.
6) Delise isn’t only the founder of this phony National Council of Canine Research, she’s also (according to the web site) director. This makes me wonder what kind of salary she’s awarding herself for her propaganda efforts. Nowhere, no matter how I search, do I find a resume that would show Delise has any kind of scientific background or what education she does have. She’s on Scientology lists, food for thought, since this ain’t the same as science — and aside from that everything refers back to her propaganda organization with the deceptive name.
6) So I suppose we’re all supposed to be impressed and drawn into debate by Delis’s self-bestowed title as ‘director’ of something.
This is just a heads up to those who might waste their time trying to engage in serious discussion with her here. Like trying to discuss economics with bankers who are still awarding themselves huge bonuses for causing the present crisis. You’ll only get opportunistic, distorted, self-interested arguments back.
Highly sincerely, Alexandra
Alexandra Semyonova
March 2, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Oh, my this is priceless!
Ms.Semyonova uses her “analytic capability and/or scientific training” in an attempt to discredit Delise and her “book,” Dogs Bite, but Balloons and Slippers are more dangerous?
How hilarious is this??
Ah,-um, excuse me, Ms.Semyonva, But, Delise did NOT write the book “Dogs Bites, but Balloons….”
The book was written by Janis Bradley.
LMAO! Yes,indeed Ms. Semyonova, do tell us more about your “analytic capabilities.”
What a hoot!
myra
October 1, 2010 at 11:58 pm
The short article I read said that 4 mos. ago this same household had a rottie removed for biting an adult. Red flag. Indicates a sad lack of ownership and training.
I just finished watching the Dogs and Storks video that I bought for a pregnant friend who as 2 dogs. The repeated message is: no matter how much you trust your dog, regardless of breed, NEVER leave it alone with a young child and even if you are in the room, the dog must always be closely monitored around the child. Even as a non-parent it was very educational because it brought up things you would not normally think about related to dogs and kids.
Jennifer Brighton
March 2, 2010 at 3:10 pm
How about a link to that “story” you read on the rottie? And why does that say lack of ownership? If that is so, then each and every one of these stories have a bad owner http://www.pitattacksbystate.blogspot.com and what does that say for the typical pit bull owner? A dangerous dog for dangerous owners maybe?
P.
March 5, 2010 at 2:13 am
“The attack happened four months after officers had taken a Rottweiler from the same home after it bit an adult family member. That dog was destroyed.”
http://www.kptv.com/news/22704436/detail.html
Jennifer Brighton
March 5, 2010 at 9:36 pm
I would say this shows responsible ownership rather than a lack of responsibility. After all they admit they had a dangerous dog and had it euthanized. They didn’t make excuses that the dog was provoked or the dog didn’t like snoring or better yet, that the dog had cabin fever. At least they weren’t in denial when it attacked. Wish I could say the same for other owners of a certain breed.
P.
March 5, 2010 at 11:38 pm
A responsible owner’s dog would not want to or have the opportunity to bite someone in your home. If officers took the prior rottie from the home, it doesn’t sound like it was a voluntary action of giving it up on the part of the owners. It sounds like the owner was turned in and the dog was seized. But I guess we won’t know since the story didn’t elaborate on that.
Jennifer Brighton
March 6, 2010 at 9:34 pm
It was another Rottie that was removed from the home a few years ago…Clearly, the local Rottie breeders are pumping out biters…Without paying taxes to boot!
Breed Stewardship Matters…..
Triple A Andy
March 7, 2010 at 10:15 am
The attack by the other rottie was on a family member so it would stand to reason that the family called the police to pick up the dog rather than a twisted tale that they were turned in and the dog was seized.
http://www.krem.com/news/Four-year-old-girl-attacked-killed-by-family-dog-85950262.html The attack happened four months after officers had taken a Rottweiler from the same home after it bit an adult family member. That dog was destroyed.
P.
March 9, 2010 at 3:57 pm
And how is this considered responsible ownership when a dog is removed for an attack on a family member and 4 mos. later another dog in the same home kills a child who is also a family member? There is nothing responsible about it.
Jennifer Brighton
March 9, 2010 at 11:59 pm
Totally agree Jennifer, especially when the breed is a Rottweiler, the number 2 Canine Killer. Local law enforcement found no evidence to file criminal charges…basically, this was a legalized Manslaughter.
Lori Haaker escaped charges down in Florda recently despite champion hog dogging pedigrees from her unlicensed breeding operation being easily found all over the internet. Her website had pictures of her sweeties hanging by thier jaws before she took it down.
Triple A Andy
March 25, 2010 at 10:18 am
And what is responsible about a pit bull owner taking back his maulers and they do it every day? A previous post of the pit who attacked a police car, the owner is taking it back. And then the pit bull defenders who support pits when they attack, they call themselves responsible. If a family surrenders a dog, such as this family did because it attacked, then that is called responsible ownership, if they want to keep it, then that is irresponsible.
P.
March 27, 2010 at 2:48 pm