Media sinking to new lows

What to do when a pit bull attacks. Never mind what the hell this blog post is doing in a business journal, but this whole “article” is just ridiculous.

The absolute scariest/stupidest part is the comment by IMPD spokesperson Jeff Duhamell.

“They are an extremely vicious breed, and they always have been. They’ll come after you,” Duhamell says. “The more you pull way from them, the more they’ll lock down and start ripping skin and muscle.”

Um…

1. “pit bulls” have been around 200 years… and issues with them attacking people have only surfaced in the last 20-30. Evidence of inherent viciousness? I think not.
2. Does anyone think that an opinion of a police officer may be skewed? I would guess the vast majority of dogs they interact with are owned by unsavory types. I’m thinking the dogs owned by unsavory types may be… hmm, unsavory?
3. if every pit bull is extremely vicious, I’m really surprised any of us are still alive. With thousands (tens?) of pit bulls in this country, I’m surprised they haven’t risen up like an army and killed us all!

The author wonders if you can train a pit bull not to be aggressive… like, can you train a labrador not to fetch? (The answer is – pit bulls aren’t typically people aggressive, and YES, you can train a lab not to fetch)

The article then goes on to suggest that you should carry pepper spray designed for grizzlies, or maybe a taser. Oh, and don’t take your dogs outside with you. Any pit bull is just jonesing to attack your dogs and you, so the sight of your dogs will stir them into a frenzy.

It absolutely BOGGLES my mind that this “reporter” is so uneducated. It’s one thing to spout statistics and suggest the dog aggression = people aggression link like so many other media outlets have. It’s something different to be so completely ridiculous and uneducated.

One of the comments hit the nail on the head. Next time, maybe the reporter should actually talk to someone who knows something about dogs.

Praise when the media gets it right

Too often, the media takes any opportunity to crucify pit bulls. A few weeks back, a reporter admitted to my friend that it is all about the ratings. Fair and balanced journalism must have died after Watergate.

Yesterday, an unfortunate incident happened at a shelter here in Indiana. A pit bull mix who was recovering from surgery was in a room with signs that he should be left alone. A young boy was curious and entered the room. The dog bit him.

Dog bites boy at animal shelter.

The reporter chose to report the circumstances surrounding the incident with minimal inflammatory language. The article does mention the dog’s breed once, but the headline very easily could have been “Pit bull attacks child in shelter” and could have taken a totally different tone. It’s clear from the article that the child was unsupervised and that the dog was injured.

It was so nice to write a letter to a journalist thanking them for their approach rather than taking them to task for their language and lack of facts.

Are our efforts making an impact changing the media? I certainly hope so.

Update: Another station’s accounts of the attackBoy, 6, mauled by dog at humane society.

Responding to pit bull “attacks”

There have been 3 separate incidents in the past week in Indianapolis involving pit bulls.

I’m not going to rehash the circumstances around each of the attacks, because frankly, the circumstances aren’t really known. The media does a terrible job of figuring out “what happened” at the time of the incident and most likely won’t follow up with the truth anyway.

I wrote a letter to the editor of the Indy Star after one of the reports, taking them to task for using the term “attack”. The pit bull lunged at an officer after it had been separated from dog it had attacked. Any dog would obviously be stimulated after a fight with another dog. While I understand that in the dictionary sense of the word, “attack” was used appropriately, the reporter made a choice to use inflammatory language that would represent something more serious to the average reader. Hardly balanced reporting.

Inevitably, the conversation will be had regarding some sort of breed specific restrictions. Of course, the online comments section of the newspaper and TV station websites are rife with posts about banning, killing, etc of pit bulls.

Pit bull advocates will continue to remind the media, our legislators, and the public that PET-bulls don’t attack people without provocation. The owners bear the responsibility for these attacks. There are thousands of pit bulls in the city, happily living their life as well-behaved pets.

Someone will try to refute our statements by arguing that one of the owners is a sheriff’s deputy. Surely a law enforcement official is not an irresponsible owner!

The fact that

• the dogs were loose
• one of them was out of date on vaccinations
• it also did not have tags
• oh and, that they attacked someone!!!

proves the point that the owner was irresponsible.

Responsible owners don’t have loose dogs. We ensure that our fences are secure, the dogs aren’t left outside unsupervised (i.e. while you aren’t home), or they are on a leash. Responsible owners vaccinate their dogs, train them, socialize them, and are always aware of what their dogs are doing.

Most often, when talking to neighbors after something of this nature, it becomes apparent that there have been prior issues with the animal. When the public finally understands that these incidents are typically an escalation of a long pattern of issues, they will recognize irresponsible owners as the root cause. We need to educate and encourage our community to take action to prevent these attacks before they happen, not shake our heads after the fact.