We didn't avoid tragic dog-related incidents in 2007. There was enough bad news to keep Karen Delise very busy with her in-depth research on the circumstances that add up to tragedy.
One reporter in Killeen Texas decided to do his own expose of dogs in the news today. The Vick story was his perfect (unrelated) opp to rehash one family's horror, and spin it into a year end review on pit bulls. He tossed in some dog-on-dog anecdotes and wove in some irrelevant news about distemper to spice things up. Apparently disease is scary too, although it's not clear if we're blaming the pit bulls for that....
'Pit bulls played a big part in local, national news'
Really? And why is that?
Let's be kind and call it an oversight, but his research side-stepped these sad Texas tragedies in 2007:
- German Shepherd & Doberman Kill Woman - Lower Valley TX
- Golden Retriever & Australian Shepherd Kill Woman
- Friendswood, TX
- German Shepherd Severely Mauls Boy - Alice TX
- German Shepherd Attacks Woman - Lubbock TX
- Golden Retriever Attack - "The worse bite ever seen" - Dallas, TX
Are these bad breeds? Hell no. Randall Lockwood, a senior VP of the ASPCA reminds us in Malcolm Gladwell's classic article: "A fatal dog attack is not just a dog bite by a big or aggressive dog. It is usually a perfect storm of bad human-canine interactions - the wrong dog, the wrong background, the wrong history in the hands of the wrong person in the wrong environmental situation."
I couldn't help myself and wrote to the Killeen Herald news team, reminded them of their oversights, and put in a plug for less targeting and more bite prevention articles in the new year. (Please join me.)
Let's hope they bite.
