Repeat Offender

This post is part of an ongoing series which illustrates how Dangerous Dog Laws (DDL) have failed to protect our animal companions and to protect public safety.

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July 22, 2011:  Robert Delorasa is cited with dog at large and no license for Deuce, a brown and white pit bull, and one other pit bull.

August 5, 2011:  Deuce escapes his backyard and attacks a small beagle, who survives with wounds to the face, ear, and legs. Delarosa is cited for nuisance animal and dog at large.

August 9, 2011:  Deuce attacks 12-year old Atticus, as he is walking with his owner. Deuce placed on home quarantine.

August 10, 2011:  Deuce placed on quarantine at Weld County Humane Society; Delarosa cited for animal at large and vicious animal.

August 21, 2011:  Deuce released to Delarosa, pending municipal court.

August ??, 2011:  Delarosa moves to a new address.

Aug 29, 2011: Deuce jumps a fence into a backyard, then hurdles a second fence into the dog run of Chief, a six-year old German Shepherd. Chief sustained wounds to his chest, front legs, and rear thigh before Chief's owner shoots Deuce.

Evans Municipal Code, Chap 6.04, Section 180 (Vicious Animals)

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Related post: Dangerous Dog Laws
Source: NOCO5.com

Dangerous Dog Laws

This post is outdated and has been deprecated.
Links may be vaporlinks.

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Janelle Jerman was walking her 2-year-old Yorkie on August 22nd near 62nd Place and Yukon Court, when two pit bulls jumped out of a car window and attacked.

They grabbed Uno and disemboweled him right in front of me.

Three weeks earlier the same pit bull that killed Uno attacked Kimberly Green's West Highland Terrier, Chloe. The owners of the pit bull were also issued a summons last year for having a vicious dog.

Arvada police spokeswoman Susan Medina said that if it's not a person who was attacked, police don't automatically remove dogs.

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City of Arvada comment on Breed Bans
City of Arvada Animal Rules and Regulations
Arvada Municipal Code, Chapter 14, Sec 51 (Dangerous Animals)

ABC 7 News, Arvada, CO

RSPCA Act

Any dog is capable of any act, at any point in time.

  -- Michael Linke, CEO of the RSPCA, ACT

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We have all heard the following phrases:

• Judge the deed; not the breed
• It's not the dog; it's the owner
• It's all how they're raised
• And above all, All dogs bite

When listed together we are struck by just how defensive these phrases are. Following a sensational attack one or more of these phrases are invariably hauled out to defend the breed of obsession.

Following the recent death of Ayen Chol at her mother's feet Mr Linke (the owner of a pit bull) abandoned these overused phrases  and struck out for something more impressive. He came up with the wildly imaginative phrase in the header of  this post. SRUV will henceforth refer to his construction as Ax3.

Any dog, Any act, Any time; Any trebled, or cubed. Mr Linke's statement is an exponentially improved version of the tired old meme All dogs bite. Not only will any dog bite, given the chance, or perhaps even maul you to death, but according to Mr Linke any dog is likely to do, or at least capable of doing, anything, at any time.

I believe Mr Linke's intention with Ax3 is that we shouldn't fear a pit bull attack any more than we fear a nip from a chihuahua. Indeed, this is the way much of the advocacy rhetoric functions: by making specious comparisons that are blatantly dishonest, but insanely effective.

If we further deconstruct Ax3 we might believe that my chihuahua could write a symphony on a par with Mahler's Night Music; she might even write it tonight.

Pit bull advocates have been coming up with similar nonsense for years. SRUV has discussed elsewhere on these pages how pit advocates have used these phrases to frame the debate. It begins with a casual mention, like Mr Linke's statement to a member of the press following the death of a child. Then it spreads and takes hold, like a virus. Other pit bull advocates read these phrases, believe them despite their absolute lunacy, and repeat them. And eventually they are accepted without question.



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Sources:
The Herald Sun, Point Cook Weekly, and The Australian, among others.

Statistics in SRUV:
Statistics are from the 30+ year, continuously updated Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada, published by Animal People. To view or download the current PDF click here. This page may also include information from Dogsbite and Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.



Google News: Today's pit bull attacks



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Escape Artists: V

I don't give a F***!  
I'm leaving this place and never coming back!
-- Yanett DelRubio, owner of the pit bulls that attacked Juanita Sharp

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Juanita was attacked by DelRubio's two pit bulls on July 25th in Yucca Valley, California. She has endured five surgeries and remains in the hospital.

[DelRubio] skipped town that night of the attack. She left everything she owned and ran.
     -- James Sharp, Juanita's husband


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Source: Cactus Thorns, Morongo Basin Ombudsman

Down Under

Any dog is capable of any act, at any point in time.
  -- Michael Linke, CEO of the RSPCA, Victoria

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Jackline Ancaito and Mawien Chol left Sudan in 2001. After spending three years in Egypt waiting for resettlement they arrived in Australia in 2004. On the evening of August 17 they were in the home of Ms Ancaito's cousin when a pit bull burst into the home and first attacked five-year old Nyadeng. Four-year old Ayen Chol was clinging to her mother's legs when the pit bull focused its attack on her, and ultimately killed her.

Victorian Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh said pit bull terriers had ''lost their licence to exist."

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Australian pit bull advocates have proven as adroit as their northern counterparts in the wake of the attack. Dog behaviour specialist Brad Griggs said that governments should abolish breed-specific regulations because pit bulls were not more dangerous than other breeds.

Michael Linke, the Chief Executive Officer of the RSPCA, has warned against any irrational demonisation of the breed. Mr Linke owns a two-year-old pit bull terrier named Dahlia.

Mr Linke went on to characterize Mr Walsh's claim as an  emotional overstatement.  ''Any dog is capable of any act, at any point in time,'' he said.

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A few years ago, when people might mourn the death of a child before defending or excusing the murderer, saner voices prevailed. Former RSPCA president Hugh Wirth said that American pit bull terriers were a menace and not suitable as pets. He described them as "time bombs waiting for the right circumstances".


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Related posts: Premack's Second Principle, All Dogs Bite

Sources: The Canberra Times, The Dimboola Courier, and The Newcastle Herald, among others.

The Madding Crowd

Eventually we're going to find out if there's anything physically or medically wrong with the dog that may have caused this attack.
     -- Pacifica Police Captain Dave Bretini, referring to Gunner, the pit bull that killed Darla Napora

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My first thought about this tragedy was that this was probably resource guarding. The dog had something that his owner was trying to remove from him. 
     -- Trish King, Director of Behavior and Training at the Marin Humane Society

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. . . It was possible that Gunner was provoked by something getting in the way of food or a toy he wanted.
     -- Scott Delucchi, Peninsula Humane Society

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The woman fell off a ladder and hit her head . . . .  The dog had blood on it's body because he was trying to nudge her to make her move.... 

     -- Cindy Marabito, author of Pit Bull Nation

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I am firmly convinced in my own mind that the aggression he exhibited had surfaced before this horrible death occurred (probably when he was about 15 months old) and either was not recognized as aggression, ignored or excused.

     -- Julie Howard (one of the top dog behaviorists in the country)

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Tazi is kind of our rock. Right now we need her back. It's what Greg has left right now.

     -- Sandy Robinson, Darla Napora's mother, referring to Greg Napora's second pit bull

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They are the most loving animals I have ever had in my life.

     -- Greg Napora, referring to Gunner, the pit bull that killed his wife Darla. Napora plans to bury Gunner's cremated remains in the casket with his wife.

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Darla Napora

41931 517691     47

her path of destiny = 47 = Internationally known

     -- Ed Peterson Numerology, Numerology for Darla Napora

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Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife . . . .

     -- Thomas Grey, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

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Related posts:  Like Birds Flying

Compiled from various news sources including the Daily Mail, the Mercury News, the Examiner, the Contra Costa Times, the San Mateo County Daily Journal, and the Sonoma County Press Democrat, among others.

All Dogs Bite

Revised: August 1, 2012; 02:18 GMT
Revised: December 29, 2014; 18:36 GMT

When advocates of fighting breeds are given the opportunity to speak or are interviewed for print journalism, the phrase All dogs bite is invariably used.

Advocates of fighting breeds claim that pit bulls show no more aggressive tendencies than Chihuahuas or Golden Retrievers. Anyone who views the images below and then compares pit bull attacks to the bite of a Chihuahua or a Pomeranian or a Golden Retriever, is simply mad.

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VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED

The images below are disturbing.

These images and links to graphic images
are not suitable for all viewers. 

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THE IMAGES BELOW SHOW SEVERE INJURY AND WILL BE DISTURBING TO MANY VIEWERS. DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU ARE DISTURBED BY IMAGES OF SEVERE INJURY.

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I suspect that many of the pit bull advocates who use the phrase All dogs bite to excuse pit bulls have never seen images of an actual pit bull attack, like those below which are from Animal Bites in Emergency Medicine (Alisha Perkins Garth, MD; Chief Editor: Jonathan Adler, MD).

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The following images are taken from the FaceBook page of  Marie Helene Tokar, who was attacked by her neighbor's pit bull. You can view additional images of Marie on her FaceBook page:  Marie Helene Tokar

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Additional Images:
Additional images of pit bull attacks are included in Case Report: Pit Bull Mauling Deaths in Detroit, Cheryl L Loewe, MD, et al

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Statistics:

Statistics quoted on SRUV are from the nation's authoritative source for current dog attack statistics, the 32+ year, continuously updated Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada.

View or download the current PDF

Record 33 fatal pit bull attacks & 459 disfigurements in 2015

2015 Dog Bite Related Fatalities (Daxton's Friends)

Fatal Pit Bull Attacks

Today's pit bull attacks

Definitions:
SRUV uses the definition of "pit bull" as found in the Omaha Municipal Code Section 6-163. As pit bulls are increasingly crossed with exotic mastiffs, Catahoula Leopard Dogs and other breeds, the vernacular definition of "pit bull" must be made even more inclusive.

Sources cited by news media sometimes refer to "Animal Advocates" or sometimes "Experts." In many cases these words are used to refer to single-purpose pit bull advocates who have never advocated for any other breeds or species of animals. Media would be more accurate to refer to these pit bull advocates as advocates of fighting breeds.

Similarly, in many cases pit bull advocates refer to themselves as "dog lovers" or "canine advocates" and media often accepts this usage. The majority of these pit bull advocates are single-purpose advocates of fighting breeds.


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Wikipedia

To read and write about pit bulls on the web is to enter another world; to review Wikipedia articles about pit bulls is to enter a parallel reality.

Wikipedia has a number of articles which discuss pit bulls and other dangerous dogs. They include:

• Pit Bull
• American Pit Bull Terrier
• American Staffordshire Terrier
• Dog attack
• Breed Specific Legislation
• List of fatal dog attacks in the United States
• Wolf attacks on humans
• Old Family Red Nose
• Dog Fighting
• List of dog fighting breeds
• American Bully (This page was created on September 11, 2009 by user crazychica4405; excerpts from this page have been included on the Pit Bull page.)

Wikipedia pages for TV Reality shows glorifying the breed which has killed at least ten people this year (Aug 6, 2011) and have mauled dozens of others,  include:

• Pit Boss
• Pit bulls and Parolees

Search the web for "pit bull" and at the top of the search results there will be a Wikipedia page. After years of edit wars between warring factions an uneasy calm has settled over most of these pages. A few diligent administrators are to be commended for ferreting out and deleting the most egregious signs of pit bull advocacy. But the Holy Grail of Wiki NPOV (Neutral Point of View) continues to elude the editors and administrators.

The real Wikipedia dog story is not on the main article pages, but on the discussion and history pages for each of these articles. There a reader can track the relentless attempts that advocates, some of them anonymous, have made to alter the public perception of pit bulls.

We've copied below a brief exchange between an annoying pit advocate and an even more annoying pit advocate. This is excerpted from the "Discussion Page" of the Dog Attack article, and offers a fair example of the banal level of argument on these pages:

There was a study published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2006 that ranked German Shepherds and Dobermans far higher than other breeds in number of attacks on children. Is there any reason not to give this equal credence to the Clifton study?    Clockwork (talk) 05:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

SRUV note:  31 breeds with small breed populations were not included in the study. The category most likely to bite are described as cross breeds; pit bulls are not named in the results of this study.  The second editor responds:

The study was limited to Australian dog populations rather than American or European populations, I am however willing to give it more credence to the Clifton study. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.42.151.33 (talk) 01:07, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Fans of Wikipedia will be disheartened by this and other similar exchanges on these pages. But this example pales in comparison to the hysterical edit wars on the List of Fatal Dog Attacks in the US.  From January through September of 2010 the heroic administrator Astro$01 defended the page against relentless vandalism, but was finally overwhelmed. He was then threatened with a denial of editing privileges.

All references to reliable statistical information have been expunged from both pages. We are left to wonder if these pages continue to serve any useful purpose to the public. SRUV calls on the WikiProject Dogs Assessment Department to evaluate these pages and delete those which do not meet Wikipedia standards.


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Related Post: Discredited Sources