dogs

Yesterday the Seattle P-I reported on efforts to ban pit bulls in the city. The council declined to pursue the matter for the moment, but dog owners are getting organized and gearing up for what they see as a likely battle down the road. The odds just turned further against them. As if on cue, two pits attacked a 71-year-old Seattle woman the same day the article ran. Fortunately, she’s recovering.

With high-profile attacks like this one, it’s tempting to run the pit bulls out of town. A similar overreaction a few years ago led to Denver killing 1,600 dogs and banning ownership within the city. But there’s not much evidence in favor of breed-specific legislation. It penalizes innocent dogs and owners instead of directly addressing negligence. It also misses the point that the breed that seems most dangerous at a given time depends a lot on how popular it is. A few decades ago, Huskies, German Shepherds, and Saint Bernards would have been bearing the brunt of these laws — all breeds that owners desiring aggressive dogs can still legally purchase under a ban on pits. Lots of details are in my earlier post on the subject.

And as always, don’t panic. As animal behaviorist Temple Grandin reminds us:

…it’s really not necessary to be hyper-vigilant about the genetics of dog bites when you’re choosing a pet. Serious dog bites are so rare that from 1979-1994 only .3 percent of the U.S. population got bitten badly enough to seek medical care. When you consider the fact that just about everyone in America who isn’t living in a prison or a nursing home has fairly regular exposure to dogs, that’s a very small number.