Dog Attacks

As long as I can remember I have never believed that there is really such
a thing as a vicious dog even though I have been told that I was bitten by
a neighbor's bull dog when I was a toddler. I have always loved dogs and
when I was in elementary school I tried to keep a boxer and a collie which
would follow me home. My mother never would let me keep either one simply
because each had one of those little tags around its neck. I got my first
dog in the 60's when one of my students asked me one day if I wanted a dog.
It was a beautiful German Shepherd, you know - one of those "vicious" breeds.
When I asked my mother about it, she about had a fit and started telling
me about people she knew who had had bad experiences with this breed
We discussed it for a while and I finally convinced her it would be good
to have a dog around the house.

Well, poor little Christy never knew that she was supposed to be vicious;
she always thought she was a lap dog. She endured one of my little nephews
trying to paint her green and later the other nephew trimming her fur around
her neck with my electric scissors. The only problem I ever had with her was
jumping the fence when she heard children playing out front She thought she
was one of the kids and wanted to have her fun too!

My next dog was a German Shepherd-wolf mix named Gilligan who came from
the SPCA, and who, like Christy, thought he was a lap dog. He to could
always find a way to get out of the fenced back yard to go play with the
children. When play time was over, one of the children would bring him to
the front door and he would stay in the house with my mother until I got
in from school - lying in front of the door waiting.

Dreyfus, my last little dog, a retirement gift from my very special fifth period
class, was a beagle mix. There was not a vivious bone in his little body
but he bit a couple of boys who invaded his domain when they decided to take
a short cut home by climbing over the fence to our back yard and then took
off running when they saw him. He nipped their heels but there was no serious
injury.

I have always believed that it is the nut who owns the dog that teaches it it
be vivious or who does NOT train the dog at all! I personally think it is the
vivious person who should have to pay for their ignorance. A dog can be retrained
but the person is a lot more difficult! When I had Christy in obedience classes
there was an elderly gentleman who also had a Shepherd that WAS vicious. This dog
was ready to rip into anyone or anything that moved. Bob, the instructor, told
the man that he would really have to work with the dog because society would not
tolerate it and the dog would have to be put down You would not have known
the dog when class met the next week! Anyone could walk over and pet him! The man's
daughter said her dad had made up his mind that nobody was going to put his dog
down and that he had worked with him off and on every day as instructed by Bob!

I know some of you may have seen this on our local news but please read the article
below and pass it on to everyone on your mailing list! We forward jokes, stories,
pictures, etc. so can't we forward this and maybe make more people aware of just
what is going on out in the real world. I for one think it is time to do
something about this for the sake of the children AND the dogs who can't help
themselves for doing what idiot owners have taught them!
Marilyn

Dog Attacks

by: Dan Reany / WSLS NewsChannel 10
June 29, 2005

After nearly two months at the animal shelter, a pit bull's fate is finally
decided. Storm's owners did not appeal a judge's decision to have her
euthanized, so this day, Storm will be put to sleep.

A shelter employee tries to get a catch pole around Storm's neck. At first
Storm tries to get away from the pole, but trapped in the confines of a
short run, she turns on the pole and bites at it every time it gets near.

Though the dog viciously bit four-year-old Nadia Aboubakar, who got 18
stitches, people at the humane society don't blame Storm for the attack.

"It's not their fault," Shelter President Lynn Shelton says of attacks
like that one. "It goes back to the owners taking responsibility for their
own dogs. It's the way they're brought up. If they're brought up to be
mean, usually they're going to turn out to be mean."

Storm is put into what's called a press cage. The back of the cage slides
forward, to keep her still while she's given a lethal injection. After
a few minutes, she's calm around people for the first time in weeks, maybe
longer. Lately, it's a routine the shelter has gone through with
aggressive dogs almost on a daily basis.

In just the past few weeks, Danville police have shot and killed four
aggressive dogs, including two that got loose and brutally killed a third
that was chained to a tree. Many others have been captured and taken to
the shelter as their owners faced a judge.

"I've never seen anything like it in my 13 years," says Shelter Director
Paulette Dean. "I'm amazed by the situation. I don't know what is going
on. I know that more people are breeding larger, more aggressive dogs,
so we're having more dogs put on the street. We've been preaching
responsible pet ownership for years and years, and hopefully this is
a wakeup call to everyone."

About five minutes after the shot is given, Storm begins to lose
consciousness, and falls to the floor of the cage. "The animals are
not in pain here," Dean says. "They are in the state we are in before
surgery and during surgery."

Storm falls into a deep sleep, and begins to snore, but not for long.
Shelton opens the cage door, and pulls Storm out onto the floor. She's
completely unconscious, and her final moments are spent laying in a
garbage bag, barely breathing.

Another shot is given directly into her still-beating heart, and soon
she's gone. Though Dean has dealt with these cases hundreds of times,
she's never gotten used to them. "What we say to people who breed these
dogs, and who fight these dogs, and who are mean to dogs is, 'Shame on you!
You have allowed a dog, a creature, to be born into this world to have
a life of sadness and then to meet an untimely death.'"

From the time the first injection is given, it takes Storm roughly 10
minutes to die. If a dog is not aggressive, it's shot is given in a vein,
and it dies in a matter of a few seconds. It's a fate roughly 85 percent
of the animals that come into the shelter face. On Tuesday, 37 cats and
16 dogs were brought in to the shelter. For most of the spring and summer,
a day at the shelter begins with putting down dozens of kittens and their
mothers, as well as a number of dogs. On the day Storm is put down, one man
brings in 11 dogs -- seven adults and four puppies. All will likely be put to sleep.

With Storm gone, and the press cage free again, the next aggressive dog
is brought in, this one released to the shelter by owners who couldn't
handle him.

Soon he meets the same fate as Storm, as another dog growls outside.
He bit a 5-year-old girl yesterday.

© 2005 Media General

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