Barnes and colleagues used public records to check on the criminal pasts of dog owners.
They used agreed definitions of vicious dogs used in writing local ordinances. "A 'vicious dog" means a dog that, without provocation, has killed or caused serious injury to any person, has killed another dog, or belongs to a breed that is commonly known as a pit bull dog," they wrote in their report.
The definition excludes dogs used in law enforcement or dogs protecting an owner or property.
Aggressive breeds identified by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and some insurance companies include pit bulls, rottweilers, akitas and chows.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/oukoe_uk_crime_dogsIMO, this is a crock! Most breed specific legislation is skewed, or spun, by the media to cast as poor an image as possible on an entire breed of dogs based on one or two individual incidents. I own a pit bull and this dog is the biggest sissy of any animal Ive ever known; it wont even defend itself against our mix-mutt, which is half its size.
The list of aggressive dogs normally includes German Shepherds and Dobermans, which are the finest Police dogs in the world; I would like to add Rotweiler to that same list. The exception for law enforcement should sound really familiar to the members of this board.
Any dog can be ruined with abuse or neglect; pit bulls do have a tendency to fight amongst themselves but human aggression has to be trained into them. A friend has a big male Pit; the dog was in training as a fighter by an abusive owner prior to its rescue. The bozo beat the dog nearly to death, after breaking both its front legs, and dumped it to die because it wouldnt fight.
There are parts of town in Portland that I could find thirty percent more criminals by interviewing 355 people at random than living in my cozy west side suburb. The study sample is too small and narrow to have any significance. Reread the article and substitute assault rifle for aggressive dog . I think that will make my point.
One line of the story jumps off the page. Barnes and colleagues used public records to check on the criminal pasts of dog owners. Why would anyone run a criminal background check on a random dog owner? If one cross-checks dog ownership with known criminals, couldnt one write a very convincing study about ownership of vicious dogs?
FWIW, Yahoo is so far left on most issues, especially gun control, that I havent considered it worth reading for news in years. Every story is an editorial if one looks closely at the way its written.
Mike
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