His post was about a woman who was killed by her pit bull type dog. From the post, I understand his opinion to be that this breed should be outlawed.
But what happens to the dogs if this breed were to be outlawed (let's say nation-wide). They would have to be put down or even worse kept illegally. I have a very hard time with the idea of a friend being told that their dog must be put down because it has been designated as part of an unsafe breed when her dog has done nothing to deserve to be put down.
I do agree that something needs to be done about dog related deaths that are increasing, but no matter what, I do not believe it is always the dogs fault. We need to look at the circumstances. In the case my friend was talking about, a woman was found mauled to death by her family pet. Which, of course, is awful, but they were keeping two pit bull type dogs on property that was less than 1/10th an acre and a house that was less than 590 sqft. This is not good conditions for such a large breed. There is no mention of the history of the dog or the circumstances. I still believe that in most cases the owner is at fault for the death in the case of dog caused injuries.
I do admit there are issues with pit bulls. They account for more than 23 of the 34 dog related deaths in 2010. Across the previous 5 years, they attribute more that 1/2 the dog related deaths to pit bulls and pit bull mixes. That's still only 85 dogs out of a conservative estimate of 450,000 pit bull mixes in the U.S. Even if you attribute 1/2 the annual dog attacks to pit pulls which would be about 250 per year over the last 5 years that still 1335 dogs out of the 450,000. Why should we blame the 448,665 dogs that did nothing wrong?
My resources for those interested...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States#cite_note-153
http://happypitbull.com/basics/myths-and-facts/
http://www.avma.org/reference/marketstats/ownership.asp
http://www.akc.org/
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