Pit bull shooting

After a Claremont Police Officer shot and killed a pit bull last week, I got to thinking if pit bulls really are more dangerous than other canine breeds or if they just have a "bad rap", as the pet owner argued.

Deanne Anderson, the dog's owner, told me, "If she was a Golden Retriever, they wouldn't have shot her."

She may very well be right. But police and witnesses did say that the dog charged at the officer. This was following attacks on 2 other dogs and their owners in Memorial Park.

In the dog's defense, nobody or their dogs were injured by the "attacks," for lack of a better word. Not a scratch or a puncture wound.

It sounded to me like Anderson's dogs were out for a joy stroll in the park, rather than on the prowl for victims, saliva dripping from their exposed teeth. Being adolescent dogs (a 3-year-old and a 2-years-old), the 2 were showing the smaller dogs in the park who's boss, as some dogs tend to do.

I don't want to downplay the severity of the incident, or the fear that the victims legitimately experienced. Two big pit bulls on the loose can certainly be intimidating, especially when they are trying to bite your dog. "They seemed ferocious," one witness said.

But back to the question, are pit bulls more dangerous than other breeds?

According to this New Yorker article, pit bulls have historically been bred for dogfighting and therefore have higher levels of aggression and a lower tolerance for pain.

"Most dogs fight as a last resort, when staring and growling fail. A pit bull is willing to fight with little or no provocation," the article states.

But the article goes, "When we say that pit bulls are dangerous, we are making a generalization, just as insurance companies use generalizations when they charge young men more for car insurance than the rest of us (even though many young men are perfectly good drivers)..."

The article concludes that, "The strongest connection [for bad dog behavior] of all, though, is between the trait of dog viciousness and certain kinds of dog owners. In about a quarter of fatal dog-bite cases, the dog owners were previously involved in illegal fighting. The dogs that bite people are, in many cases, socially isolated because their owners are socially isolated, and they are vicious because they have owners who want a vicious dog."

"The junk-yard German shepherd—which looks as if it would rip your throat out—and the German-shepherd guide dog are the same breed. But they are not the same dog, because they have owners with different intentions."

The article also discusses government reactions to pit bull attacks and how profiling pit bulls can relate to profiling terrorists.

Back to Claremont and the Memorial Park incident. Anderson is clearly a loving dog owner who was crushed to learn her pet was killed in such a violent way.

I am certain she did not raise her dogs to be nasty, and both she and her neighbor told me the female Harley was the good natured one of her 2 dogs.

Is there any way this could have been avoided? The police officer had a taser gun on his belt along with the pistol. Why not just taser the dog? Or if need be, shoot the dog once, rather than 4 times. I would think a single pistol shot would immobilize the dog without ending her life.

I don't want to be too critical of the officer, who was forced to make a split second decision with his own safety at risk. But as an animal lover myself, I wish there was some way the killing could have been avoided, while making sure the dogs did no further harm to others.

Any thoughts?