Worse than Vick

Because they pay lip service to the dog/human bond, and at the same damn time help to arrange a massacre.

Because they have a script. Because they've spent years rehearsing it.

"I think the HSUS is now permanently on my shit list[...] What utterly scummy, disgusting, hypocritical behavior."
[John Sibley]

Because Sue Sternberg is their pit bull "expert."

Because they don't know squat about dog behavior, and don't care to learn.

Because ACOs and/or shelter workers in Wilkes County, NC were forced to kill 146 dogs, including some 60 puppies, in a single day. Because a foster home that had nursed sick puppies to health was ordered to return the pups for killing. Because the pup in the post below never had a chance.

And because Wayne Pacelle, John Goodwin and other HSUS apparatchiks didn't "euthanize" a single dog themselves. Wayne and John didn't even have to watch. Michael Vick, take note: you are not in their league when it comes to killing dogs.

Who gets to do the awful deed; the dirty work? The low-wage shelter workers who have no say in the matter; usually the same people who have cared for these dogs, who've gotten to know the dogs and have seen for themselves how truly wonderful most of them are. How are they feeling right now? I think I know. [Bad Rap]

Mighty "humane" of you in every respect, wasn't it, HSUS? How proud and happy you must be. Here's one you missed:

Former Vick fighting dog Hector just aced his Therapy Dog certification. [Screen grab of Hector with Roo Yori in July 2008.]

Blog posts from blogs with spot-on coverage:

Numb [Bad Rap]
HSUS and the Ongoing Campaign to Kill "Rescued" Bust Dogs [YesBiscuit!]
HSUS in its own words. [B-More Bulldogs]
Court Order Issued to Euthanize Seized Dogs [Best Friends]
The Death of Hope at HSUS [Nathan Winograd at No-Kill Nation]
Dogs get death sentence [John Sibley]
TIME TO TAKE THE 'HUMANE' OUT OF HSUS [Caveat]
The answer is "kill", now what's the question? [KC Dog Blog]
Of all the things I'm glad I'm not [Save the pit bull, save the world.]

Book deal for Sports Illustrated editor: "The Lost Dogs"

"A good listener, Jonny helps Calvin feel more comfortable reading aloud." [Photo by Deanne Fitzmaurice for SI.]

This just in from the Bad Rap blog: Sports Illustrated's Jim Gorant, whose cover story on the Vick dogs made us all very happy, has landed a book deal:

Jim Gorant – the Sports Illustrated Editor/writer and author of “Fanatic: Ten Things All Sports Fans Should Do Before They Die”, has signed a deal to write “THE LOST DOGS.”

The book is being billed as an inspirational account of the rescue and “adoption” of Michael Vick's abused pit bulls.

Read the rest of the announcement here. Who could have imagined it? And all because some brave souls said to PETA, the HSUS and their media sycophants, "No. We will not stand by while you lobby for good dogs to be killed."

Feel like shouting “Hallelujah!”

Read the whole story! And then buy a bunch of copies!

This is just... so... [screams "YES!!!"] the best Christmas present ever. Sports Illustrated steps up to the plate and hits a grand by God slam. The big year-end issue! Sweet Jasmine on the cover! A most excellent article by Jim Gorant inside! And photos...! Now with Mexican-American goodness, yay Hernandez family! (Quoth PETA: "We must consider that nice families rarely come to a shelter to adopt pit bulls; almost without exception, those who want pit bulls are attracted to the 'macho' image of the breed as a living weapon" yadda yadda. Spanked by two girls and a baby, you PETA bigots):

"Zip's posse (clockwise from left): Vanessa, Berenice, Jesse, Francisco, Eliana." All photos by Deanne Fitzmaurice for Sports Illustrated. Can't imagine why SI used "posse" instead of, I dunno, "family," or "adopters," but that's just me. Brown little me. Anyhow: best family photo ever.

Jim Gorant's article is so good that I can't start using excerpts or I'll wind up posting all four [online] pages. And one of the best things of all: after recounting how PETA and HSUS wanted the Vick dogs killed [and PETA still wishes them dead], the article concludes with a footnote:

To support animal-care groups cited in this article, go to their respective websites: www.aspca.org, www.badrap.org, www.bestfriends.org and www.recycledlove.org.

Because we cited PETA and HSUS, but they've made it pretty clear that they're so NOT animal-care groups. I heart SI. Repeat: I HEART Sports Illustrated!!

Huge congrats and a ton of thanks to all involved, with special, virtual hugs to the dog-lovin', dog-savin', hard-workin' souls at Bad Rap. You folks are awesome, awesome, awesome. There is a God -- and a doG -- and stereotypes are indeed so 1950s, and SI is this week's change we've been waiting for. Happy, Happy New Year.

What a terrible crime! We must execute the victims at once.

And they did. The ironically named Humane Society of Houston, Texas took in 187 dogs after undercover agents and other investigators broke up "what officials described as one of the largest dogfighting rings in the country," and killed all 187. No experts were consulted and no temperament tests were administered ["[a]lthough some were not aggressive toward people"] — almost as if the Houston Humane Society were living in a parallel universe where the Michael Vick story got no airplay. Unbelievable.

So, to review: pit bulls bred to fight are among the most human-friendly dogs on earth. Many pit bulls bred to fight don't want to fight. Pit bulls that don't get along with other dogs can, with basic management, be great companions even in a multi-pet household.

Check out the poor dog in the photo: starving, ill, submissive and friendly, wagging his whole rear end at the photographer. [Photo from Texas Department of Public Safety via the NYT.] This dog isn't a monster. He isn't a separate species. He's on the small side: in good health he'd probably weigh under 40 lb, like most gamebred pit bulls. He's a friendly dog in desperate need of some good care. There are excellent foster homes in Texas and around the country that would have been glad to help this dog. Houston Humane killed him.

Ah, but they've chosen to devote their time and resources to "nice, adoptable" dogs. Isn't that best?

Sure. Let's kill all senior dogs, all shy dogs, all dogs over 20 lb, and all dogs that would be kicked off Cute Overload. Better yet, let's kill all stray cats and dogs and give the money we spend on animal shelters to homeless people. While we're at it, we can give all we own to the poor and eliminate funding for other scientific research until a cure is found for cancer. See how this argument spins on and on? So I adopted a pit bull instead of a "nice, worthy" dog — I didn't mail a check to Oxfam this month, either. Anything else you'd like to lecture me about?

Seriously, Houston Humane people — when you have knowledgeable rescue groups and experienced foster homes volunteering to help take dogs off your hands, and you tell those groups to take a hike, give us a break with the "death was more pleasant than what they had to exist for" excuses. You know better.

As for the dogfighters themselves — according to the NY Times article, they're hardly the upstanding citizens you read about in the Stratton books. But then, they never were.

In between screaming obscenities at the animals locked in combat, Sergeant Manning said, the participants smoked marijuana, popped pills, made side deals about things like selling cocaine and fencing stolen property, and, always, talked about dogs.
[...]
The fight usually ended when a dog refused to cross a line in the center of the ring to confront the opponent, known as “standing the line.” Such dogs were usually drowned or bludgeoned to death the next day, officials said.

“These guys take it very personally,” Sergeant Manning said. “It’s a reflection on them.”

Most of the dogs seized were kept outside in muddy yards, chained to axles sunk in the ground, with only six feet of tether and no shelter, beyond, in some cases, a toppled plastic 40-gallon barrel. All suffered from multiple parasites, veterinarians said.

And Houston Humane couldn't find it in their heart of hearts to let even one of those 187 dogs live. You've raised that "blame the victim" bar to a whole new level, Houston "Humane."

Reminder: Animal Planet's "Animal Witness: The Michael Vick Case" premieres tonight

For an excellent, in-depth look at the good, the bad and the ugly of this program, see Bad Rap's review — and be sure to read the comments.

For airtimes, see this schedule.


Edited to add [for those on the West Coast]: word is that the first 15 minutes or so contain the graphic fight footage — you might want to have the mute button primed and maybe a book on hand, and/or a dog to hug.

When Donny Met Hector

Area man adopts large, dog-shaped armful of limp spaghetti.

Former Vick dog Hector has a for-real home and a loving family back in Minnesota now. KAALTV reporter Donny Rowles did a bang-up job of covering the story:

Odds were [Hector] would have been put down until a pit-bull advocacy group called "Bad Rap" met with Hector and found he was friendly and adoptable.

[Roo] Yori went to California to see Hector.

"I really liked what I saw. He's an awesome dog with a really solid temperament. There's a lot of myths about the breed that need to be shattered; there's a lot of stereotypes that need to be broken."

Yori and his wife hope Hector's example will show pit bulls can be good, friendly pets.

"I can sit here and talk all I want. But all they need to do is look at Hector.”

Click here to read the report and see the most excellent video. Sez you, "This basic stuff is 'bang-up' reportage? Good story, sure, but 'bang-up'?" Zip it, and watch the vid. The reporter is holding Hector, so help me. Check it out, there on the right: that's KAALTV's finest, Donny Rowles, giving pibble Hector a good rub. God bless the man. If only more reporters had the neurons to say to themselves, "These folks have forgotten more about dogs than I will ever know. If they can hold this friendly boy and play with him and take him into their home, what's not to like? Sure, lemme hold that sucker."

Weird as it may seem, not all reporters get this. Weirder still: editors don't get it, either. Editors assign pit bull stories to writers who've never housetrained a puppy. They assign pit bull stories to reporters who are too afraid of pit bulls to actually leave the office and meet one. Which, if you think about it, is kind of like an editor saying, "Y'know what I need for that upcoming feature on great food in Beijing? A reporter that doesn't speak a word of Chinese, hates travel, hates China, hates Chinese food and is such a crappy cook, she burns water. Maybe I could even find someone who won't speak to Chinese-Americans in person because she's afraid they might jump up in the middle of the interview and start a tong war. Yeah, that's the ticket."

When Jefferson wrote that he would rather have newspapers without government than government without newspapers, I like to think he had a different type of journalism in mind ;~)

PEOPLE Magazine: check. it. out.

OMG OMG OMG please pretend you don't know me while I squee like a fangirl. Seriously, go to the BAD RAP Blog this minute and enjoy. They have all kinds of good news to share. [Get some rest, you guys -- you deserve it.]

Take a look at those happy dogs, will you...! And so calm [smothers laughter]. Here's a snippet of video taken during the photo shoot. Gah, I love pibbles. Good on ya, BAD RAP, for those great bully smiles.

Toddler trains pit bull (with a little help from Mom)

Sam with Teddles

Sam is one terrific [and hugely adorable] kid:

[Vick dog Teddles] is so big that he has been compared to a bull in a China shop. Now he lives in a home with Sam, who is only two years old. Teddles has learned to be careful around a little person and Sam actively participates in his training. Every morning, under Mom’s supervision, Sam will say, “Teddles-Baby, sit" and will wait for the “look command” prior to letting him out for his first run of the day. Sam will even correct his mother’s training, and note if she has forgotten to praise Teddles for an appropriate behavior. Reynolds chuckles, “We have a two-year old toddler training a Michael Vick dog how to have good house manners and Ted is responding.”

Christine Allen, Sam’s mother and Teddles’ foster parent:

What's wonderful about children like my Sam is that every dog that he meets is treated like an individual with a clean slate because he doesn't have any stereotypical or preconceived notions about different breeds. And I hope that when he's old enough to understand what stereotypes or preconceived notions mean, that he will be continue to be compassionate and humane enough to judge all living things on his or her individual merit. Those community leaders who still believe that all pit bulls were bred for ‘unstoppable violence’ and are unfit to live as family pets have a great deal to learn and could take lessons from my 2-year old.”

See the complete article here, and be sure to check out all the other Best Friends articles opposing BSL. (Look! It's Wallace!)

Teddles with Isabella

Pug degrees of separation

She had her nose fixed. Seriously. The poor wee girl on the left is Lily, with pink stitches in her nose. She just got home from the most excellent veterinary hospital at UC Davis, where in addition to the nose business she had soft palate resection and work done on her larynx, which is what happens to pugs that have 1) breathing difficulties and 2) loving owners, the loving owner in this case being my sis up north.

Lily is friends with pug Harley, who belongs to Stephanie Lam, a writer and artist who designed the website for Our Pack, a Bay Area rescue and the current home of former Vick dog Leo, a sweet, happy, charismatic gentleman now working as a therapy dog with owner and Our Pack founder Marthina McClay. [That's Leo in the blue bandana -- Harley is the Christmas elf.] Leo was featured this week in a terrific article by Linda Goldston in the Mercury News.




When she's not busy with portraits and writing and web design, Stephanie organizes pug meet-ups and shows her French Bulldog, Chubby. You may have seen the whole happy family on the BAD RAP blog last month with Stephanie's new dog, Miso.

[BAD RAP photo]

A small, happy, bully world ;~) Yes, Lily is the black pug in the navigation icon. Get well soon, Lily!

Vick dogs at Best Friends, and on the front page

Best Friends caregiver McKenzie Garcia with Squeaker. NY Times photo by Garrett Davis.

Front page of the NY Times, hey. A narrated slide show, too!

And I know I should be doing a happy dance over quotes like this:

“These dogs have been beaten and starved and tortured, and they have every reason not to trust us,” Mr. Garcia said as Georgia crawled onto his lap, melted into him for an afternoon nap and began to snore. “But deep down, they love us and still want to be with us. It is amazing how resilient they are.”

But in order to reach that great quote I had to get past this:

“The successful rehab rate for these kinds of dogs is unknown because nobody has ever studied it until now,” Dr. McMillan said. “You might see an incredibly friendly dog, but does that dog’s personality change over several weeks, over several months, after psychological trauma? Are they hard-wired to be aggressive, or can they change? What’s the best way to work with them?”

Honestly, you'd think people at the nation's best-known animal sanctuary would be old hands at caring for unsocialized dogs, abused dogs, fearful dogs, dogs with obsessive-compulsive issues. City pounds and reputable pit bull groups have dealt with badly-scarred ex-fighters, and adopted them out. Yes, a dog's personality can change after psychological trauma [but I'd be very surprised to see "an incredibly friendly dog" become a dangerous, brooding loner unless some underlying health issue were involved. Dogs aren't John Rambo]. Some pit bulls are hard-wired to be dog-aggressive, others not so much, some not at all. What's the best way to work with them? As individual dogs.

[On the left, trainer John Garcia plays pillow.] To be fair to Best Friends, the dramatics may be due to quotes taken entirely out of context over the three-day period the Times reporter spent at the sanctuary. I hope people will remember that all the Vick dogs were treated badly, and over half are already in foster homes and slated for adoption. No dog on earth can survive terrible abuse heart-whole the way a pit bull can: a fact that makes those of us who love pit bulls feel some particularly serious anger and contempt for their abusers, believe me. [I know, I know: Don't hate -- educate.]

Some pit bulls are predisposed to issues like separation anxiety and sound sensitivity, and can suffer from these conditions as much as any border collie. (My male pit bull shakes like a leaf when the wind blows and a door starts to bang on its hinges [or he would, if I hadn't developed door control OCD years ago].) It stands to reason that abusive treatment would make these conditions worse. When I read in the NY Times article about toothless Georgia, my first thought was that she might have worn her teeth to nothing by chewing obsessively on rocks or on her chain tether. And talk about zero socialization:

Little Red is a tiny rust-colored female whose teeth were filed, most likely because she was bait for the Bad Newz fighters. Handlers cannot explain why loud noises make her jumpy.

Cherry, a black-and-white male, has what seems to be chemical burns on his back. His file at Best Friends says he loves car rides and having his backside rubbed. But like many of Mr. Vick’s pit bulls, he is petrified of new situations and new people.

Oscar cowers in the corner of his run when strangers arrive. Shadow runs in circles. Black Bear pants so heavily that he seems on the verge of hyperventilation.

If someone wrote to the Border Collie Boards about a dog that jumped at every sound or rubbed its nose until it bled, you might see a response like this one [by a postdoctoral scholar involved in the Canine Behavioral Genetics Project]. Or a link to an article like this, by the veterinarian who literally wrote the book on companion animal behavior. Excerpt:

Storm and noise phobias are emergencies.

They will only worsen with exposure, and the rate at which they worsen depends on the neurochemistry of the dog and the severity and unpredictability of the storms [...]

Treatment not only saves lives, but it means the difference between a life of quality or a life of pain and suffering. Treatment can involve the dreaded behavior modification, but this is one case where drugs are essential and not optional.

But enough, already: I'm sure the Best Friends folks know all this. I wish for these pit bulls a comfortable future of long walks, cozy sofas and belly rubs from loving owners, and I know the people at Best Friends will do all they can to ensure that future. Follow the whole story here: Best Friends Blog - "They’re front page on the New York Times."

Edited to add: Here's another nice write-up, this one courtesy of ABC News.

Nitwit

Not a "chox mix." Not a "buff mastiff," either: a "shred of historical evidence" for Merritt Clifton. Click on photos to enlarge.

How unnerving it must seem, how humiliating, to be a professional breed-basher this week! Spend years stoking the urban legend machine, and what happens? Famous athlete gets busted for dogfighting, his "ticking time bombs" turn out to be good dogs, and the news is all about friendly pit bulls nestled in the loving arms of their foster moms and dads, or playing happily with other dogs. Playing with children, even.

It's almost enough to make a person feel sorry for Merritt Clifton. Almost.

Clifton is the editor, and I use the term loosely, who lists the "chox mix," the “Dauschund," the “East Highland terrier,” the “Weimaeaner,” the “Buff Mastiff,” etc. among dogs that bite: these are "clearly identified" animals, he states, labeled by people "with evident expertise." ["Clearly identified" and "evident expertise" also mean that the blue heeler, the Australian blue heeler, the Queensland heeler and the Australian cattle dog are described as separate breeds in Clifton's odd tabulation of dog bites, and mixes are lumped together with dogs labeled purebreds.]

No MLA format for Clifton: no footnotes, no in-text citations, no pages of works cited. And because some editors, reporters and columnists can't tell a peer-reviewed study from a pig in a poke, Clifton enjoys a certain amount of air time. Here he is on CNN, talking about pit bulls in general and the Vick dogs in particular:

Considering the risk the fighting dogs pose to shelters, potential owners and other animals, "they just don't have a chance," Clifton said.

"You can compare it to what happens with exotic cats and people who keep tigers in their backyard. It's not the tiger's fault, but you are still on the menu. They are victims, but you do have to treat them as animals that belong in maximum security."

Imagine how ignorant and how biased you'd have to be to make that sort of remark.

Now that the wheel of Karma is bearing down on him, Clifton is beginning to sound shrill:

Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, takes issue with my previous post, in which I wrote: "Remember that only a generation or two ago, pit bulls were renowned as 'America's family dog.'"

He promptly e-mails me, saying:

This is a total fiction. There isn't a shred of historical evidence that pit bulls ever amounted to more than 1% of the total U.S. dog population until under 15 years ago, or that they were ever commonly kept as family pets (or indeed by anyone except dogfighters) until then.

Clifton says that between 1900 and 1950 [according to search results on the NewspaperArchive.com website] 35 breeds of dog accounted for 3.5 million newspaper articles or ads which included the word "dog" and a mention of the breed's name.

Pit bull terriers, Staffordshires, and American bulldogs account for 34,770 results, roughly 1% of the 3.5 million, leading Clifton to believe that from 1900 to 1950 "pit bulls" made up no more than 1% of the U.S. dog population.

There are so many things wrong with this, it's hard to tell where to start.

Forget duplicate ads. Forget multiple references to Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin and Balto. Forget short stories, movie and book reviews, and breed names used figuratively or used in advertising. Forget the regional, racial and socioeconomic factors that affect what goes into a newspaper. And most of all, forget that Clifton failed to search for bulldogs and bull terriers: the two names most closely associated with the "pit bull" breed in the first half of the 20th century. Set all that aside, and the bias and ignorance still loom large. "Not a shred of historical evidence!" Not a shred, dammit!

To digress just a bit, how is it that people who don't know anything about dogs become dog experts? How is it that Jon Katz -- who allows his dogs to worry sheep and calls it "herding," who believes stockdogs are trained with a clicker, who views the no-kill sheltering movement as a threat to America's children, who [as far as anyone knows] has never trained a dog to do much of anything and has never attended a real sheepdog trial even as a spectator -- how is it that Jon Katz has become, in his publisher's words, "one of the country's most respected" writers on dogs?

How is it that Merritt Clifton -- who wouldn't recognize scientific research if he tripped over it, who thinks German shepherds are bred to "herd," who can't be troubled to edit his spelling errors or find out what dogs are really bred for, who has [as far as anyone knows] never cared for or trained or even patted a pit bull, who has written about "the custom" [known only to him, apparently] "of docking pit bulls' tails so that warning signals are not easily recognized," and who writes that "temperament is not the issue, nor is it even relevant," since virtually all pit bulls are "bad moments" waiting to happen -- how is it that Clifton has become an "expert" on the breed?


"There isn't a shred of historical evidence" [Clifton writes] that pit bulls "were ever commonly kept as family pets (or indeed by anyone except dogfighters)" until the 1980s.

Wrong. Again.

On the left: one example of a pit bull on a citrus crate label. I grew up in a region famous for its citrus crops, and love historic crate labels. Lots of the old ones feature popular breeds -- Airedales, Saint Bernards -- and these days modern breeds are occasionally photoshopped into old citrus labels. The Pup Brand label is an authentic oldie. This facsimile is for sale here.

At the top of this post is a photo of a book called The Dog Album. From the dust jacket: "For the nineteenth-century businessman, newly engaged couple, or Victorian family dressed in their Sunday best, a photo session was indeed a special occasion. Which makes it all the more fascinating to see how often the family dog participated in the event." The Dog Album includes a dozen or so photos of pit bull type dogs with their people. There are more pit bulls in this book than collies. More pit bulls than pugs, in fact. Even more pit bulls than Saint Bernards.

Vintage photos of people and their pit bulls are a staple on eBay. Here's a link to the photo below.


And here's a shot of a handsome pit bull with a group of railroad engineers:



On the right, a postcard of a lady. No, Zelig fans, it's not the same dog ;~)

A pit bull is the subject of New Yorker icon James Thurber's classic Snapshot of a Dog. "'An American bull terrier,' we used to say, proudly; none of your English bulls." "American bull terrier" was one of many names given to the dog now called a pit bull, according to American Kennel Gazette editor Arthur Frederick Jones. Jones wrote a chapter on terriers for the National Geographic Book of Dogs, and began the chapter with an appreciation of Joffre, the Staffordshire terrier his family owned when Jones was a boy.

Anyone familiar with pit bulls knows that these dogs have always been called bulldogs in rural areas and in southern parts of the U.S. When Laura Ingalls Wilder writes about the family bulldog, Jack, she's writing about a dog we would recognize as a pit bull. In the great children's book Sounder the dog of the title is half hound, half bulldog: that is, half pit bull.

Listen to Texan Jim Crainer of Hawgs, Dawgs, and Hunting:

Hello David,

I appreciate you taking the time to write. Your question is "Do I hunt with pitbulls and do I presently have any pups I'm selling or giving away". First, Do I hunt with Bull dogs? Yes, but I only use them in a catch dog capacity. When the hog is bayed up, I get as close as I can and release a protected vest covered and cut collar wearing bull dog to go catch the hog. I dont have bull dogs that I let hunt for me, but know of some people who do. Its just a personal preference on type of dogs is the reason I dont. Suprisingly to alot of people, some strains of bull dogs are good hunters and have a good nose especially for rig or hood hunting. But its like any breed of dog, you have to find the right dog to do it with. Such as, just because a fella has a blackmouth cur or a catahoula doesnt mean he will bay cattle or hogs. Or just because a person has a walker hound doesnt mean he will tree a coon. You have to go thru a number of them or get them from reputible breeders to find one that will work for you. Second, Do I have any bull dogs puppies to sell or give away? I usually raise one litter of bull dog pups a year, there is a picture of the two I kept on the baydog pictures, Under Dogs, picture #3. I do sell them occasionally when I raise a litter. Thanks again for your question.

Good Hunting,

Jim

[Crainer writes elsewhere that he favors the Carver line of pit bulls -- a fighting strain --and won't bother with a pit bull unless it's people friendly and can ride loose in the rig with other dogs.]

If Merritt Clifton actually knew much about dogs, or cared enough to study the history of dogs in the U.S., he would know all this. Pit bulls -- bulldogs -- have been common for the better part of a century and a half, though not as ubiquitous as they are today. They were, and are, kept and loved by all sorts of people.

The photo below was taken in the 1890s. The toddler is my maternal great-aunt [a wonderful woman who loved dogs, and owned some legendary ones -- legendary in our household, anyway] and her uncle Albert. Albert was crippled: the dog in the photo is helping to hide Albert's legs in addition to providing support for the child. Seventy years after this photo was taken, my great-aunt remembered the dog's name and spoke of him fondly as "our bulldog." Her parents were hard-working, pragmatic Iowa farmers who liked good dogs and didn't keep bad ones. They were not dogfighters.



(Thanks to EmilyS for the note that prompted this post.)

See the Vick dogs! Part II

Yes, I am still beaming about Hector. He's the middle dog in the photo to the left, a happy shot for the ages by Associated Press photographer Eric Risberg. [Click on the photo for a larger view.] View this photo and many more by visiting the BAD RAP blog: they have a late-Saturday-night roundup of the best news coverage, and you can feel their relief that the dogs are finally, really safe and that the press is starting to get it.

Four posts with Hector's photo: one, two, three, four. I sure can pick em. [sprains arm patting self on back] You could call it a crush.

Another crush -- my new favorite football player, Jarrod Cooper:


A dog that made my heart turn to water -- the twin of my muddy girl in the right sidebar:


[Both screen grabs from the Contra Costa Times.]

Finally, from the boundless, staggering ignorance dept., a PETA news release:

For Immediate Release:
January 24, 2008

Richmond, Va. - Holding signs that read, "Report Dogfighters" and "Dogs Deserve Justice," next to photos of dogs who have been mauled in fights, PETA members will rally outside the federal courthouse in Richmond on Friday as Williamsburg-area resident Oscar Allen is sentenced on dogfighting charges. Allen's sentencing is related to the case that has already seen fallen Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick and three codefendants receive prison terms.

Date: Friday, January 25
Time: 8:30 a.m.
Place: U.S. District Courthouse, 1000 E. Main St., Richmond

[...]
"Vick's heinous dogfighting operation has been busted, but there are others just like it across the county," says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. "We're calling on people across the U.S. to report dogfighters and for police and prosecutors to send them to jail."

"Holding signs that read, 'Dogs Deserve Justice'"? [Stop laughing, dammit!] Yes, that's the same Daphna Nachminovitch who told the press, "These dogs are a ticking time bomb. Rehabilitating fighting dogs is not in the cards. It’s widely accepted that euthanasia is the most humane thing for them." Yes, the same Daphna Nachminovitch whose organization wants all pit bulls dead. Ironic? Ironic doesn't even come close. Talk to the paw, Daphna: a bad day for PETA has been a very, very good day for some very good dogs.

See the Vick dogs!

Check them out in all their tail-wagging glory! The whole story is here, via BAD RAP. See the BAD RAP blog for more links. Coverage by the Chronicle, with photos, is here. The Contra Costa Times weighs in with a column by noted dog trainer and behaviorist [/irony] Gary Bogue here [more photos, and a video].

Go. Read. See the photos and watch the videos, and thank doG these good dogs got the chance they deserved. I'll be adding to this post as the day rolls on. Can't tell you how glad I am for these dogs. (That's Hector above, with his BAD RAP foster mom, screen grab from the Contra Costa Times video.)

CNN video interview with BAD RAP's Tim Racer here. Excellent comments from Tim. Good job, CNN. Love his comments to the effect that these dogs didn't need to be rehabilitated -- they're good dogs. They need good care and training and a couch to lie on.

DogTime deserves its own link. Video city! Great job, DogTime.

Best Friends will introduce its own "Vicktory" dogs on Monday.

The Salinas Californian has an excellent story here. That's Stella on the left with Justin Phillips, shelter supervisor at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for Monterey County, one of the nine-person evaluation team chosen to work with the Vick dogs last October. More on the SPCAMC website, here.

The Murky News tells why Jarrod Cooper is my new favorite sports hero:

Today [the BAD RAP founders] got help from Jarrod Cooper, a Raiders special teams player. He and other Raiders players are helping fund a new initiative called "Code 597," after the penal code violation for animal abuse. The goal is to educate the public on better care and to fund dog shelters and other gear for local pit bull owners.

Cooper volunteers almost daily at the shelter, where pit bulls make up about half the animals that arrive at the shelter, and two-thirds of those euthanized, shelter officials said.

More coverage, including a great video report by Manuel Ramos, on the Bay Area's CBS station.

He made it! He's OK! Aw, crap, Donna, you made my eyes puddle up -- what great news, and thanks so much for everything, this news especially. #44, below?


That's Hector! Hector, the dog in the photo at the top of this post. Ossum.

Yet another link: detailed article at SeattlePI.com.

Dog bites and bite force

Memo to Merritt Clifton: here's what good GSDs have really been doing for the past 100 years.

This just in: big dogs bite harder than small dogs. [In other news: this fact is completely irrelevant if you are six weeks old.]

Contrary to urban legend, canine bite force is a size thing, not a breed thing. The larger the dog, the greater the potential for damage [but see mitigating factors above and in the final blockquote, below]. If you were to ask the gentleman wearing the German shepherd on his sleeve, he'd tell you: big dogs bite harder. [Protection-sport decoys are the unsung experts on bite force.] A 100 lb SchH III Rottweiler bites a good deal harder than his 45 lb pit bull counterpart.

There is just one study that I've been able to find in PubMed regarding bite force in dogs. Here's the link. The abstract:

A force transducer was developed to measure bite force in dogs. A total of 101 readings was obtained from 22 pet dogs ranging in size from 7 to 55 kg. Bite forces ranged from 13 to 1394 Newtons with a mean for all dogs of 256 Newtons and a median of 163 Newtons. Most measurements fell within the low end of the range, with 55% of the biting episodes less than 200 Newtons and 77% less than 400 Newtons.

1 newton = 0.224808943 pounds force, so 1394 Newtons would be 313.38 pounds force, according to OnlineConversion.com. I'm betting the dog that weighed 55 kg (121 lb) was responsible for the highest bite-force measurement in the study.

So how on earth did the 2003 Handbook of Pediatric Emergency Medicine come up with the following nonsense on bite force? No footnotes or references, by the way:

Aside from treating breed identification as if it carried weight [the CDC has indicated for a decade now that it does not], the Handbook's "2000 psi in Rottweilers [...] enough to tear through sheet metal" is pulled out of thin air. Some Rotties are hard-biting dogs, but 2000 psi? For that you need an alligator.

From Animal Planet News:

Sept. 15, 2003 — Cheetahs chomp hard and even humans can bite through an ear, but one animal reigns supreme when it comes to possessing the strongest bite — the alligator.

American alligators, Alligator mississippiensis, have the most powerful bite force ever measured. According to a recent study published in the Journal of Zoology of London, alligators snap their strong jaws shut with a force of 2,125 pounds, or with about as much force as a mid-size sedan falling on top of someone.
[...]
"Bite force is linked to the size of an animal," explained Kent Vliet, a University of Florida zoologist who headed up the study. "Since the report was published, we measured the bite of a wild gator, even bigger than Hercules at 13 1/2 feet in length missing the end of his tail. He bit down with a force of 2,960 pounds."
[...]
To put the record measurement into perspective, hyenas, which are bone-crushing mammals, have a bite force of 1,000 pounds, slightly more than the 940 recorded for lions. Dusky sharks manage 330 pounds of force, and a common dog, the Labrador, bites with 125 pounds of force. Humans surprisingly beat out the pet dog, and measured in at 170 pounds of force.

Here's a video of a Rottie from Norway [where tail docking has been illegal since 1987, in case you were wondering]:



Strong, yes -- but the jaw strength of a 600 lb alligator? Nooo.

When Brady Barr measured the bite force of various animals for a National Geographic program, the hyena again was measured at 1000 psi pounds of force. The lion's bite measured 691, the shark 669, and a Rottweiler at 328 psi pounds of force. A pit bull was measured at 235 psi pounds of force. [Edited January 27, 2007. See "note from a scientist," below.]

Ah, but don't pit bulls have a "unique bite, hold, shake" style of attack that makes them ever so much more "potentially dangerous" than any other breed?

There are two things that come to mind when I'm subjected to this particular example of boundless, staggering ignorance:
1) Have you ever seen a protection-sport dog work a sleeve or a bite suit? For that matter, have you ever seen a puppy with a sock?
2) Which pit bull? I keep pit bulls and border collies, and at one time or another, over the years, each of my pit bulls has been bloodied by a collie bitch. In each case the pit bull did nothing in response but yip and retreat. In the worst instance my heart dog was nailed in the side so badly by one of the collies he needed sutures and a drain. The collie responsible for the damage didn't have a mark on her.

Last year my male pit bull was in such agony from injury-exacerbated arthritis of the spine [he's OK now] that he was trembling violently and screaming when handled, but when the vet touched him where the pain was worst, all he did was bump her with his closed mouth. He could easily have bitten her -- he turned towards her arm faster than anyone could have stopped him -- but with people [as opposed to possums, say] he has extraordinary bite inhibition. And my vet knows and trusts him. To quote BAD RAP, dogs are individuals -- stereotype at your peril.

Dog bites are more complex events than ignorant people would have you believe. This terrific post by Rinalia [from an open-to-everyone section of the Pit Bull Forum] explains:

How hard a dog bites depends on their bite inhibition (how hard or soft a dog bites), their past experiences and their bite threshold (how quick they are to use teeth). The severity of a bite depends on the aforementioned factors plus size of dog, size of victim, location of bite, whether the dog bites once or multiple times, etc.

Let's just say I have four 60-lb dogs. I have one dog each with the following characteristics:
Dog #1: low bite threshold & low bite inhibition = quick to bite and bites hard
Dog #2: low bite threshold & high bite inhibition = quick to bite and bites soft
Dog #3: high bite threshold & low bite inhibition = slow to bite and bites hard
Dog #4: high bite threshold & high bite inhibition = slow to bite and bites soft

And that is not to say that all dogs fit into those categories. There is a whole spectrum - dogs with moderate bite thresholds, moderate bite inhibitions. Dogs who bite once, dogs who bite multiple times. Dogs who prefer legs and arms, dogs who prefer backs or stomachs.

At the outset, It would seem like Dog #1 is the most dangerous - he'll bite you at the drop of a hat and he'll bite you hard...but maybe he only bites once. But let's say Dog #3, when he is FINALLY provoked into biting, likes to bite multiple times and aims for the neck.

Add to that dog size, victim size, location of bite, warning behaviors, etc. ad nauseam, you can quickly see that there is no logic in making a statement like "Pit bulls cause more damage than other breeds." Such a generalized statement is both inaccurate and ignores the myriad factors that cause a dog to bite.

Breed is perhaps the LEAST important factor.

What a pity this is all over the heads of certain idiots in Ontario and Denver -- the dog-killing idiots that make Michael Vick look like an amateur. These legislators could have saved far more children and adults from harm by addressing swimming pool safety or handing out bicycle helmets, but with the pitchfork-waving mentality common to all bigots they decided instead to confiscate good dogs from law abiding citizens, to confiscate family pets and kill them, based on nothing more than a broad skull or a brindle coat.


"[Laws] banning breeds will not make you safer, and the illusion that they will do so is dangerous to humans and unfair to dogs." [Dr. Karen Overall]

*Note from a scientist:

"A newton equals 0.2248 pound force, which is the force a one pound weight would exert on whatever it is resting on on Earth. Thus 12 newtons = 2.7 pound weight equivalent, and 9452 newtons is equivalent to 2125 pounds of pressure exertion on an object. A newton does not distinguish the area of the force it is exerting on, ie 12 newtons or 2.7 pounds if it was pushing against a square inch, then it would be 2.7 pounds per square inch, but if it was an exertion on 12 square inches, then it woud be 2.7 pounds per square foot. It was interesting to see in the article that human and lab dog have about the same bite force, and wolves only have about 2.5 times more bite force than humans."

See the comment from Caveat in response to this post, which includes the following:

"I corresponded with Canada's version of Beck/Clifton, Stanley Coren, when I found him making the '2000 psi' statement in a little book I'd bought about 'dangerous dogs'. He switches it between 'rottweilers' and 'pit bulls' depending on the day of the week.

He could not support it, had no idea where he'd heard it, hemmed and hawed and ducked and weaved but didn't have a reference for it.

Trouble is, people like Coren or Beck, who the media think are experts, or journals such as the Pediatric one, merrily repeat these things and they put another put another nail into the coffin, not only of certain breeds, but of dog ownership as a whole."

Caveat's 2006 bite force article can be found here, and includes the "Note from a scientist" I 've quoted above.

Pit Bull Junior High

You know how they say Hollywood is "high school with money"? The extended pit bull community is like middle school in a rough neighborhood, with a double helping of angst. Cliques and characters are thick on the ground. No one ever gets enough sleep, self-absorbtion is endemic and adults were put here to make your life miserable.

Diane Jessup is a Queen Bee at Pit Bull Junior High. She has a pit bull website, a forum, a (pending) non-profit and an ego as big as all outdoors, not that there's anything wrong with that. Her full name is The Controversial Diane Jessup. [See, for example, the post and subsequent thread that led to her bannination from the Pit Bull Forum.]

Here is an archived page from Diane's LawDogs website. Excerpt:

LawDogsUSA is always looking to help out homeless American pit bulls that have "the right stuff". We want to save homeless American pit bulls and give them a job - as American heroes! We ONLY accept American pit bulls from shelters and legitimate rescues. Unfortunately, accepting dogs from some rescues and the public has proven problematic, creating situations which take time and resources away from the work of LawDogsUSA.

We get many emails a day from people wanting us to take their pet pit bulls. We encourage those looking to get rid of their pets to use the following resource to try and either keep their dog or place it: [link to Pit Bull Rescue Central].

Please read the following information and pass it on. There are potential detection dogs dying in shelters everyday. It is up to us - together - to help them help us.

That page is under revision. Diane now says that pit bulls with the appropriate temperament and drives are, for all intents and purposes, next to impossible to find in rescues or shelters, so she is breeding her own, with foundation stock from Tatonka Kennels. Absolutely gorgeous dogs, by the way, and someone has to breed good pit bulls for the future. [I believe two of her homebreds are already serving with the Washington State Patrol.] But breeding dogs and buying breeding prospects takes money, and that can put a crimp in things like, oh, paying those pesky insurance premiums.

These days Diane is worried about the Vick pit bulls, specifically those dogs facing the prospect of a pointless, loveless, warehoused eternity at Best Friends while greedy caretakers remodel their kitchens with money that should have gone to groups approved by Diane and LawDogs, dammit! Here's the big whine. Dance, straw men, dance! Excerpt:

We are very sad to report that due to the "Special Master" Rebecca Huss getting what we consider very poor advice, the determination was made to only allow those agencies which carried a one million dollar insurance policy (and had for the past three years, making it impossible for anyone to comply at this time) to take the dogs. After a quarter century of working in pit bull rescue I have yet to know of even one pit bull rescue which carries this kind of insurance. I have heard of one which does, and they state they had to lie about being an "all breed" rescue to get the insurance. Out of the Pits, an extremely reputable rescue, certainly could not comply as well. Most "hands on" rescues simply would never dream of spending the kind of money needed for a million dollar policy on anything other than direct care of dogs, education, advocacy or spay/neuter.

Or, you know, buying pups and breeding your own dogs. I have a million-dollar umbrella policy from State Farm. It costs me a little over $200 a year, about a fifth of what it would cost to buy an $800 puppy and pay to have her shipped from Florida to LAX.

More from Diane:

I am very disappointed American pit bulls deemed "adoptable" by ASPCA "experts" had this million dollar liability insurance requirement slapped on them. In my county, even a dog which has severely mauled someone and been declared "Dangerous" doesn't carry this kind of requirement! Rebecca Huss has, in effect, achieved the impression that even "adoptable" pit bulls are somehow a huge risk. A sad day for the breed, indeed.

Give me a break. Organizations need the insurance, not individual adopters. Put on a sheepdog trial, your organization needs a million bucks of insurance. Hold an agility fun match for Shelties, you need proof of insurance. As I've written before, I've had my own million-dollar policy for ages, and not because I'm afraid my dogs will "turn" on someone, but because 1) we live in the most litigious society in the history of the universe, and 2) some people are scary stupid and others are totally unpredictable. Some are scary stupid and totally unpredictable. I can't always control what people are going to do around my dogs or my livestock. I'm surprised that anyone working with lots of dogs [and people] wouldn't have some serious insurance coverage, but that's just me. Yes, I have earthquake insurance and long-term care insurance, too, because I have a vivid imagination when it comes to worst case scenarios. Sue me.

More from Diane:

Michael Vick was ordered to set aside almost a million dollars for "care" of these dogs. While I am all for seeing Michael Vick lose his money, in this case I feel adding that amount of money in to the mix was a mistake. When large amounts of money are involved in any manner, too often the wrong kind of people are attracted and dogs are generally the losers. And so they were in this case. Reputable organizations were shut out.

LawDogs was shut out, which isn't quite the same thing. I expect there are safeguards to insure that qualifying rescue organizations don't vacation in Tahiti on Michael Vick's tab. And is $5000 exorbitant for lifetime care of a rescue dog? Let me get back to you when I've paid off the elbow dysplasia and ACL surgeries.

In the court document discussing placement of the Vick dogs, Rebecca Huss [who I suspect also has a vivid imagination when it comes to worst case scenarios] writes:

Due to the ongoing criminal proceedings, each of the rescue organizations has agreed not to disclose anything about the dogs unless prior approval of such disclosure has been granted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. After the final sentencing in the federal proceedings, the organizations would be allowed to discuss the dogs as they would any other dogs under their care unless the dogs’ safety would be compromised.

But none of this seems to apply to trailblazing iconoclasts like Diane, who not only talks in detail about the dog she got, but posts his picture in her rant.

Just another day [gum snap] at Pit Bull Junior High.

Well written

On Mary Scriver's prairiemary blog, a fine essay on symbiosis. Excerpt:

The business of animal control (or the function that we currently call by that name) is NOT to number, sterilize, and supervise every animal in America, but rather to work through problems as they arise. It is a great mistake to alienate and polarize whole populations of animal keepers and lovers, but it is often a mistake thrust upon animal control by over-reaching humane societies. The misunderstandings are fed by the narrowness of experience of many people, who only know about animals from television, their dinner plates, and maybe their childhood pets. The use of animal aggression for gaming and gambling, an ancient practice, is (and I’d say SHOULD be) hypocritically demonized in this country. (I have a hard time seeing the difference between Vick fighting dogs against each other and Vick himself courting concussion and joint damage in a football game.) But my prejudice is that we’d do more good to try to uncover the causes of such behavior than by simply passing laws. Education, the creating and pointing out of better ways, has got to be a big part of animal control.

She writes with such clarity. Read more of her work here. Her comment that "misunderstandings are fed by the narrowness of experience of many people, who only know about animals from television, their dinner plates, and maybe their childhood pets" reminds me of a comment by Donald McCaig:

[T]he laws that most affect America's dogs are often made by those who fear them, sentimentalize them, or are only interested in their suffering. Dogs and dog owners endure an ever more dog-hostile culture without a champion.

[Cue William Tell Overture, Nathan Winograd, Richard Avanzino...]

PETA foot soldiers are clueless. Film at eleven

[As if this were news.]

We're all eager for details about the Vick dogs... but in the meantime, here's a classic bit from the media circus feeding frenzy at Michael Vick's sentencing [with photo caption from the BAD RAP Blog]:

Left - Tim learned that Peta volunteers have absolutely no idea that their organization wants to ban pit bulls. Like, NO idea. This looks like an intervention.

[Snerk.] Read it all here.

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you: Son of Congo

Click here to watch the video.

Seems to be working in New Jersey, so Colorado "animal activists" are following suit, so to speak: the owner of Rolo, a German shepherd condemned to death after attacking a neighbor, is staging rallies in his defense.

An Arvada woman who was bitten by a German shepherd has been getting hate mail and threatening messages from animal lovers.

After Kathy Hardin was bitten July 1, a judge ordered the dog be put down following statements from neighbors who claimed the dog acted aggressively.

But since then, Rolo's owner and animal activists have been protesting, saying he's not dangerous and that this was the first time he's bitten anyone.

Hardin's attorney said she's been harassed so much that she and her family are moving out of the neighborhood.

Weren't all those Colorado pit bull bans supposed to prevent dog bites...? [Seriously, the cretins behind the Denver ban have killed more dogs than Michael Vick: killed them not for dangerous behavior or poor temperaments, but because of the way they look. Heartbreaking -- and very scary.]

Where are they now?

One of the Vick pit bulls.

The Vick survivors are alive and well, I'm sure, and getting the kind of terrific care every dog deserves. Waaay back in October, the BAD RAP folks mentioned on their blog that

BR's Tim Racer flew back to VA to assist attorney Rebecca Huss in re-evaluating the dogs in order to create solid placement recommendations, and, we helped organize the transfer of 16 Vick dogs that were deemed foster care candidates to warm and ready foster homes for TLC and observation.

According to the rescue application, sixteen dogs "showed no sign of aggression or threat to either people or dogs" and were headed to foster placement; two dogs "exhibited suitability for a specialized program for highly energetic and motivated dogs" and will be evaluated for detection work in a program like Law Dogs; twenty dogs showed "fear or a lack of socialization with people or other dogs" and will be placed in sanctuaries with possible fostering in the future; and ten dogs "exhibited mild to intense threat to stimulus and may have shown high arousal towards people," and may spend their lives in a sanctuary program -- although foster care placement in the future is not ruled out entirely for these ten.

Donna of BAD RAP can't give out any details [yet], though foster placement of course means homes with kids, other pets and so on. Keep tuned to the BAD RAP blog -- and this one, too -- for more information on the progress made by these rescued dogs. If only they could talk...

Oh, and you can support BAD RAP's great programs [and cross names off your gift list] by purchasing a cool calendar with, um, Tim's butt on it ;~) If that's too exciting, you can buy the wonderful Pibbles 'n Kids calendar. Better still, buy them both! And don't forget to order your copy of The Unexpected Pit Bull calendar before supplies run out [as they did last year -- these calendars are classics]. Actually, wait a few minutes before you order --- I need to order my copies first.