Should Mu be illegal? This seems like a silly question, but I was surprised to find out that he actually is illegal in the UK. He could be taken from me and euthanized if we lived there, just because of his appearance. Perhaps it is irrelevant, since I was never planning to take my dog to England. I wouldn’t bother to address the issue at all except that headlines about dogs being dangerous grab the attention of people. Also, people sometimes try to start breed bans in local jurisdictions in the US. There was a dog attack that the media has played repeatedly in the UK, and this has gotten some people stirred up enough to ask for more breed bans. Someone claiming to be a doctor, a scientist, has written an editorial claiming that some breeds are inherently dangerous. There are so many problems with this that I hardly know where to begin. I would like to address a few key points:
If anyone ever died because of a dog, it was never the dog’s fault. It was always, always the fault of the humans involved who put the dog in that situation.
Dying because of a dog attack is exceedingly rare and unlikely. You are more likely to die by falling off a ladder or slipping in the bathtub. Dying in a car accident is 1,000 times more likely. Dying by suicide is also 1,000 times more likely than dying because of a dog attack.
Dog attacks and deaths are dramatic and they get clicks for news sites. That’s all. People can imagine a horrific attack by a dog, with savage teeth and barking and snarling. It sells newspapers. Someone falling off a ladder is not dramatic or newsworthy.
Banning any specific breed is pointless. The idiot breeders who make these mutts and give the hybrid a name are just going to come up with some other cockamamie cross to create a new breed that is deemed fashionable or edgy, and isn’t banned yet.
If anyone was really interested in preventing deaths and attacks by dogs, educating people on how to treat dogs with respect would solve the problem. Also, just stop breeding so many dogs. The overpopulation of dogs without enough homes to place them in is a driving factor in dog attacks. Creating more fear around dogs only adds to the problem.
No dogs of any breed are inherently dangerous, if properly trained, cared for, and managed. A gun is designed to kill people, or animals. That’s what it’s meant for. You can’t use a gun as a hammer. A gun can’t be your best friend. Guns kill things, by design. Guns are dangerous even if they are intended for protection. A person who owns a gun is statistically more likely to die a violent death than someone who does not own a gun. Dogs have been bred for thousands of years to be companions. There are breeds for various purposes, and there are a few less common breeds that are designed for protection. If someone did choose a particular breed for protection, and that dog did happen to kill someone, it still would not be the fault of the dog breed or the individual dog. It would be a failure by humans. Either the dog was someplace he wasn’t supposed to be, or a human was someplace he wasn’t suppose to be, or the dog was improperly trained, or the humans around the dog were improperly trained. Dogs can be entirely safe if managed properly. The keys to making a dog safe are not a mystery or a secret.
Mu is a Rottweiler pit bull mix, supposedly. That’s what the people said when I bought him for $100 to get him away from them. They were morons who kept the puppy chained in the yard, so I wouldn’t take their word for it. He does look like a cross between a Rottweiler and a pit bull. I’ve never had the DNA test done because I don’t care and it doesn’t matter. Supposing he is a Rottweiler pit bull mix, some people might think of him as a dangerous dog. When he is out in public, I get varying reactions. Some people want to run up and hug him and kiss him, understandably, and some people will cross the street to avoid him. Mu is 13 years old, he has been on more than a thousand searches in public places, he has found at least 300 cats, and he has saved the lives of dozens of cats. He has never bitten anyone. He barks at children sometimes if they move erratically, or if they stare right in his eyes. I have tried telling children not to stare in his eyes, but that makes them stare even more. Staring at a dog is an act of aggression, or at least it can be interpreted that way. In any case, Mu barks occasionally, which is his right. He ought to express himself, and it’s a good way to let people know that they aren’t interacting with him in a respectful way. Of course, I don’t just let him bark at people. I remove him from the situation any time a person makes him uncomfortable. Mu has never bitten anyone in 13 years because he is a very good dog, mostly, but also because I take precautions to make sure there aren’t any accidental bites due to unexpected situations.
You would have to be exceedingly unlucky to die by a dog attack. You are more likely to win a lottery than to die because of a dog attack. You are more likely to die by slipping and falling in the bathroom than dying from a dog attack. Dying from a dog attack is about as rare as being killed by lightning. People usually don’t worry too much about being struck by lightning, but if it is something you are concerned about, you can choose not to go hiking in the wilderness when there are thunderstorms. Similarly, you don’t need to worry about being killed by a dog, but if that is a concern of yours, then you can learn what to do and what not to do to reduce your risk, which is already very small.
One of the main ways to reduce the risk of anyone being attacked by a dog or killed by one, is loss prevention. Anything a dog owner can do to reduce the odds of their dog escaping, or increase the chances of finding them quickly if lost, is going to reduce the exposure of the dog to random people. Loss prevention is not difficult. There are many steps people can take, such as maintaining their fences, using an “air-lock” system at the door to the house, using proper leashes and harnesses, and using GPS to find a dog quickly if he escapes. I have not been able to track down specific statistics, but many of the news stories I see about dog attacks state that the dog was off leash or had escaped from home or was allowed to roam freely. In most jurisdictions, there are laws about having your dog off leash or not contained. Simply enforcing existing laws and educating people would probably be much more effective at reducing attacks by dogs than creating new breed ban laws.
Newspapers and TV stations love dog attacks. If someone has a video of the attack, it can be very graphic, which grabs the attention of viewers. Even a witness account of a dog attack can generate clicks for a print article. These reports often emphasize the graphic details of the attack, and rarely focus on the failures of the humans involved. If the news outlets want to report on dog attacks, which are relatively rare, would it kill them to point out that these attacks are mostly avoidable? Another problem is that news stories of a dog attack have an identifiable victim, who garners sympathy. Well, the attacking dog is a victim as much as anyone. If a dog is in a position to attack someone, and if a dog is in a frame of mind that he wants to or needs to attack, someone or many people have let that dog down. Someone didn’t do his job. News stories are quick to identify a dog as aggressive or mean, and I have yet to read a news story that points out that the poor dog was put in a bad position if he felt the need to attack. Dogs don’t have the power to decide how they are trained or how they are managed. Dogs generally don’t get to choose their owners. In every case of a dog attack, a human or many humans made errors that led to the attack. Journalists might debate my position by saying their job is to report the Who-What-When-Where-How of a story, and not to speculate on the Why. In the rush to get the story out before someone else does, the reporter will often say, “The cause of the incident is unknown at this time, pending investigation.” Good journalism asks the Why questions as much as possible. At least the journalism I like to read.
I have been bitten more than a dozen times. As a kid, I had a newspaper route. This meant I was trying to navigate past dogs that were out in their yards while their owners weren’t with them. I was bitten by two German Shepherds in separate incidents. One particular dog was always left out in the street, where I had to go every day, and I had to get off my bike and use it as a shield to keep that dog from biting me. The owners never made any attempt to contain the dog. Since I have started a business and a nonprofit to help dogs, I have been bitten at least a dozen times by dogs I was catching. I knew it was a possibility I would be bitten, and in most cases the dog bit me because I wouldn’t let go once I caught the dog. It was never the dog’s fault. I was always glad to have captured the stray or lost dog, and I never really minded that I was bitten. I certainly never blamed the dog. I come into contact with unfamiliar dogs much more often that the average person. I always try to approach the dog with respect, and I listen to the dog. If a dog is barking at me, it could just be that he barks a lot. Maybe he has a lot to say, like my own dog. One dog, a husky, kept trying to bite me, but she wasn’t very serious about it. It seemed like she was just in the habit of biting people, and she didn’t mean anything by it. She went into the humane trap without much trouble, and she seemed really sweet, except for the biting. It was as if no one ever told her not to. Another dog that bit me, I thought we were getting to be friends. He was eating from my hand. I thought we were getting along. I have him on video as he bit me, and there really was no warning. In just half a second, he stiffened up and then lunged at my arm, and bit me through my jacket. I didn’t blame him for it. It wasn’t his fault he was out there on the streets, lost. If a dog ever did attack me in a serious and sustained way, I feel pretty confident I could get the dog off of me and get him away. I don’t ever feel like I have been at risk of being killed by a dog. If I ever was killed by a dog, I would want everyone to know that I absolutely would not blame the dog. Nor would I blame the lack of specific breed legislation. If I was ever killed by a dog, it would have to be because someone, most likely the dog’s owner, let that dog down.
If you want to stop dog attacks, if you want to do the most effective thing to reduce the number of deaths from dog attacks, the best thing you could do would be to stop people from making money off of the breeding of dogs. In fact, all breeders of any sort of dogs should take a year off from breeding them. Let us find homes for all of the dogs needing homes before you breed any more. Is a dog a member of the family? In my house, they definitely are. Or is a dog a consumer commodity? Either way, the breeding of dogs needs to be greatly reduced and properly managed. If dogs are a consumer commodity, which is what the government and the law thinks, then breeders, the producers of dogs, need to take full responsibility for the impacts of their products. Our shelters are full of dogs without homes. Quite often, they are purebred dogs. breeders are making millions of dollars from creating more dogs than people need or want while taxpayers are paying millions for unwanted dogs. In other industries, the makers of a product have to be responsible for their product. If an oil pipeline bursts, the oil company has to clean it up. If a car model is defective and dangerous, the manufacturer needs to recall that model and fix it. When breeders of dogs create a dangerous situation, with the overpopulation of dogs and dogs in shelters and stray dogs on the streets, they are not held accountable. Every breeder of any dog anywhere should be required to pay at least a 25% tax to help clean up the mess they are making. That’s just looking at dogs as a product. If dogs are family, which, of course they are, then the current methods of making more dogs should be outlawed entirely.
If I were king of the world, the only way anyone could breed a dog would be if they had the interests of the dog as their primary concern, regardless of any profit motive. It would be very doable for the breeder of a dog to be responsible for that dog for the rest of his life. I run a nonprofit for stray dogs, and it is in our contract, when someone adopts a dog from us, that they have to notify us if the dog escapes or runs away, or if for some reason they need to find a new home for the dog. Good dog breeders do this, too. They say, you can adopt this dog as a member of your family, not for breeding or selling. (Of course, any dog adopted from our nonprofit is already spayed or neutered.) If you can’t keep the dog for some reason, you need to contact the breeder or nonprofit rescue before selling the dog or finding a new home for him. The breeders of dogs should be required to have an application process that ensures the dog is going to a good home where the family is prepared to take care of this dog properly. That’s what our nonprofit does with the dogs in our care. We do a home check to make certain it is a safe and suitable environment. If dogs are family, which I think most people reading this article would agree, then they need to be treated with dignity and respect, not as disposable consumer products. If dogs were much less common, and if the adopters of dogs were required to go through an adoption process that assures they are competent and qualified, the problem of dogs attacking people and, in rare instances, killing them, would go away.
Breed specific legislation is not effective, it purports to address a problem that really isn’t that much of a problem, and it avoids addressing the real problems dogs face. Breed specific legislation is not based on science or reason. Mu is one of the finest people I know. Making him illegal is not the answer to anything.
Another Excellent and informative article. . I only Wish those who need to read and heed this information the most were forced to read it!!
Great article James, and a very handsome Mu.