Pitbull Psi Bite

[Marva Richardt]

Researchfrom scientific studies and insights from veterinary experts have conclusively disproven the misconception that bites from pitbull-type dogs are somehow different or more severe than those from other breeds of comparable size and strength. This is, of course, not comparing the bites of pitbull-type dogs to the bites of smaller breeds like Chihuahuas or Dachshunds, but rather with other large or strong breeds such as Akitas, Bullmastiffs, Cane Corsos, Dobermans, Dogo Argentinos, German Shepherds, Huskies, Rottweilers, among many others. Can pitbulls cause injuries? Of course they can, but the same is true for many other strong breeds and mixed breeds. The reality about the severity of dog bites, supported by a robust amount of scientific evidence, is that a dog's bite strength and severity are more closely related to its overall size, strength, and energy than to its breed.

The dogs had taken over more than the park. Walking down 204th Street or past the gone- to-seed low-income housing abutting the Metro-North Botanical Garden stop, we regularly ran a gauntlet of thugs flaunting spike-collared pit bulls, bespeaking a world of anarchy and dread. As a friend and I walked home one spring night, we saw three stocking-capped toughs slouched against a chain-link fence, barely restraining a thick- necked, snarling pit bull. My heart raced, until I noticed two young cops walking in our direction, just beyond the bad dudes. My relief was short-lived. "It's a full moon, and dogs go crazy in the fooool moon," one of the thugs howled wildly, as he let the pit bull lunge to the end of his leash at the cops. A confrontation seemed imminent, but the two officers nervously crossed the street to avoid it. "I guess we know who won that battle," my friend glumly noted, and we crossed the street, too.

Children are the most frequent victims, accounting for 60 percent of the dog bites and 20 of the 25 dog-bite fatalities in 1996. Dog attacks are now the No. 1 reason that children wind up in hospital emergency rooms. Incredibly, nearly half of all American kids have been bitten by the age of 12. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that more than $100 million gets spent yearly treating dog bites in the nation's emergency rooms, and U.S. insurance companies paid out $250 million in dog-bite liability claims in 1996.

Pit bulls and pit-bull crosses (not always easy to distinguish) have caused more than a third of the nation's dog-bite fatalities since 1979 and a comparable proportion of serious injuries. The rising number of attacks, and the unease pit bulls and other dangerous dogs cause in public spaces, have spurred many municipalities to crack down with legislation ranging from muzzle laws to bans on pit bulls and certain other breeds.

Recent pit-bull attacks in New York City have hit the headlines. In one horrific incident a little over a year ago, four unleashed pit bulls swept, barking and growling, through Richmond Hill, tearing at anyone in their path, as screaming passersby took cover on top of cars or fled indoors. Two of the enraged animals rampaged through a supermarket on 135th Street before police shot them to death. Powerful tranquilizer darts downed the other two dogs. Three people were seriously injured in the frenzy. Other recent attacks were no less violent. In late 1996, three pit bulls mauled an 85-year-old Bronx man to death. In 1997, two pit bulls severely injured a 12-year-old Brooklyn girl, and other attacks left a seven-year-old Queens boy with a bone-deep wound to his leg, and an 11- year-old Queens boy with a shredded arm. Pit bulls can inflict such terrible damage because their massive skulls and powerful jaws give them almost super-canine biting power.

Pit-bull-inflicted injuries in New York City will almost certainly spike up because of a senseless new federal law ending a 60-year official ban on animals in housing projects. The New York City Housing Authority long looked the other way as project residents took in pets. But two years ago, after tenants barraged a newly installed quality-of-life hotline with dog-related complaints, ranging from organized dog fighting to pit-bull attacks on other pets, the authority launched a campaign against vicious animals in public housing. Intimidating dogs had many residents, especially seniors, living in a "state of fear and terror," as authority spokesman Hilly Gross put it. Though ambiguous wording in the federal legislation may allow the authority to retain some restrictions, the new law invites disaster by permitting lots of pit bulls within biting distance of lots of children and old folks.

Pit bulls are also wreaking havoc on the city's public property. As Manhattan Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe observes, "Some pit-bull owners train their animals to fight by having them lock their jaws on rubber swings in children's playgrounds, which very quickly destroys the swings." The cost to taxpayers: $250,000 annually. "Perhaps more ominously," Benepe adds, "these owners have started to use young trees to train the pit bulls."

Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, aware of the property damage and sensitive to complaints from "terrorized" parents, joggers, and senior citizens about roving canines in city parks, now is enforcing the city's leash law, requiring owners to keep their dogs leashed between 9 AM and 9 PM, unless they are using one of the city's dog runs. The new campaign, targeting Central and Riverside Parks, issues $100 fines for first offenders and doubles the penalty, up to $1,000, for each subsequent offense. So far, despite howls from some pet owners, spot checks show the percentage of unleashed dogs down dramatically, as owners have gotten the message. Mail to the Parks Department has run three-to-one in favor of strict enforcement.

Stern's initiative follows closely on the heels of the Giuliani administration's proposed new dangerous-dog legislation, announced earlier this year. The mayor's proposal jacks up fines for owning a vicious dog, makes it easier for the city to label a dog dangerous, and requires pit-bull owners to purchase $100,000 in liability insurance before they can get a dog license. Predictably, the proposal has enraged dog owners.

According to New York City Health Commissioner Neal Cohen, the city needs the new law because of its high number of dog-inflicted injuries. The existing dangerous-dog law, on the books since 1991, has been ineffective in practice, because it requires the Department of Health, which adjudicates dog-bite cases, to prove that a dog wasn't "provoked" before it can label the animal dangerous and require it to be muzzled or impounded. As Cohen observes, "It is almost impossible to define what a particular dog subjectively perceives as a `provocation.' " The law also requires lengthy hearings before the city can take action. As then-Corporation Counsel Paul Crotty complained after a pit- bull attack in 1997 killed a Queens man, "It's a dopey law that puts the emphasis on protection of due-process rights of dogs . . . rather than on the protection of people."

Carvill seconds Weisberg's objection that the city's proposal threatens the due-process protections of pet owners. But the law's biggest defect, he says, is that it singles out a specific breed, in its requirement that pit-bull owners buy liability insurance. (The city's desire to regulate pit bulls is in seeming conflict with a 1997 state law, similar to those 11 other states have passed, that bars breed-specific local legislation.) For Carvill, all dogs are created equal; different breeds don't have different hereditary characteristics. "There is no dog born in this world with a predisposition to aggression," he firmly states.

But he's wrong, and dead wrong if we're talking about pit bulls. All men may be created equal, but not all dogs. Says Katherine Houpt, director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Cornell and author of Domestic Animal Behavior: "Different breeds have genetic predispositions to certain kinds of behavior, though that can be influenced by how they are raised. The pit bull is an innately aggressive breed, often owned by someone who wants an aggressive dog, so they're going to encourage it."

Pit bulls have been bred specifically to be aggressive. They're descended from the now- extinct old English "bulldogge," a big, tenacious breed used in the brutal early- nineteenth-century sport of bull baiting, in which rowdy spectators watched dogs tear apart an enraged bull. Victorian reformers, concerned about the coarsening effect bull baiting had on its devotees, banned it by the early 1830s, but enterprising bull baiters merely migrated to an equally bloody sport: organized dog fighting.

As Carl Semencic, author of several informative books on guard dogs, and a big pit-bull fan, describes it, the bulldogge owners made a striking discovery: "a cross between the bulldogge and any of the game [i.e., brave and tenacious] and relatively powerful terriers of the day produced a game, powerful, agile, and smaller, more capable opponent in the dog pits." These bull-and-terrier crosses became renowned for fighting prowess and soon were the only dogs used in organized dog fighting in England and later in the United States. To preserve the bull-and-terrier's pugnacious traits, the dogs were bred only to dogs of the same cross. Thus was born the pit-bull terrier, "the most capable fighting dog known to modern man," Semencic enthuses.

Yet Kovary is at least partially right when she says, "It's the two-legged beast, not the four-legged one, we have to worry about." One needs nature and nurture to create a truly nasty dog. Raised responsibly, the pit bull's good side can come to the fore. "Pit bulls can be playful, intelligent, athletic, loyal, and useful in sports," Kovary explains. But pit bulls have become enmeshed in the brutality of underclass culture, magnifying the breed's predisposition to aggression. "In the wrong hands," Kovary warns, "pit bulls can be bad news."

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