Posted on September 17, 2013 by Colleen Lynn

Dramatic Decline in Attacks by Pit Bulls Since Pawtucket Adopted Pit Bull Ban in 2004

Bites Drop Dramatically
Pawtucket, RI - The Valley Breeze recently published over 13-years of pit bull bite data showing the long-term success of Pawtucket's 2004 pit bull ban. The Breeze gained the data through an open records request to the Pawtucket Police Department and Pawtucket Animal Control. After enforcement of the ban began in 2004, attacks inflicted by pit bulls on people and pets in the city quickly plunged into scarcity. Citizens and their pets enjoy this same scarcity of attacks today.

In the 4-years leading up to the ban, there were 52 instances of attacks on people. In the 10-years after the ban, there were only 13.1

John Holmes, Pawtucket's veteran animal control officer and proponent of the ban, said the numbers before and after the pit bull ban "speak for themselves." Holmes added that the last serious attack in Pawtucket was the day the bill was approved by the General Assembly, which was June 9, 2004 according to the legislative body's website.2 Residents have been safer because of the ban, he said. "Public safety has always been the issue," Holmes said.

Charting and Analyzing the Results

To look more closely at the data, DogsBite.org charted it visually and separated out 4-year blocks for comparison. Table 1 shows the immediate impact of the ban after it came into enforcement and how this impact continues today. All over the country -- in jurisdictions that do not regulate this breed -- severe pit bull attacks are rising, specifically since 2007, the year of Michael Vick, when national animal groups began extensive campaigns to "rebrand" and adopt out the breed.

To show readers this difference, we visually charted statistics from the 31-year summary compiled by Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People. Table 2 shows the number of disfiguring and maiming attacks inflicted by pit bulls from 2002 to 2013 across the U.S. and Canada. Municipalities that regulate pit bulls are immune to the skyrocketing post-Vick trend. Again, driven largely by national humane groups ramping up their pit bull advocacy and the almighty pit bull propaganda machine.

Statistics compiled by Clifton involve worst-case dog attack scenarios: serious bodily injuries and maimings ("mauling injuries") and fatalities inflicted by dogs broken down by breed. We only charted mauling injuries in this comparison, as well as the two victim types: adults and children. In addition to pit bulls and their mixes accounting for 60% of the mauling injuries in Clifton's full report,3 the breed attacks adults almost as often as children, a rare pattern amongst dog breeds.

Table 3 breaks out Pawtucket pit bull bite data into three sets. The first is the four years leading up the ban, 2000 to 2003. The second is the four years after the ban, 2004 to 2007. The last is the most recent four years of data, 2009 to 2012.4 In the four years after the ban, there is an 85% reduction in the average number of people attacked by pit bulls per year, 13 to 2 accordingly. The most recent period, 2009 to 2012, shows an even greater reduction 92%, 13 to 1 accordingly.

Attacks upon animals were sharply reduced after the ban's enforcement began as well. Of the combined attacks upon people and animals, the four years prior to the ban shows that the average number of attacks per year was 18. In the data set following the ban, 2004 to 2007, the average number of attacks per year decreased by 77%, 18 to 4 accordingly. The most recent data set, 2009 to 2012, shows an even greater decrease in attacks per year, 94%, 18 to 1 accordingly.

Download the related PDF file that contains all three tables and source data materials.

Backdrop of the Pawtucket Pit Bull Ban

On July 10, just days before Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee signed a statewide bill prohibiting municipalities from adopting breed-specific laws, Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien and City Council President David Moran sent a joint letter to Chafee asking that he veto the legislation. The letter in part cited the effectiveness of Pawtucket's pit bull ban, pointing out the reduced intake and euthanasia of pit bulls and the absence of vicious dog hearings since its passage in 2004.

We've included part of the letter (See: Letter in full):

During the early 2000's, Pawtucket Animal Control Officers responded to many calls about pit bulls seriously injuring people and injuring or killing other animals. Two of the worst cases involved a nine-month pregnant woman who received deep cuts to her arms, legs, shoulder and a broken arm and a child who received severe facial injuries from a pit bull bite to the face. While many of these attacks were caused by pit bulls escaping from their owners' control, other attacks were the result of drug dealers using pit bulls to attack police officers during drug raids.
While proponents of the bill will argue that single-breed ordinances do not work, the results in Pawtucket dramatically prove that they do work. The ordinance banning pit bulls in Pawtucket has worked exceedingly well. In 2003, the year before our ordinance took effect, 135 pit bulls were taken in at the Pawtucket Animal Control Shelter for a variety of health and safety reasons, all from Pawtucket, none from mutual aid, with 48 pit bulls needing to be euthanized. In 2012, 72 pit bulls were taken in, only 41 from Pawtucket, with only six needing to be euthanized. That's a tremendous improvement.
In a June 28, 2013, story in The Times of Pawtucket, a reporter wrote that Dr. E. J. Finocchio, director of the RI Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, stated that before Pawtucket banned pit bulls in 2004 RISPCA regularly convened vicious dog hearings for pit bulls corralled in Pawtucket. The reporter quoted Dr. Finocchio as saying, "Since the city passed that law we have not had a vicious dog hearing come out of Pawtucket." We believe that our ordinance is certainly working.

July 10, 2013
Mayor Donald Grebien
City Council President David Moran

On July 17, Governor Chafee signed the anti-BSL bill into law anyway (note his 28% approval rating in April), no doubt persuaded by heavy lobbying from national humane groups, the AKC, AVMA and a host of rabid local and national pit bull advocacy groups. It was a grave error by Chafee that promises Rhode Island cities a "forever home" inside the post-Vick skyrocketing trend of disfigurements, maulings and maimings by pit bulls and unwanted pit bulls overloading shelters.

Less than two months later, first-term Governor Chafee, announced that he would not seek re-election. The promised "animal vote" did not save him. As pollster Joseph Fleming pointed out in the September Providence Journal article, "All the poll numbers over the last three years showed him with very low job-approval ratings. … I didn't see any scenario that had him winning as an independent or Democratic candidate. The numbers just weren’t there for the governor."

Sadly, when The Breeze published parts of the letter by Mayor Grebien and Councilor Moran one day before Chafee signed the anti-BSL law, the article noted that Grebien had been a strong Chafee supporter who "had Chafee speak at his 2011 inauguration and has remained closely aligned with the governor." In signing the bill, Chafee not only handcuffed municipalities statewide and opened up the floodgates to new pit bull mauling victims, he also turned against a friend.

Politics is politics my dear friend, even when it results in children getting their faces ripped off.

The Impending "Token" Nutter Lawsuit

Statewide anti-BSL laws are not always absolute. Home rule jurisdictions, such as Denver, can supersede state law and pre-existing ordinances, like Miami-Dade County's pit bull ban, can be protected. Grebien and Moran state in their letter a close situation: "Since Pawtucket's ordinances were in place prior to passage of this bill, which appears to be prospective in nature, we do not necessarily believe that the legislation will prevent us from enforcing our ban on pit bulls."

After the governor signed the anti-BSL law, Pawtucket has continued to enforce their ban. It's hardly a surprise that a token Nutter popped up in Pawtucket with willing financiers not long after its passage. Resident Al Alix, the owner of a pit bull named "Chubs," is threatening to sue the city after receiving multiple off-leash violations and owning a prohibited breed. If the city continues proceedings against him after the September 20 leash violation hearing,5 Alix promises a "battle."

Alix is promising a battle against the city he's called home since he was a child, saying he'll work to put an end to Pawtucket's 2004 ban on pit bulls. Financing his effort will be the Defenders of Animals, a Providence-based group with a mission "to defend the inalienable rights of both companion animals and wildlife..."
---snip---
Providence-based Law Office of Mark Morse serves as legal counsel to the Defenders of Animals and is representing the organization and Alix as they fight Pawtucket's pit bull ban and to uphold a new state law prohibiting such breed-specific ordinances. Ethan Shorey, The Valley Breeze, August 17, 20136

In response to The Breeze publishing Pawtucket pit bull bite statistics, Alix echoed his lawsuit threat and standard pro-pit bull propaganda. He also said that "Pawtucket 'doesn't stand a chance' if this conflict comes down to a court battle." Please review the language of the bill signed by Governor Chafee. The case against Pawtucket's pit bull ban is not a slam-dunk as Alix suggests. Pawtucket is also a home rule city whose local ordinances might supersede state law.

Conclusion: Pit Bull Laws Save Lives

The success of the City of Patwucket's 2004 pit bull ban is indisputable. Not only has the ban dramatically reduced the number of attacks by pit bulls on people and pets, but as Holmes has consistently emphasized over time, and was included in the June 10 letter to the governor by Grebien and Moran, pit bull euthanasia and shelter intake rates have been greatly reduced as well. Meanwhile, jurisdictions lacking pit bull ordinances suffer the post-Vick mauling horror story.

1The Breeze erred in their article stating 51 instead of 52.
2The Breeze also lumped all of 2004 data into one year, despite the General Assembly not approving the ban until June 9, 2004, half way through the year. We tried contacting multiple entities to determine when "enforcement" of the ban actually began, was it January 1 or June 9, 2004? We were unable to gain this information prior to the release of this post. If enforcement of the ban did not begin until June 9, combined with Holme's statement that the last serious attack occurred "the day the bill was signed into law" (by the General Assembly), it is very likely the comparison of the pre-ban and post-ban periods would be even more dramatic than what is charted.
3The full report, Dog Attack Deaths and Maimings, U.S. & Canada, is updated on DogsBite.org every December. For the purposes of this blog post, we requested pit bull summary data for the years 2012 and 2013 from Clifton.
42013 is not a full year at this time, thus it was not used as part of the 4-year data sets.
5The hearing was originally scheduled for September 13, but was postponed to the 20th.
6Defenders of Animals is the very Providence-based group that initiated the anti-BSL bill, which gained the backing of North Providence legislators, an area with a rising number of pit bull incidents.

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Colleen Lynn

2013 Dog Bite Fatality: 5-Year Old Alaska Boy Mauled to Death by Husky-Mix

Dog Put Down
UPDATE 09/16/13: It was reported late Monday by the Anchorage Daily News that Kotzebue police have destroyed the husky-mix believed to have killed 5-year old Jordan Lee Reed. Police said the dog was traced and captured near to where the boy's body was found. "(The dog) was determined to be the animal that had attacked and killed the child," said police chief Eric Swisher in a statement Monday. No other information regarding the ongoing investigation was provided.

As we pointed out in our May post, DogsBite.org Releases 8-Year U.S. Dog Bite Fatality State Map (2005 to 2012), of all U.S. states, Alaska has the highest incidence rate per 100,000 of dog bite fatalities. The death of Jordan Lee Reed ensures that Alaska will maintain this position.

View Family tribute video

09/15/13: Child Killed by Loose Dog
Kotzebue, AK - In a developing story, a 5-year old Kotzebue boy was found dead early Sunday after being mauled by one or more loose dogs, according to the Kotzebue Police Department. Jordan Lee Reed had been playing outside in front of his family's home Saturday night when he was reported missing just after 10:30 pm. Police and search and rescue teams combed the area looking for the boy through the night. He was discovered dead in an open field at 4:10 am.1

Police captured several loose dogs in the area, one of which was determined to have been involved in his death. Police did not say what breed or breeds of dogs killed the boy. Roaming aggressive dogs have been an increasing problem in the Northwest Arctic town. Mayor Nathan Kotch told the Anchorage Daily News that city council recently revised to its existing animal control ordinance because people feared that children were not safe walking to and from school.

"We were all dreading something like this happening. We talked about it when we passed the ordinance," Kotch said.

The stricter ordinance went into effect a few months ago, Kotch said. It requires people with "dogs on a 'vicious breeds' list to have insurance coverage for their animals." (No details of the "vicious breeds" list were provided.) It also requires these dogs to be securely penned and penalizes owners who fail to follow the rules with stiff fines, he said. The city tried to inform the public about this issue by putting the police chief on the radio, he said, stressing responsible dog ownership.

1This is the third "search and rescue mission" for a child in the past 17 months that was the result of a fatal dog attack: Kylar Johnson, 4-years old of Victoria County, TX and Bryton Cason, 4-years old of Donalsonville, GA.

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Colleen Lynn

DogsBite.org Founder Responds to Local Criticism

DogsBite.org - This is our letter to Burnaby Now after a defamation attempt by Kathy Powelson, Executive Director at Paws for Hope Animal Foundation (Burnaby, Canada). We not only fight false allegations -- that Burnaby Now printed with zero evidence -- on a daily basis since our inception in 2007 in the United States, we fight them in Canada too. Lacking market share does not equate to lacking credibility. The highest court in Maryland validated our credibility.

Re: Letter to the editor, Breed-specific language ‘inherently flawed and does not work,’ Burnaby NOW, Sept. 10, 2013.

Dear Editor:

DogsBite.org advocates on behalf of victims of serious dog attacks. The United States-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization also tracks U.S. dog bite fatalities, dog bite injury studies, jurisdictions with breed-specific laws and appellate court rulings that uphold these laws.

Statistical data from DogsBite.org is cited in the peer-reviewed scientific medical study, Mortality, Mauling, and Maiming by Vicious Dogs, published in the Annals of Surgery in April 2011. The study's conclusion: "Attacks by pit bulls are associated with higher morbidity rates, higher hospital charges, and a higher risk of death than are attacks by other breeds of dogs. Strict regulation of pit bulls may substantially reduce the US mortality rates related to dog bites."

The amicus brief DogsBite.org submitted in the landmark case, Tracey v. Solesky, helped move Maryland's highest court to modify common law. In April 2012, the Court of Appeals declared pit bulls "inherently dangerous" and attached strict liability when a pit bull attacks a person. This liability extends to landlords when a tenant's pit bull attacks a person.

The Maryland Court of Appeals went as far as pointing out in their decision -- concerning the opposing brief written by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which sought to eliminate a financial remedy for the young mauling victim -- the following: "Some are similar to the arguments made in the appellant or amicus’ briefs filed in the present case by supporters of pit bulls. In light of Maryland’s situation, we find those particular arguments unpersuasive. We have fully reviewed and considered all the briefs."

Research and statistical data from DogsBite.org has exceptional credibility with appellate court justices, surgeons and medical practitioners, attorneys who champion and represent dog mauling victims, the many local, national and international news agencies which have cited our data, parents and activists and of course the victims themselves.

Colleen Lynn
Founder and President, DogsBite.org
Austin, TX

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Colleen Lynn

Maul Talk Manual 2.0: A Guide to Understanding the Language of Pit Bull Owners and Advocates

Maul Talk Manual
DogsBite.org - In September 2010, Maul Talk Manual Version 1.0, A Guide to Understanding the Language of Pit Bull Owners and Advocates, was launched. The manual is now in Version 2.0 and holds nearly 200 terms about the U.S. pit bull mauling epidemic. City officials considering breed-specific legislation should browse the manual, as you will interface with these terms and distortion tactics employed by pit bull owners, advocates and animal groups also tracked by the website.

Version 2.0 brings the frontrunners of the pit bull disinformation campaign into sharper focus, which continues to be Ledy Vankavage -- a lobbyist for Best Friends Animal Society and board member of Animal Farm Foundation -- and the National Canine Research Council. The latter two companies are owned and operated by Jane Rotrosen Berkey.1 These two middle-aged women are the primary forces that "seed" and steer the weighty U.S. pit bull propaganda machine.

Along with Vankavage and Berkey et al., pumping out volumes of dangerous disinformation for their followers to disseminate across the Internet, they also target and exploit "real" animal lovers who readily believe the myth, "It's all how you raise them." They leverage this naïve advocacy base (often young adult females) to help spread their agenda. Unwittingly, these same activists escalate the number of pets and livestock slaughtered annually by pit bull animal aggression.

The Pit Bull Propaganda Machine

Some terms have taken new form or have been made obsolete in Version 2.0, including Pit Nutter, which has been shorten to "Nutter," and now specifically designates "purveyors" of false pit bull myths. "Nanny Dog" was made obsolete due to factual historical research and Bad Rap finally admitting the myth to be false, though for a fictitious reason, during Dog Bite Prevention Week 2013. The ASPCA and Best Friends, however, still endorse the myth on their corporate websites.

Another obsolete term is "bait dogs." Last year, blogger Snack Sized Dog, caught Animal Farm Foundation dictating to their minions that, "bait dogs are mostly an urban legend." For a long time, pit bull advocates used this deceptive term to describe any scarred, worn toothed, cowering or stolen pit bull. The term was used to amplify pit bull victimization, as well as to obscure fighting dogs seized from busts, allegedly, "They're only bait dogs, and can be rehabilitated in a snap!"

Berkey's group begged their followers to discard the term because it "perpetuates the stereotypes and discrimination against 'pit bull' dogs."

As Snack Size Dog predicted in the 2012 post, the discarding of "bait dogs" was a strategic step toward declaring dogfighting an urban myth for the same reasons. In July, Megan Stearns of the Humane Society of Chittenden County upped the ante claiming, "there is no shared genetic lineage among dogs commonly assumed to be pit bulls" -- aka thousands of years of selective breeding for bull baiting2 and a few hundred more for dogfighting is simply a "social construct."

On a related note, Stearns' letter to the editor was in response to a pit bull article published by Seven Days in late June, "Local Ad Campaign Seeks to Soften Pit Bulls' Dangerous Image," that featured Miss Vermont kissing a pit bull. In fanatical, fringe rhetoric -- growing more common in humane groups -- Stearns complained that the article was "unbalanced" and no better than a "racial slur afflicting people," causing the "mass destruction of thousands" of family pit bulls.3

In a 2013 report, Animal People estimates that two-thirds of the pit bulls entering U.S. shelters annually are surrendered by their "keeper."4

Zealous, misguided activists like Stearns have few reasoning capabilities and always choose to ignore documented facts. When breed-specific pit bull laws are enacted two things happen: 1.) Attacks by pit bulls decrease5 and 2.) Shelter population and euthanasia rates of pit bulls decrease.6 What happens after a city repeals a pit bull law? Cincinnati repealed their longstanding pit bull ban nearly 1.5 years ago. Here are the results from August (Caution: pit bull puff piece):

It has been nearly 15 months since Cincinnati repealed its ban on pit bulls, deciding no longer to label the dogs as vicious by definition. So people can own pits – and they can also get rid of them ... At the end of July, at the Sharonville facility, SPCA President and CEO Harold Dates identified 62 of the 90 available animals as appearing to be possibly pit bulls or pit bull mix. The results were similar in the SPCA facility in Northside on a recent visit, when 41 of the 48 dogs up for adoption appeared to be pit bull breeds, which have a fairly distinct look. (John Faherty, Cincinnati.com, Aug 5, 2013)

The "ridders" are likely people who bought into deceptive propaganda -- brewed and circulated by Vankavage and Berkey -- then realized the truth. Note the time frame in Cincinnati, 15 months. Pit bulls begin to show destructive behavior traits, such as the "hold and shake" bite style and animal aggression, when sexual maturity is reached at about 1.5 years old. Puppies are not sold at birth, but rather at 2 to 3 months of age, thus the Cincinnati shelter numbers are hardly a revelation.

As the language of pit bull owners, "breed enthusiasts" and extreme pit bull advocacy groups shifts and grows, the Maul Talk Manual will continue to track these terms and trends. The Maul Talk Manual is also a free Android app. Submissions can be sent to maultalker --at-- gmail.com

Recent Maul Talk Manual 2.0 Terms

“I heard it on NPR” - This term stems from an underhanded attack on Jeff Borchardt, the father of a boy killed by his babysitter’s two pit bulls in Wisconsin. After his death, a pit bull defender alleged in a Letter to the Editor that Borchardt was negligent and that she "heard a story on NPR" about a Wisconsin toddler that was killed by a Jack Russell -- as a comparison -- but NPR never ran such a story.
“So sorry for your loss … BUT” - Refers to a branch of zealous pit bull advocates who comment on mauling threads or write directly to the parents of children killed by a pit bull. They care “nothing for social norms and will break them with impunity if it serves their purpose.” which in this case involves defending the pit bull breed. The “BUT” follows the superficial expression of trying to appear socially normal.
“Just like any other dog” - Pit bulls are “just like any other dog” is a phrase mainly trumpeted by animal groups connected to Ledy Vankavage, such as Best Friends Animal Society (lobbyist) and Animal Farm Foundation (board member). Unlike a similar phrase used by the same groups, “all dogs are individuals,” the slogan, pit bulls are “just like any other dog,” is a total denial of the existence of breed traits.
“OPIG” - A recent gathering in Riverside, California shows another Organized Pit Bull Idiocy Group (OPIG) marching to ensure that the colossal animal control resources already consumed by pit bulls continues unchecked and that maulings by pit bulls continue ad nauseum. OPIGs offer no solutions to shelters filled with unwanted pit bulls from coast to coast. Nor do they offer solutions to reduce mauling injuries.
“Stockholm Nutter” - Stockholm Nutter is derived from the base term “Nutter” and is part of several combined terms, such as pre- and post-Nutter. A Stockholm Nutter is exactly what it suggests: A pit bull owner who has been at the receiving end of the destruction these dogs inflict, but still has empathy, sympathy and positive feelings for the breed. Stockholm syndrome is described as a form of “traumatic bonding."
“I don't understand it" - After the catastrophic pit bull mauling of Linda Henry, her boyfriend said, “I don’t know why they did it … I don’t understand it.” Three of the couple’s pit bulls ambushed Henry after she walked into her home. The woman lost an eye, ear and both arms in the horrific assault. “I don’t understand it” is the denial of well documented attack traits repeatedly seen in damaging pit bull maulings.
“Could not stop it” - After a pet pit bull attacked Ryan Maxwell killing him, the dog's owner, Ashiya Ferguson, emphatically declared: “Oh God, it was so horrible. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop it.” Ferguson is hardly alone in the inability to stop a tenacious pit bull attack, which is part one of why some cities regulate this dog breed. Part two is the damage this breed inflicts during its assault.

1Berkey also runs a literary agency. In addition to helping author Susan Wilson (who is listed as a client) spin a tale about a "philosophical" pit bull, she was also Diane Jessup's agent, "The Dog Who Spoke with Gods."
2While bull baiting was popular in the Middle Ages, many pit bull websites trace the blood sport back to the Romans and Greeks. The "holding and pinning" of the bull (or bear) is what developed the breed's damaging bite style.
3Note to Stearns: As revealed in the 2013 U.S. shelter report published in Animal People, as well as the data about Cincinnati shelters, pit bull "keepers" are largely to blame for the so-called "mass destruction" of these dogs.
4U.S. progress toward becoming a no-kill nation stalled in 2012-2013, by Merritt Clifton, Animal People, July/August 2013, Pg 12-13.

"Throughout this time, about a third of the U.S. pit bull population have been under one year of age, about a third appear to be in homes they will still occupy a year later, and about a third per year have entered animal shelters, about two-thirds surrendered by their keepers, most of the rest impounded for dangerous behavior. Most of these dogs have already been through three homes––their birth home, the home that bought them, and a subsequent pass-along home, before they arrive at shelters."
5Cities with Successful Pit Bull Laws; Data Shows Breed-Specific Laws Work, by DogsBite.org, Updated July 16, 2013.
62011 U.S. shelter killing data update, by Merritt Clifton, Animal People, July/August 2011.

"The major U.S. cities killing the fewest pit bulls--San Francisco, Denver, and Miami--all enforce breed-specific legislation. San Francisco requires pit bulls to be sterilized; Denver and Miami prohibit keeping pit bulls within city limits. Cumulatively, San Francisco, Denver, and Miami kill about 40% fewer dogs of any breed than the U.S. national average."

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