Posted on December 20, 2008 by Colleen Lynn

2008 Dog Bite Fatality: 2 Pit Bulls Attack, Kill 60-Year-Old Rubidoux Man

Deputies investigating the pit bull mauling death of Gerald Adelmund.

Victim Killed by Own Dogs
UPDATE 12/19/08: The Press-Enterprise reports the victim was the owner of the pit bulls. As expected, the larger male dog is now being described as a pit bull mastiff-mix and the smaller female dog as a pit bull. The dogs attacked him when he stepped outside of his home to smoke. Adelmund's family also authorized authorities to euthanize the female's nine puppies. Adelmund lived at the home with his son, daughter-in-law and their children, who are 2, 7 and 12 years old.

      Two dogs mauled their 60-year-old owner to death Friday afternoon when he stepped into the backyard of his Rubidoux home to smoke, officials said.
      Gerald Adelmund was declared dead at the cream-colored house in the 5700 block of Kenwood Place after deputies pulled him inside, said Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez...
      The dogs were described as a 4-year-old, 107-pound male, part pit bull and part mastiff, and a 52-pound female pit bull, about 6.
      The dogs were euthanized Friday by the Riverside County Department of Animal Services, with the permission of Adelmund's relatives, and are being tested for rabies, said Animal Services spokesman John Welsh.
      The family also authorized euthanizing the female's nine puppies, but it wasn't clear Friday if the puppies had been killed, Welsh said. - Jessica Logan, Laura Lucas, Press-Enterprise, December 19, 2008

12/19/08: Victim Identified
The victim has been identified as Gerald Adelmund of Riverside. Adelmund died at 12:20 pm near his home in the 5700 block of Kenwood Place, according to information from the Riverside County Coroner's Department. Officials believe Adelmund is related to the owner of the dogs. John Welsh, spokesman for the Riverside County Department of Animal Services, said that Animal services did not have past reports of problems from that home. Welsh added that both dogs were unaltered.

      The majority of dog attacks on humans involve animals who have not been spayed or neutered, he said.
      "We always encourage responsible pet ownership. Unaltered dogs are always more aggressive."
      Pit bulls were originally bred for fighting. But the breed's aggression is usually reserved for other animals, Welsh explained. - Inside SoCal, December 19, 2008

12/19/08: Nine Puppies in Back Yard
Additional information has been reported. There were no witnesses to the fatal attack. The adult, Hispanic male victim did live at the residence with the animals, though his relationship to the dogs' owner is still unclear. The male dog was 4-years old and weighed approximately 107 pounds (which indicates a pit bull-mix). The female was 6-years old and weighed about 52 pounds. Nine puppies were also found in the back yard. Both adult dogs have already been euthanized.

12/19/08: Riverside County Man Killed
Rubidoux, CA - In a developing story, a 60-year old man was brutally attacked and killed by two pit bulls in Rubidoux. The dogs are being described as family pets. Authorities do not yet know if the victim was the owner of the dogs. Sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez says the man was taking a smoking break in the backyard of the Rubidoux home where he lived when a male and a female pit bull attacked him shortly after noon Friday. The victim was dead when first responders arrived.

This marks the third fatal pit bull attack in this region (Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties) in the last 12 months. There have been troubling reports of two animal control agencies in the region as well. Ventura Co. Animal Services (and or the Simi Valley Police) failed to properly report the pit bull mauling of Katya Todesco, and the mayor of Lancaster recently ordered Los Angeles County Animal Services to implement a Pit Bull Sweep Operation to make the city safer.

View DogsBite.org Google Map

Posted on December 12, 2008 by Colleen Lynn

Who Authored the CDC Fatal Dog Attack Report (1979 to 1998)?

Fatalities by Breed (1979 to 1989)
DogsBite.org - Pit bull advocates claim that the 2000 CDC report, which recorded fatalities from 1997-1998 to encompass attacks since 1979, is inaccurate because it was based on media accounts. Yet the report was only "in part" reliant on media accounts and otherwise reliant on the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) registry of fatal attacks. Five people authored this report: Jeffrey Sacks, Leslie Sinclair, Julie Gilchrist, Gail Golab and Randall Lockwood.

All five authors openly oppose breed-specific laws. The CDC report reflects this bias as well: "From a scientific point of view, we are unaware of any formal evaluation of the effectiveness of breed-specific legislation in preventing fatal or nonfatal dog bites." This viewpoint is drawn despite the fact that pit bull laws are designed to stop serious and fatal pit bull maulings, not to prevent all dog bites. This statement is intended to dissuade cities from adopting breed-specific laws.

The panel of authors was also stacked in favor of protecting animals. There were three animal specialists (Sinclair, Golab and Lockwood) and only two human medical doctors (Sacks and Gilchrist). Given the panel's make up, it seems more likely that pit bull fatalities were underreported, not over reported as pit bull advocates claim. Despite the lopsided panel, pit bulls and their mixes accounted for a third of the total deaths (76) followed by rottweilers with 44.

Jeffrey Sacks, MD, MPH

In 1996, upon releasing, Fatal dog attacks, 1989-1994 (co-authored with Lockwood), Sacks makes his position on breed-specific laws clear. The report states, "Breed-specific approaches to the control of dog bites do not address the issue." Following the release of the 2000 CDC report, Sacks uses the same distortion voiced by pro-pit bull groups, "A dog of any breed can become dangerous," in an article published by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).

"A dog of any breed can become dangerous when bred or trained to be aggressive," Dr. Jeffrey Sacks, epidemiologist for the CDC, said. "Fatal attacks represent only a very small proportion of dog bite injuries and shouldn't be the primary factor driving public policy regarding dangerous dogs." - Jeffrey Sacks, JAVMA, November 15, 2000

Leslie Sinclair, DVM

In 1997, after an article titled, "Playing with pets can be doggone dangerous," appeared in the AAP News (American Academy of Pediatrics),1 Sinclair felt "compelled" to share her veterinary advice with the pediatrics community. In her argument of the old English sheepdog, Sinclair fails to point out that only one fatal sheepdog attack had been recorded in the HSUS registry of fatal attacks prior to 1997, versus 76 recorded fatal pit bull attacks in just a 20-year time span.

"The article was incorrect in asserting that there are "nonaggressive breeds" such as the old English sheepdog. According to the HSUS Dog Bite-Related Fatality Database, even this lovable breed of dog has been implicated in the death of a 7-year-old child." - Leslie Sinclair, AAP News, August 1997

In 1999, one year before the release of the CDC report, Sinclair is quoted in the article, "The Canine Companion, Breed Bans: Is There Another Way?" Sinclair states: "Pigeonholing a certain breed as dangerous and then banning it doesn't get rid of the problem." She adds the classic, "The Doberman pinscher was the "scary"2 dog of the 1970s, the Pit Bull in the 1980s..." Once again, Sinclair neglects to cite the differences in the number of deaths attributed to each breed.

Julie Gilchrist, MD

In the aforementioned 2000 AVMA article, "Responsible ownership the alternative to breed banning, other restrictions," Gilchrist states: "Dog bite reduction strategies are more likely to be effective if they focus on reducing inappropriate dog and dog owner behaviors, regardless of the dog's breed, instead of on banning specific breeds." The article is a propaganda piece by the AVMA, who strongly opposes pit bull laws, and also had a seat on the CDC author panel (Golab).

Gail C. Golab, PhD, DVM

Gail Golab, co-author of the study and assistant director of the AVMA Education and Research Division, was also quoted in the 2000 AVMA article. In her quote, Golab attempts to equate all dogs as being equally dangerous: "Breeds responsible for human fatalities have varied over time. Since 1975, dogs belonging to more than 30 breeds -- including Dachshunds, Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers, and a Yorkshire Terrier -- have been responsible for fatal attacks on people."

More recently, in 2008, Golab offers the Biased Toldeo Blade3 the same "knee-jerk reaction" phrase that is commonly used by pro-pit bull and animal groups. As a seasoned veterinarian and PhD, Golab also voices a striking distortion of the truth regarding how dog bites are recorded for statistical purposes. Dog bites are recorded by animal control officials, these same officials determine the breed of the offending dog, not the media, not the person bitten and not lawyers.

"Dr. Gail Golab, director of animal welfare for the American Veterinarian Medical Association, called Mr. Rodriguez irresponsible for not confining his dog properly. But she said breed-specific laws are a "knee-jerk" reaction by lawmakers who don't address the real issue" ...
"Dr. Golab said dog-bite statistics that suggest pit bulls bite most often are not necessarily accurate. They are hard to properly formulate, she said, because it's hard for some people to identify what breed bit them and the only bites that typically get recorded are ones reported in the media, to lawyers, or police." - Gail Golab, The Toledo Blade, July 13, 2008

Randall Lockwood, PhD

Finally, on the day the CDC's embargoed report was released, Lockwood calls the fatal dog attack problem a "people problem." Ironically, Lockwood's extensive past research about pit bulls was used to uphold the Denver pit bull ban. His research addresses the following genetic traits in pit bulls: Non-display of rising level of aggression and “surprise attacks”, higher tolerance to pain, tenacity in attacks, and leakage of human-aggressive pit bulls into the general population.4

"It's not a Rottweiler problem or a pit bull problem," said Randall Lockwood, the Humane Society's vice president for research and educational outreach. "It's a people problem." - Randall Lockwood, ABC News, September 15, 2000

To learn more about the authors of the CDC report, please see: Viewpoint: The CDC Fatal Dog Attack Report Issued in 2000 Was Positively Biased.

1Leslie Sinclair, "Doggone good advice," The AAP News 1997;13;27. A copy of this article can be found on page 6 of the above Viewpoint document.
2According to data gathered by Karen Delise, from 1970 to 1979 a Doberman was responsible for one death. During this same period, pit bulls were responsible for at least 5 deaths. Pro-pit bull advocates, such as Sinclair, frequently distort the truth about the 1970's, calling it the "scary" Doberman decade, when in fact pit bulls outranked the Doberman in deaths during the period. The CDC report, which covers the 2-decade period from 1979 to 1998, shows that pit bulls killed 78 persons versus the Doberman killing 10. The distortion that "killer breeds change every decade" is designed to hide the truth about pit bulls, which have been the top killers for over thirty years.
3In November 2009, the "Biased" Toledo Blade effectively forced the removal of Lucas County Dog Warden Tom Skeldon, the leading expert and enforcer of breed-specific laws in the United States.
4The Ethology and Epidemiology of Canine Aggression, by Randall Lockwood, The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behaviour, and Interactions with People, edited by James Serpell, Cambridge University Press, 1995.; republished in Animal Law and Dog Behavior, Ed. David Favre and Peter L. Borchelt, PhD, 1999

Posted on December 8, 2008 by Colleen Lynn

Expert, James Crosby, Testifies in Aurora Fighting Breed Ban

United States District Court for the District of Colorado on 19th Street in Denver.

Expert Blames Owners for Attacks
Aurora, CO - In a recent blog post, we wrote about the Aurora Fighting Breed ban. Last month, Chief U.S. District Judge Wiley Y. Daniel, ruled in favor of the City of Aurora. A pit bull owner named Florence Sasek, along with the American Canine Foundation (ACF), sued the city saying the city's fighting breed ban was "unconstitutional" and "vague." James Crosby was called on to testify as an expert witness for the plaintiffs. Crosby is listed as an expert on the ACF website. Judge Daniels rejected the plaintiff's claim and presumably Crosby's "expert" testimony.

The plaintiffs brought in an expert witness from Florida who testified that the breed is no more aggressive than any other dog.

James Crosby, the animal control manager in Panama City, Fla., told District Judge Wiley Daniel that dog attacks happen because of the owner, not the breed.

Outside the court, he said politicians go after the dog instead of real solutions.

"It's knee jerk," he said. "Something happens and politicians feel like they have to do something. The easiest thing is to legislate against the breed." - The Denver Channel, November 19, 2008

Back in July, DogsBite.org wrote a blog post about this expert witness. James Crosby is a pit bull owner and is aligned with various pit bull special interest groups, including the ACF, National Canine Research Council and Best Friends Animal Society. According to the DenverChannel, Crosby testified in Daniel's court that dog attacks happen because of the owner, not the breed. Sometime after July and prior to his recent expert testimony, content was removed from Crosby's website that indicated an awareness that pit bulls display unique behaviors when they attack.

Investigating Serious and Fatal Dog Attacks:
A Suggested Protocol, by James W. Crosby

The current protocol document located on Crosby's website (click left navigation: Investigative Protocol), previously had a section titled "Breed-Specific Legislation," which addressed behavioral differences that pit bulls display when they attack. DogsBite.org has included portions of this section below. The original protocol document is still in Google cache and can be accessed at our Scribd page as well. We have underlined areas for emphasis, but otherwise copied his original text exactly (including his typos):

"Enter now the Pit Bull, and other breeds speciﬁcally selected by Man to ﬁght each other. These animals have several concerning behavioral difference from most other canines. When they ﬁght, human intervention has selected for animals that do not turn off, and do not stop ﬁghting until one, or both, are dead. There is no surrender for these animals. A fully submissive body posture is no more than another opportunity for them to disembowel their adversary.

As a corollary to this, these dogs seem to have a shorter negotiation sequence. Many times we hear of a Pit Bull or similar dog that “…just went off…” The expected precursors to a full ﬁght seem to be lacking, much like the quick interactions we see with some teens and young adults these days; one insults another, and the ﬁrst response is to “…pop a cap…” into the offender. Even popular Pit Bull sites on the Internet admit that ﬁghts between Pit Bulls can occur with little or no warning."

"...These dogs already have a propensity for tenacity and continued aggression based on years of selective breeding. One than takes and, through fear, mistreatment, or misguided training, positively reinforces the display of aggressive behavior towards humans without the establishment of a clear set of controls. This animal has now learned to manipulate its environment, to its own benefit and sometimes safety, by directing aggressions towards people, with a genetically selected lack of an off button. A bad situation has now become tragically dangerous."

Part of Aurora's justification for its ban likely relied on evidence that pit bulls show little warning prior to an attack (Lockwood Pg 133). Many cities agree that the "sudden" nature of a pit bull attack presents a grave threat. Crosby's past writings reflected the same "little or no warning" behavior. He also stated that pit bulls "do not turn off." Selective breeding for tenacity -- the ability to keep attacking even after serious pain is inflicted upon it -- is another reason why cities regulate pit bulls. Crosby's writings addressed this aspect as well.

The argument to regulate pit bulls is not about why they attack (bad ownership or otherwise), it's about how a pit bull attack differs from an attack by other dog breeds, and the substantial threat this poses to members of the community.

James Crosby (also known as Jim Crosby) is the animal control manager in Bay County, Florida.

Posted on November 27, 2008 by Colleen Lynn

2008 Dog Bite Fatality: 2-Year Old Boy Killed by Family Pit Bull in Clark County, Nevada

Alexander Adams, 2-years old, was killed by his family's pit bull-mix.

Case Concludes
UPDATE 12/03/08: Police spokesman Bill Cassell could offer no theory as to why the family pit bull killed Alexander Adams. The boy's grandmother was walking with the dog's food bowl into a room where the dog was normally fed. The toddler followed and was attacked, he said. "While it's possible that the presence of food, combined with the young victim in the area where the dog was normally fed, triggered the attack, there is nothing definitive that can be determined," Cassell said.

11/28/08: Dogs Described as Pit Bulls
In an updated report, the Review-Journal reiterated again that police spokesman Bill Cassell described the dogs as part pit bull and that possibly both were involved in the deadly attack. The dogs "were at least pit bull mixes," he told the Journal. It is important to point out that pit bull owners and animal control departments will intentionally mislabel pit bulls as boxer-mixes, lab-mixes and other mixes in order to "protect" the breed after serious and fatal maulings.

A police spokesman, Officer Bill Cassell, says investigators might never know what triggered the Nov. 26 attack at a house in northwest Las Vegas.

But he says it happened after the boy followed his grandmother into a room where the pit bull or pit bull mixed breed dog was being fed.

The boy was fatally mauled and the grandmother suffered minor injuries. - Associated Press, December 3, 2008

11/27/08: Second Death in Clark County
Las Vegas, NV - In a developing story, a 2-year-old boy was fatally attacked by at least one dog at his home on the 6200 block of Warm River Road near Washington Avenue. Las Vegas police spokesman Bill Cassell said the boy and his younger brother were being taken care of by their grandmother when the child was fatally bitten. Cassell described the dogs as "mix-breed terriers" and that the dogs also might be a "type of pit bull pit bull" weighing between 40-45 pounds.

On September 12, 4-month-old Cenedi Kia Carey was fatally mauled by her family's two pit bulls in North Las Vegas. In that deadly attack, the child was also under the care of her grandmother.

View the DogsBite.org Google State Map: Nevada Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.

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