Community Chat

[Kachina624]

In my small state, New Mexico, we've had two deaths in the past week due to attacks by trusted family pets who were pit bulls. In the first, an elderly man was watering plants on his front porch with the dog as a companion. His son found his dad when he returned home from work. The scene was so gruesome that police couldn't even describe it. This man had been attacked several years ago by another of his pit bulls. The son did not even want the dog euthanized because he said his dad loved the dog and wouldn't have wanted that. The dog was put down under the state's dangerous dog act.

In the second case a 16 month old girl was in her fenced yard with her grandmother and the family dog, a pit bull. The dog attacked the child; the grandmother tried to pull the dog off her and the dog then attacked the grandmother. A neighbor heard the screams, got a gun and tried to shoot the dog but missed and the bullet went into the grandmother's leg. The dog retreated to a side yard when the neighbor was able to kill it. The grandmother will be OK but the child died before she got to the hospital.

Why do people insist on keeping these dogs? There are so many trustworthy loving dogs that need homes. The pit bull seems to be unpredictable; both these dogs were well treated, not tied up or teased. They were both well-cared for and much loved.

We had a poster here a couple of years ago that described an attack on her by the family's beloved pit bull that they'd raised from puppy hood. It's very sad that we must constantly hear about these attacks all over the US, and so unnecessary.