Animals for the ethical treatment of people

Earlier this summer, a 5-year-old child with Down’s syndrome was reported missing. Hours later her body was found. Authorities charged the girl’s mother with involuntary manslaughter. But wait – this little girl was not killed by her mother. She was mauled to death by the neighbor’s dog.

With Michael Vick’s dog-fighting scandal fresh in the news, animal activists are pushing for laws to protect pit bulls. But what about laws to protect humans – especially children – from vicious animals?

PETA wants people to treat animals better. Where is AETP, Animals for the Ethical Treatment of People? Is there a Lassie or a Benji out there somewhere who will advocate for children? We need such an advocate, because the human public seems more interested in protecting the vicious dogs.

In Paducah a six-year-old boy was mauled by a neighbor’s Alaskan malamute. The boy is recovering. Community response? People fought over the dog, begging authorities not to euthanize it. They said he deserved “a second chance.” A second chance to do what? Make a clean kill next time?

About the same time, a child in Niagara Falls, New York was bitten in the face by a repeat offender. The shepherd mix had bitten another child just two weeks earlier.

The public did respond when Kaitlyn Hassard’s retriever choked her to death with her neck scarf: Over 300 people wanted to adopt the killer dog. If it had been the 6-year-old girl in trouble, how many families would have begged to adopt her? (Hint: Ask social services how many “older” children wait indefinitely on their adoption lists.) Many pet-owners were outraged that the dog was put up for adoption at all, insisting that the girl’s mother was at fault. “She should have never taken her eyes off her that kid for a minute.” Of course, they say the same thing every time a pit bull tears a little child’s face off.

Dozens of news stories each year report on small children disfigured or fatally mauled by such dogs. Invariably, the owner states the behavior was “totally out of character” and the dog was always gentle till now. Does it not occur to these pet owners that “out of character” behavior is very much in character for certain animals?

Pit bulls are not teddy bears, after all. These are large creatures with sharp fangs set in powerful jaws. They are bred to kill. Every fiber of their being is designer-engineered to clamp down on a throat and shake until the victim stops struggling. You can train some of them to act nice most of the time – much as a lion can be tamed – but the killer instinct is there, just beneath the surface, like a trip wire waiting to be triggered.

After the attack comes the tug-of-war between officials who want to destroy the dangerous animal, and the bleeding heart animal lovers who want to “rehabilitate” the animal or (more likely) proclaim its innocence while blaming the mother. If a dog ever harms one of my sweet babies, this will not be an issue. Instead, the two groups can haggle over disposal of the remains.

Ontario banned ownership of pit bulls after a toddler was attacked by three pit bulls that leapt a fence to tear into him. The rescue required half a dozen people and four of them, including both the boy’s parents, required hospitalization. The ban made sense to the province’s attorney general Michael Bryant, who said, “Just as we wouldn’t let a great white shark in a swimming pool, maybe we shouldn’t have these animals on the civilized streets.”

Some counties and one state (Virginia) actually have a vicious dog registry. If officials know where these dangerous animals are, why not destroy them before they can hurt anyone? These animals are desired because of their killer tendencies, not in spite of them. That’s why breeders breed them, that’s why people buy them, and we ought to just admit it.

Absurdly, families increasingly adopt a vicious breed and then domesticate it to play with children. According to a study by Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, just three breeds are responsible for 74% of all attacks. Pit bulls top the list, followed by rottweilers, then German shepherds. The Centers for Disease Control says pit bulls kill three times as many people as rottweilers.

In over two-thirds of the cases Clifton studied, the very first known dangerous behavior of the animal proved to be fatal or life-threatening. Dogs bite 4.7 million people annually, and 800,000 dog bites require medical attention. In fact, dogs are the second leading cause of emergency room visits by children.

The majority of offending dogs bite someone at their own home or another familiar place. These dogs aren’t defending the home place, either; 77% are attacking their human family or close friends of the family.

According to the National Canine Research Council, fatal dog attacks are on the rise, having doubled in the last five years. Meanwhile, America seems to have lost all reason when it comes to pets. Dear Abby recently had to advise a reader that, no, it is not okay to shut your 2-year-old alone in a room so the boyfriend’s aggressive dog “Crusher” can roam the house. People have birthday parties for their dogs. They buy RVs so they can take them on vacation, and dress them in Halloween costumes. Some dogs have better health insurance than Georgia’s children.

In local papers, the pet food scandal gets far more press than the proliferation of lead in children’s toys and vinyl lunch boxes. Baby formula recalls are rarely mentioned in the paper, even when deadly bacteria is discovered in cans of fake breast milk. Week after week, we read how China is poisoning our pets. Does anyone care that they are poisoning our children? How easily we shrug off a host of companies committing fraud against children, including corporate giants like toxic-toy Mattel, and the formula-maker Nestle who is responsible for killing a million babies per year. Apparently, they can take our children. Just don’t hurt Fido!

Getting back to Michael Vick, it is interesting to note the extreme responses of the public, the press and even the NFL. Sure, his actions were heinous. But is dog-fighting really a worse crime than assaulting and stalking women? So many professional athletes have been accused of domestic violence that we have long since lost count. Their coaches have been known to bail them out of jail and put them on the field the very next day.

Bobby Chinourd – one of the few athletes actually to be convicted – was sentenced to just one year for terrorizing and threatening to kill his wife. The judge let him serve the sentence in 3-month increments during the off-season, not wanting to limit his time on the field. When Kobe Bryant was accused of raping a woman in a hotel, he received a tremendous outpouring of sympathy and support. Even Rae Curruth, who paid someone to kill his pregnant girlfriend, did not elicit the public outrage aimed at Michael Vick.

When Hawaii quarterback Raphel Cherry was convicted of strangling his wife, head coach June Jones responded, "It just makes you sick for him and his family.” What makes me sick is that athletes who mistreat women garner more sympathy than an athlete who mistreated dogs. Our culture values animals more highly than women and children.

I like dogs. My family still laughs at how I spent one childhood summer living in a cardboard box on the porch because I didn’t want to be away from my mutt Old Yellar. I cried for two days when Old Yellar was struck by a car and died, and I have cried over several dogs since then. I won’t argue with the concept that all dogs go to heaven. I just think some should go sooner than others.