BRATTLEBORO — I recently was in a store, and a guy came in wearing a Marine Corps hat carrying a child of about 2 years old. The child’s face had about 30 stitches from forehead to throat.
I won’t mention the breed that did this, except to say that the dog was known to the child, and that 2 million such adult animals are put down per year in the U.S. Including puppies, that would make about 10 million.
Of course, people always say, “It’s not the dog, it’s the owner,†as if that justifies continuous breeding. In New York City, dog shelters don’t take this kind of dog any more since a) they have a depressing effect on other dogs in the shelter so no one wants the other dogs, and b) why would you want one of this breed when you don’t know what it has been through?
I would like to stress I like dogs, and they like me, too, but there is no need to breed this kind of dog anymore since there are already so many of them that no one wants, to the tune of 10 million of them a year, and the statistics around their violence are both established and radical.
This is not a prescription that this kind of dog will “snap†and savage someone, and I know dog owners who understand dogs sufficiently to be able to manage hunter/killer types, but that is not so many people.
The 2-year-old in the store is not going to lose an eye. That’s good.
Please notice that I have not expressed an opinion here, it is the plainest of plain reporting of what is in front of our noses — if you still have one.