My friend Michael at Furbearers.com interviewed Dr Karen Overall and Montréal SPCA in June, when that city's descent into inhumanity began
You can listen at this link.
Enjoy!
My friend Michael at Furbearers.com interviewed Dr Karen Overall and Montréal SPCA in June, when that city's descent into inhumanity began
You can listen at this link.
Enjoy!
Posted at 03:01 PM in Education, Montreal, Take Your Breed Ban and Shove It, Witch Hunts | Permalink | Comments (0)
For your interest, I am posting the affidavit by Dr Karen Overall from the case against Denver by Dias et al.
Dr Overall is an accomplished person on many fronts but her expertise in canine behaviour and genetics is unparalleled. She also writes in a compelling and clear manner, so is fun to read.
It's unfortunate that most lawmakers who target dogs and their owners appear to know absolutely nothing about them. They don't understand what breed means, how behaviour is conditioned, what is and is not heritable and so much more. Everyone can't know everything, but that's what experts are for - to inform legislators so they don't inadvertently become a bigger threat to public safety than the bugaboos they purport to control.
As MPP Cheri di Novo (Parkdale-High Park) said the other day when we were at Queen's Park, BSL is like climate change. Over 99% of all experts agree that climate change is real, and that we can do something to arrest it. Over 99% of all experts agree that BSL is a complete failure and that there are better ways to create a culture of responsibility. But media and others, including dishonest legislators, can always find someone, somewhere who will tell them what they want to hear, justifying their confirmation bias and making it look as though they are 'listening to both sides'. With BSL, there is no other side, it's a loser no matter how you look at it.
These people are playing with other people's lives and should all be ashamed of themselves for trying to get ahead by inflicting tyranny on innocent people.
Anyway, enjoy the affidavit, it's a thing of beauty.
Dr Karen Overall on BSL
Posted at 02:02 PM in Education, Gown & Gavel, Montreal, Witch Hunts | Permalink | Comments (0)
Are you wondering why The Netherlands decided to abandon breed-specific legislation, after having the policy in place for 15 years? The simple answer is that the grownups on the planet collect real data, analyze it and decide whether or not a scheme is providing value. If it isn't, they modify or abandon it, whichever makes the most sense.
Here in Canada, public officials seem to have forgotten that they are hired to serve the citizenry and are instead serving themselves, especially in Ontario where corruption is so rampant it barely generates outrage anymore. Politicians are more concerned about saving face and stonewalling than admitting they have been mistaken and moving forward to benefit the public.
Beware the ideologues, Baby, because they don't need no stinkin' data and they'll sell you out every time.
I must add a caveat around this version. When the report came out in 2008, I spent almost three weeks translating it using only Google and Babylon, then rewriting it to reflect our sentence structure, which is very different. It was fun and informative to say the least but was also a big job. A translation service wanted $10K to do it. Yeah, no. I just wanted the nut of it. I am fortunate in having a couple of good friends in Holland who helped me with the very few slang expressions I came across. I kept the original graphs/pictures and translated the legends.
Because I loves ya, here is the report from 2008, Hondenbeten in Perspectief (Dog Bites in Perspective, right?) It is a treasure trove of data. Use it if you need it.
You can find and download original report in Dutch at this link:
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2008/06/09/hondenbeten-in-perspectief
Posted at 05:34 PM in Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
This guest post is by Jody Robson, a long-time supporter of the Dog Legislation Council of Canada, an experienced owner of many breeds and shapes, a successful dog walker and someone who is well informed about BSL and the tragic consequences of its implementation.
****
So while states and cities all over the U.S.A. are repealing their breed specific legislation and/or creating laws that prohibit the discrimination of breed specific laws, Quebec will follow in the footsteps of Ontario and implement laws that will do nothing to improve public safety.
I wish people would get their heads out of their asses and get off the "pit bull" bandwagon.
Most people who say they own a "pit bull" do not in fact own any such thing. Most people with short haired, muscular, block-headed dogs, have mutts. I know, I know, it's a hard reality to accept. Everyone who has a fake "pit bull" thrives on some sort of warped need to say they own a "pit bull". But unless you have a registered, papered, purebred American Pit Bull Terrier, and most people do not, then you do not have a "pit bull".
There are dozens of dogs that if they were bred would create dogs that look what the average Joe "thinks" is a "pit bull", literally dozens.
Under these laws dogs are identified by said average Joes and because of these average Joes, dogs are taken from their homes based solely on their appearance and they are either rehomed or killed. Either way, lives are destroyed and innocent ones are ended because of fear, ignorance and blatant discrimination.
I walk dozens of dogs every week. Of those dogs I would say 90% of them have behaviour issues that could lead to serious harm to either a dog, person or other animal. None of those dogs are so called "pit bulls".
The facts have been laid out for everyone; the government, the public, everyone. Yet, everyone believes all the hype, the propaganda, the fear mongering. It's truly unbelievable. It has been proven over and over again that bites have gone up since Ontario's ban on so called "pit bulls". I guess as long as no one is bitten by a "pit bull", bites are okay? However, since most of the people who think they own "pit bulls" and the average Joes who are identifying dogs as "pit bulls", have absolutely no idea what they are talking about...all of this "pit bull" BS is just BS.
Everyone needs to pull their heads out of their asses. Stop calling your dogs "pit bulls", stop believing every dog with short hair you see is a "pit bull" and for dog's sake stop believing the media and government who are thriving off the term "pit bull"!!!!
We are going backwards while the rest of the world goes forward. While the rest of the world is realizing BSL isn't working, while they work on laws which target responsible ownership of all dogs, regardless of breed, we continue to implement and maintain laws that target a specific "look", not the behaviour of each individual animal, but a look. That seems pretty idiotic and dangerous to me.
On another note, the unicorn I met the other day told me I should really consider asking the fairies out for a drink on Friday. I think I might.
Posted at 05:05 PM in Denial, Education, TattleTales, Witch Hunts | Permalink | Comments (2)
I felt a bit mean in putting up that post about my encounter with Stanley Coren at the All About Pets show on Easter weekend but I got over it.
He put up a rebuttal at the Psychology Today page in which he made a few assumptions, the most hilarious being "As a psychologist I suspect that I know what is going on in her mind."
I guess what I said directly to him about his flawed sources was just a neurotic attempt to hide my real agenda. Apparently, in arguing against the stereotyping of dog owners I'm similar to a mother whose offspring is arrested for holding up milk stores but pleads with the court for mercy, since she's a good kid. Denial is a bitch.
But so am I. Here's his article (comments available at the end where it says 'join the discussion'):
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201304/dogs-bite-and-people-dont-listen
"On the second day of the event, a woman accosted me and began to harangue me about statements that I had published about pitbull terriers. The statements which so offended her were reports of research published in respected scientific journals that found that pitbulls, and pitbull crosses accounted for a disproportionate number of dog bite related injuries and deaths.."
Here's the study he mentions in his post. Obviously I have a problem with the breed ID which I don't see as relevant and I dispute Stanley's new assertion that "pit bulls" make up only one percent of the dog population in Philadelphia, but overall it looks like decent enough research.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19644273
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pa 19104, USA.
The objective of this study was to characterize the nature of dog bite injuries treated over a 5-year period at a large tertiary pediatric hospital and to identify relevant parameters for public education and injury prevention.
Investigators performed a retrospective review of emergency room records of a single tertiary pediatric hospital. Records of all patients who were evaluated for dog bite injuries between April of 2001 and December of 2005 were reviewed. All demographic, patient, and injury details were recorded.
***
The rest of the abstract is available at the link.
Here's the thing. Nobody is disputing that dogs bite. Nobody is disputing that children tend to be bitten around the head and neck often, due to their stature and way of interacting with dogs.
Nobody is saying that "pit bulls", however you define them, do not bite people. Quite the opposite (by nobody, I mean those of us who don't believe myths spread by 19th century crooks).
What people who study the issues say is that all dogs are capable of inflicting injury if poorly socialized or poorly trained, or exposed to poorly trained people in unsupervised situations who hurt or frighten them, usually unintentionally.
As someone pointed out in the comments at Stanley's post, "pit bull" is the only dog type where a bunch of breeds are lumped together and then any mutt that may resemble them is included so they all become one breed. Any statistics based on this flawed method (which are hearsay) are skewed right off the bat. Nobody is verifying the breeds of dogs involved in bites, attacks or fatal maulings, mainly because nobody, anywhere, can determine the ancestry of a mutt to any degree of accuracy. It's all just smoke.
I wish we could unring that CDC bell from hell, but we can't. What we can do is move forward, start talking about dogs instead of perceived breeds and look for better ways to prevent nasty incidents.
As I said over at Stanley's place, I doubt we will ever reduce serious maulings or fatal attacks much below what we have now because they are already incredibly rare. Unfortunately, there will always be people who either don't care or don't know enough to behave responsibly around dogs (or much else). I think that with some education for parents, kids and public workers, we can definitely reduce nuisance bites and make things better, not only for people and dogs they include in their lives but also for people who don't own or don't like dogs. That is what has been shown to work in Calgary, the home of the best nuisance owner control system in North America.
Karen Delise did a great critique on a hospital study from Texas where they postulated a conclusion and then 'proved' it. It's well worth reading; you can find it here:
http://legal.pblnn.com/9-uncategorised/121-why-the-texas-study-on-mortality-mauling-a-maiming-by-vicious-dogs-is-scientifically-unreliable
Posted at 11:49 AM in Denial, Education, Repeal Ontario's Breed Ban, Take Your Breed Ban and Shove It, Useful Idiots, Yapping Curs | Permalink | Comments (3)
Something's been bothering me for awhile. I don't know what to do about it.
It's the bullshit, doctor. It's everywhere.
Yesterday, as a contribution to the truth in advertising campaign, I highlighted a common, outdated meme using a Facebook poster (for want of a better term) put out by a member of the choir. It sounded nice and truthy but its message is impossible to verify one way or the other. I don't know what these things are supposed to achieve anyway, but that's another issue.
If you can't back up what you are saying with evidence, why would you present it as factual without any qualification? How is this helpful?
You can't fight fiction with more fiction. Isn't that what we dislike about media and others who believe a bunch of malarkey about dog owners? Why aren't we holding ourselves to the same standard we expect from others?
I was surprised when another member of the choir criticized my criticism because, apparently, if you can't prove it's true it doesn't mean it's untrue. I guess the opposite applies as well, then: If you can't prove it's untrue it doesn't mean it's true. It's a wash.
I prefer to say that if you can't verify it, it's untrue and belongs on the big steaming pile of horse-pucky labeled "mythology" until it can be proved. Apparently, I'm wrong in saying that a person who presents information as factual has the burden of supporting it. Who knew? I figure the first guy out of the gate has the burden of proof.
So if I say, for example, that yobs in UK council flats are fighting Chihuahuas in bathtubs, is it true? It would be pretty hard to prove either way so I guess it's not untrue then. (It wouldn't surprise me at all if that became the takeaway point from this post and got sprayed all over The Book. No joke.)
If I say that Dalton McGuinty's family owned a "pit bull" named Tory, is it true? That one is actually in Hansard and I've seen it spread by self-styled BSL warriors around here. It was a joke but there I go again, spoiling a good story. What a bitch. I should change my name to Buzzkill.
I guess that anything said by any crackpot with a website or buffoon who claims expertise is true if it can't be proved to be untrue. So when some piece of garbage like this comes out:
Stanley Coren, the Vancouver author of over a dozen books on dogs and their behaviour, is sharing some statistics [huh?] compiled by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is quite astonishing. Although pit bulls make up only a half per cent of the total number of dogs in the US, they are responsible for 43 per cent of fatal dog bites,” he points out.
...is it true?
Nobody knows how many "pit bulls" there are because it all depends on how you define the term. You'd have to go from town to town, counting "pit bulls" to get the actual numbers. (I know that Alan Beck thinks "pit bulls" are only Bull terriers and Staffordshire Bull terriers. He told me so. He is a good friend of Stanley's. He told me that, too.)
So, are people saying that if you can't define "pit bull" and you can't count "pit bulls" then anything said about them, including the bullshit blanket statement that they are responsible for 43% of fatalities is true. because it's not untrue?
Is that how this should work in some people's minds? It is certainly why "pit bulls" are one of the best propaganda models in history.
You can't have it both ways, people.
I don't care if it's old messaging. It matters. I matters when hormonally unbalanced, demented "journalists" quote supposedly credible sources when writing hate-filled rants intended to wound people by hiding behind dogs. They can't be called before a human rights tribunal for spreading hatred as long as they stay focused on those who can't read - or vote. "Hey, what gives, just talkin' about "pit bulls" snorgle burfft schizzleconk bloob...you got a problem with that?"
It matters when some poor newbie stands up at a public meeting and quotes one of these memes (there are lots out there from which to choose) or uses an infographic from a supposedly reputable site like National Geographic that uses 'the facts' as a title for a graphic that doesn't contain one fact because he doesn't know any better, then gets called on it and is stuck for an answer. Oops. Bye bye credibility. For everybody.
Those head-cases with their demented little echo chambers out in the cybernetic wastelands where all the bigots hide like to bend the truth, quote from unreliable sources and just make stuff up. I don't know what their problem is, nor do I care because they are irrelevant to what we are doing. If you validate them by treating them as serious players, you give them power. If you don't care what you put out, you give them snips to use against you.
If you only say what you can support, you don't have to worry about the nut-jobs and nobody can shake you or make you worry about what might leak. It's too late to change is not a valid reason for keeping on keeping on.
You aren't 'educating' the [imaginary] public when you are spreading mythology. You are talking to your own, brainwashing yourselves, marginalizing yourselves. That's how religion operates - march in lockstep, don't rock the boat, just go along with it, don't stir up shit, just say it, don't question it, repeat after me wink wink nudge nudge, this should make everybody like "pit bulls" or hate "pit bulls" or believe in "pit bulls" - it doesn't matter what the angle is. It's truthy. Get with the program and stop stirring the pot, heretic.
I don't care what people believe. I'm not going to try to convert them because that won't be possible. I don't care if they hate dogs and dog owners. That's their right. It's my right to be free of harassment when I walk down the street with my dog, regardless of my appearance or his. It's my right to not have to sweat the neighbours because a law is in place that allows them to put me through if they feel like it for no valid reason. It's my right to not have the government walk into my house any time they want to because I own universally legal personal property. It's my right to be judged by my behaviour - not my race, religion, nationality or my personal appearance or perceived status in the community.
Anything else is irrelevant to this struggle as far as I'm concerned.
We don't need to make stuff up. We don't have to hide behind anything. We are right out there in the open, drawing their fire and their impotent ire while laughing in their faces.
I don't believe in truth or much else, maybe because I was brought up without religion and was taught to question everything from an early age.
I trust evidence. The evidence does not support BSL.
End of story.
***
There are at least three battles being fought around dog ownership these days.
1. The battle against the animal-rights driven agenda to exterminate domestic dogs. This is fought by brainwashing sensitive people so they will parrot nonsensical messaging about "pet overpopulation", "nasty breeders" and more. It is embraced by those who don't fact-check and don't think about the long game or even what they are 'saying' because all their friends are singing the same song. Ignorance is fertile ground for this agenda.
2. The battle against legislation that discriminates against a minority to allow the erosion of civil rights for the majority. This is achieved by using propaganda and distortion to create a distraction. It's a trick. It is not hard to deal with legislators, even obstinate ones in thrall to ideology. It's a lot easier than trying to inject some sense into the animal welfare zone in my experience.
3. The battle for 'hearts and minds' which is not helped by advocates who send out awful messaging that is supposed to inform the public at large but is usually just a turn off for many reasons. Most of it reinforces stereotypes and isolates them further. Hey, if you keep telling me you are different and your pets are different, why wouldn't I believe you? If you keep telling me to hate/fear your dog, am I supposed to ignore that?
Somebody told me I shouldn't conflate advocacy with marketing messages.
What's the difference?
Posted at 12:49 PM in Denial, Education, Hypocrisy, Repeal Ontario's Breed Ban, Useful Idiots | Permalink | Comments (3)
"Research
shows over 99.9% of all dogs, from all breeds, will never be involved in an
attack. Thus, I also like to say, “If any breed were genetically
programmed to attack, surely more than 0.1% of them would.”--Marjorie Darby
Back in 1999 or 2000, researcher Marjorie Darby looked at news stories about dog bites, and separated them into what were reported to be rather simple bites (ie, 'a pit bull looked at me') and those reported as being more serious (ie resulting in more serious injuries - needing stitches, hospitalization, surgery, etc.).
Ms Darby had a good contact at Toronto Humane Society at the time, who moved on
to Toronto Animal Services as an enforcement/investigation agent. When
queried about the number of dog bite cases, and the relative number of those
that were more serious than a simple bite she confirmed the general
ratio (nearly all reports were simple bites with minor injuries, only a tiny
number could be called "serious".) Based on all of this
information, it became clear that there were (and are) very few actual serious
dog bite cases in
To err on the side of caution, Darby decided to assume that the real number of "attack" cases was double, triple or more compared with what she had learned, since she didn't have (and no one has) access to the precise number of incidents. As Janis Bradley says, nobody is counting dog bites, you have to search hospital records for information - which only represent a portion of all bites.
Darby knew that many serious dog bite cases don't end up in the media because of breed bias. Still, she could only confirm maybe a dozen dog "attack" cases in Canada, nationwide, over a period of about a year.
Not having access to every single dog attack case, she tried
to come up with a reasonable percentage to use in discussions about dog
attacks. With a dog population somewhere around 5,000,000 in
You can further extrapolate to come up with an even more
conservative statistic by theorizing a 10-year lifespan for dogs. It's
not a one-to-one ratio, but a simple way to do that is to simply divide by
10. That leaves the potential for 500 dog attacks per the entire lifespan
of every dog in
The process is the same for the
There are estimated to be about 65,000,000 dogs in the
Hospital data vary greatly, but 800,000 dog bites treated medically is at the extreme high end, and most of the data around 1999-2000 suggested the figure was more like 300,000 or 400,000. Still, that doesn't tell us anything about severity, just that medical attention was sought.
Janis Bradley came on board and showed that fewer than 1% of
medically-treated dog bites score higher than a "1" (the lowest
ranking) in objective hospital injury recording criteria. Assuming the
dog "attacks" make up this 1%, that would mean about 4,000
biting incidents were more serious than a "1", if assuming
400,000 dog bites treated medically that year. 4,000 represents
0.006% of of the 65,000,000 dogs in
There are estimated to be about 9 million 'pit bulls' in the
You can do the 10-year lifespan calculations on an
estimated
'Pit Bull' Fatality
Data
"When it comes to ‘pit bulls’, fewer than 0.1% will ever be involved in an attack at any time in their lives, and even conservative estimates suggest at least 99.99998% of all ‘pit bulls’ have not killed anyone."
When Darby was conducting this research in 1999-2003,
there had been approximately 80 human fatalities attributed to 'pit bull'
attacks in the previous 30 years or so in the
While that seems incorrect to Darby, since she recalls at
some point, a few years ago confirming it was 4 zeros after the decimal,
rather than 3, that's what this calculation concludes. Nonetheless, we're
still talking about, at most, 0.0002% of 'pit bulls' having killed a person in
the
When we're talking about such small numbers, Darby would still have no problem saying, "Frankly, I don't know what relevant information is gleaned from the acts of less than 0.0002% of the population. Whatever it may be, it certainly doesn't conclude anything about the rest. Again I would also reiterate, if any breed were genetically-programmed to attack, certainly more than 0.1% of them would".
---
*According to the most recent US census results, there are now an estimated 72 million dogs in the United States.
Posted at 12:00 AM in Education, Main Page, Take Your Breed Ban and Shove It | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
I'm not sure how we got here. But we need to change it...quickly.
At some point, in this country, we decided that we thought it was possible to punish people into being responsible dog owners. We can't.
And the idea that we can has failed us miserably. It has failed the dogs. It has failed owners. And it has failed children.
As Brent points out, taking people's dogs does not solve the problems created through lack of education. Obvious? Yes, but legislators at all levels of government appear to be missing that simple point.
Here's another snip:
Calgary, Alberta, has, statistically, one of the most successful animal controls in North America. One thing that makes Calgary's animal control laws work is that they have the laws -- but they don't use the laws to punish the owners that violate them. They use the laws to create conversations to educate owners on responsible dog ownership.
Most people want to be good dog owners -- and if you show them how, they will do it.
Posted at 12:00 AM in Dog Welfare, Education, Gown & Gavel, Main Page | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 12:00 AM in Education, Main Page, Take Your Breed Ban and Shove It, Useful Idiots | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
A pit bull named Elliot Ness is anything but untouchable. Loving and friendly, these traits keep most pit bulls from being good police dogs.
"The main problem we're finding with pit bulls is that they're too darn nice. All they want to do is just sit at your feet or crawl in your lap. They're very nice dogs," said Deborah Thedos, Cook County K9 Unit.
Police officers main contact with pit bulls is when they break up dog fighting rings. When encountering these dogs they found that they were anything but vicious.
"We knew from the get-go that these dogs, they aren't made this way," said Sheriff Tom Dart, Cook County.
For Elliot Ness's partner the pit bull is much more than just a dog.
"He's my best friend. He's my friend. He's my baby and he knows it," said Thedos .
Here's the whole item, with accompanying video.
Thanks to ABC News for running a true story about 'pit bulls'.
You made my day.
Posted at 12:00 AM in Dog Welfare, Education, Main Page, Take Your Breed Ban and Shove It | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
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