If professional animal management officers can’t reliably identify a ‘pit bull’, what hope does a person on the street have? If the dog is big, dark and causes a problem in the community, regardless of the breed, the people involved are likely to call it a ‘pit bull’. And given an emotionally delivered ‘pit bull’ horror story is likely to make the front page or the evening news, there isn’t much motivation for the media to correct them.
The terrible experience of 13 year old Kurt Smart today, highlights this problem. Kurt was at home when the dog next door broken into his yard and started fighting with his labrador ‘Cougar’. Kurt hit and stabbed the fighting dogs, but being a small boy, he was unsuccessful and Cougar was killed. Kurt was uninjured (which is a fricken miracle, frankly) and the other dog was later destroyed with permission of its owner.
3AW broke the story this morning:
And it was then picked up by the news:
Kurt then told his story to the newspaper:
Who used it as an opportunity to boost ratings by pandering to the slavering masses calling for pit bull extermination;
Damage done
But then this afternoon, the Herald Sun made a small adjustment to their article
But his distress at losing his cherished pet was increased after being told by police that he could face charges if the owner of the stabbed dog – initially wrongly identified as a pit bull cross – lodged a complaint.
The dog was a mastiff x.
Obviously, no one can lay any blame on Kurt for the misidentification; he is just a child and who has been through an unimaginable trauma. But the media that jumped on this bandwagon, played it during prime time and repeated time and time again that this dog was a ‘pit bull’, continue to do enormous damage. By generating hysteria over this ‘pit bull boogyman’, they drive us further and further from actual solutions to the community’s dog problems.
Pit bull bans don’t make the community safer, because the overwhelming majority of dog attacks have nothing to do pit bulls. Victoria already has some of the most laborious legislation in the country and these attacks continue to happen for reasons that don’t sell papers.
