I wonder about having pit bulls!!!
 

Dec. 12, 2006, 12:17PM
Pit bull pup gnaws off baby's toes in Louisiana


Associated Press


BOSSIER CITY, La. — A puppy chewed off four of a baby girl's toes next to her sleeping parents, who were then booked on charges of child desertion and criminal negligence, police said Monday.

Mary Shannon Hansche, 22, and Christopher Wayne Hansche, 26, told police they woke to the baby's cries, found her mangled foot and took her to the hospital early Sunday.

Police said that they were sleeping on a mattress and that the month-old girl was in an infant seat beside them when the 6-week-old pit bull began chewing on her toes.

"They did not see the dog injuring the child," police spokesman Mark Natale said.

The puppy might have been trying to nurse on the toes of the baby, a veterinarian speculated.

"I know that sounds a little far-fetched, but that's the first thing that comes to my mind," Michael Dale said.

The girl underwent surgery Sunday in Shreveport. There was no way to reattach her toes, Natale said.

The puppy had no record of receiving shots and will be quarantined for 10 days while it is checked for rabies, officials said. Natale said he did not know what the animal's fate would be after that.

The child will be placed in a foster home until the case against her parents is settled, officials said.

I don't think that happened because they had a pitbull. Any dog is capable of something like that. The combination of fairly large puppy and baby is a dangerous one.

What a horrible story.

Although I advocate against pitbulls - mostly because many of the people who own them shouldn't be owning any animals - I don't think in this case the puppy is to blame, but again, it goes to my stance on the intelligence levels of some pitbull owners.

I agre with both of you but i posted it not only because it is a grim story but also because in the USA pit bulls are in the news as many cities are banning them all together. I guess my point is, is it fair to ban a breed? Even the vet in this situation said the puppy may have been trying to nurse.

My second son was 10 lb 6 oz when he was born and he almost tore off one of my ex wife's nipples trying to get some milk!!!!:eek:

Do pit bulls have this reputation in the UK or in OZ?

Pit bulls were bred as fighting dogs. When they do attack, they do so without warning, and do not have the "turn off" mechanisms that most dogs have.

This is not to say all pit bulls are bad. It is, of course, possible to raise a very well behaved pit bull, as it is possible to raise a vicious Golden Retriever (though I can't imagine that!)

However, should a parent take that risk, not ever really being sure what is in the bloodline? Or, even let any dog unattended around a baby that young?

Also, I can't imagine that 4 toes were totally gone before the baby cried at all. Parents can't hear a newborn fussing? Don't most parents say every noise, when the baby is so small, raises an instinctive parental alarm?

We don't have all the story, but I would say the parents were negligent.

Yes, pit bulls have this reputation in the UK. No, incidents like these are not the dog's fault, although the dog is all too frequently the one who is punished, usually by death. Pet ownership and parenting are things which are taken for granted IMHO. I do not believe that just because you can afford to buy a dog (or are old enough to be a parent) that you automatically have the necessary skills, sense of responsibility and right to own a pet/be a parent.

They absolutely do Chris. In fact, they're outlawed in by many local councils. Our neighbour had one and he was a nice dog unless you wanted him to do something he didn't feel like doing. Then he was frightening.

I haven't met a pitbull I fully trust, but then again, I treat most dogs with a degree of respect. After all, they're creatures with their own mind and can't be expected to always do as you think they will.

Back to pitbulls though, my experiences with the breed haven't been positive as a whole. I don't necessarily advocate destroying the animals, but I do believe it should be illegal to breed them, thus solving the problems created by the breed in a humane manner.

Here in Hotlanta, GA, pit bulls are the bling bling of the pet world. Lots of them are violent and mal-treated. One aspect (biological inclination) mixes with the other (mal-treatment) to create the deadly mix.

I would rather ban the crappy owners.

Pitbulls have this reputation in Canada as well. I believe they've been banned in Ontario. I say, good riddance. Any dog breed is merely a group with selected traits within the larger species. This breed was developed for pit fighting. They don't signal their attacks; their jaws have frightening crushing power; they don't quit once they've begun an attack. They have killed ponies, far larger dogs, and plenty of people. :eek:

Of course a pit bull can be trained, but its lethal tendencies remain (it's somewhat like saying that a tiger cub can be 'trained' and 'tamed'. It can't, really. Once it reaches maturity it's not tame because of its 'hard-wiring'.)There's just no reason for this breed to exist.

Yikes! My dog could be outlawed! Too much licking and her wagging tail is a killer! :eek:

I have known many that were very cool dogs... it depends on how you raise them. As long as they are not bred incorrectly.

Yeah, they are negligent because there is nobody else to blame, but they are barely negligent at all. It was a friggin puppy. Who thinks a puppy is going to eat a kid when they are right there next to the kid?

The pit bull was a puppy, so it wasn't trained yet. Which means it hadn't been trained to be mean, the way many pit bulls are. It was just a puppy.

This is really an accident more than anything, on the same level as accidentally slamming a car door on a kid's fingers.

I'd think differently of them if they were drug users/dealers who were passed out and under the influence, but there's none of that here. They probably had a sleepless night taking care of their crying kid, and they fell into a nap with their baby at an arm's length away. Parents do that all the time. They probably figured their mere presence would make things OK.

Unless there is more to this story, the DA prosecuting them is an ass.

Either the baby doesn't cry, or the parents were incapable of hearing a baby getting its toes chewed off.l

How do you know there weren't drugs or alcohol involved?

Either way...maybe I was wrong to jump to the negligent parent thing. I did say we didn't have the whole story.

But, I have to wonder how dog nibbled 4 TOES OFF before anyone realized it? I imagine most of the parents I've seen post to these boards would have heard their baby, who was right next to them, fussing because having body parts gnawed off kind of hurts. At least I would imagine it does. Hell, most of the parents here would hear a fly buzzing around their newborns and come hell or high water that fly would have to go.


Doggy being sweet doggy and "nursing" or doggy being evil toe-eating dog...how could it get that far?

I'm with you on this one Shawnee. As a mother I couldn't imagine not hearing my child in pain.

Here in the UK, pit-bulls are recognised as being one of the most dangerous breeds of dog. There have been many, widely publicised, incidents like those that have been recounted here. So much so, that any parent who undertakes to owning a pit-bull after the birth of their child would be looked at very closely by social services.

They did hear the child in pain. They woke up, and the toes were gone.

The article doesn't mention them. I'm assuming drugs and booze weren't present. If they were present, then my opinion of the parents changes.

I think social services should keep an eye on this family for a while. The parents screwed up and the baby got hurt as a result. What I'm saying is that they shouldn't be charged with a crime. It was an accident.

I am the biggest animal lover on earth. I hate to think that this happened but the crux of the issue, to me, is the parents not hearing the child. Toe-chewing off would take some time:

This is where I get confused.

There is also some speculation that the resident ferret might have had a hand, er, uh...tooth in this:

It is all still up for speculation, but I can't get over the fact that it took so long to realize their baby was being chewed on. I am jumping to a conclusion when I consider that they may have been sedated in some way. I am probably even stereotyping when I read of the couple asleep on a mattress in their living room with the baby sleeping in a car seat next to them...a 6-week old puppy (they didn't think the baby would take up enough of their time?) and a ferret who may or may not have been running around the place free.

It just adds up to skepticism on my part.

At any rate, I do hope the baby is OK; she is now listed in stable condition.

Above quotation source: KTBS News website

Here's a video link of the story
http://video.ap.org/v/en-ap/v.htm?g=...f=txhou&fg=rss

The puppy looks so scared, he's shaking!

I'm skeptical too. After all, this puppy gnawed off four toes.:mg:

That took time and commitment :sick: on the puppy's part. The baby had to have been screaming (wouldn't you? Babies feel pain too.). Four toes! That will leave this child permanently disabled with respect to her ability to walk and run. We need our toes for normal gait and balance, and if her big toe was among the four that are now missing, she'll never walk normally.

The fact that the parents failed to wake up with an infant having parts of her body literally eaten off her while sitting right beside them suggests that they may have been under the influence of something more than fatigue. But whatever their reason for not waking, the bottom line is that they are responsible for this injury. It's not an accident because their actions set up a situation in which injury could reasonably be anticipated. We hold drunk drivers legally responsible for the injuries they cause for the same reason.

I don't think this was a pit bull thing, I think this was a puppy thing, except that pit bulls do have massive jaws and jaw power.

Pearl was a huge chewer when she was a puppy, and she destroyed $200 eyeglasses, $100 headphones, pens... anything plastic or wooden. Dog trainers explain how to teach the dog to chew only on chew toys, and also how to prevent them chewing on you: you give a yipe sound and pull away even if it doesn't hurt.

Puppies will chew on each other all the time, as part of their play, and they signal each other if it hurts.

So, I vote for parental failure here.

Well, now that additional information is coming in from other sources, I'll change my tune. If the baby was screaming for an hour (not stated in original article) and the parents were arm's length away, they could have easily rolled over, opened their eyes and looked at the kid. If all that is true, then they should have seen a puppy gnawing on the foot for an hour. They are negligent, and deserve to be charged.

A disturbing thing I noticed on the pitbull front locally is that they are giving away pitbull pups at the humane society. There was even a photo of one in the paper labeled lab mix. No lab ever resembled the dangerous mutt in the paper. Unsuitable pets like pitbull and chow mixes should not be distributed to families with kids by local pseudo-authorities especially under the false pretense of taking in a nice kid friendly dog. Like RZ said, a pitbull can be a very good dog if well-bred and well-trained, unfortunately that is becoming a rare creature.

Charge the family with neglect and put down the dog. You don't want either of these in the gene pool.

While I don't dispute that a badly raised pit bull can be lethal, I feel compelled to note that the ones I know are giant pussies, and think they are lap dogs. I have friends who have a pair, and while they bark ferociously at *any* person who comes in, they then attack immediately thereafter...with tongues, threatening to lick the flesh from your bones. There is also the danger of being knocked over when they come butting their heads into you for attention, or leap up to place their paws on your shoulders to lick your face...barking all the while. They are not well-trained, but they are also not dangerous.

article
 

From the New Yorker:


Obviously, not all pits are the same, just as all humans aren't the same, etc. I wonder if, knowing what is known (that much is unknown about the breeding of any potentially dangerous dog) having that dog is a good idea if you have babies or young children. Or, at the very least, don't time a baby dog and a baby human within two weeks of each other.

I mean, how does that work? I want a pit bull and I will have NO OTHER dog...damn what people say, damn the history of the breed. Do you really want to put your baby's life on this bet? I wouldn't.
Believe me, I saw that puppy and I just want to hold it...it's so sad. But the couple had other choices. It's not like they had this dog for years and then they got pregnant...they got the pit 2 weeks before the baby was born.

Tragic, really, for dog and human.

The dog that bites more humans than any other is a cocker spaniel.

Just a Story
 

Some good friends of mine, already with two dogs, once noticed that the "family" next door had the penchant for keeping their pit bull mix chained to a metal post on their front yard; to them (my friends) it seemed almost an aesthetic thing since the neighborhood was pretty nice and rental homes were going the way of the Dodo. There was no real security reason for having a pit bull hangin out on your front yard with a big heavy chain. Now, don't jump down my throat when I say this, but yes, this "family" in question was Black; Iwill state without any shame on my part that Blacks in Atlanta find pit bulls among their dogs of choice. The problem with this "family" is that they pretty much just kept that dog on that chain and collar and that was it. The dog just lived this life on a chain.

My friends were kinda concerned for the happiness of the dog, and actually confronted (in a nice way) the neighbors about whether they could take the dog for an actual walk and such. The neighbors were kinda "Whatever" and let them take the dog for a walk. My friends noticed that these people never let out the collar to compensate for the growth of the dog; it was choking to death. Over about a month my friends slowly "adopted" the dog through mere atttention to it. The "family" eventually left. The landlord of the furnished house came to my friends and asked if they had seen the "family." It turns out they took all the furniture and just took off to likely less greener pastures.

This dog, named Buddy, is by far the most friendly dog I have ever met. He is just filled with love and affection, despite his past. But when you play with him, if you do the roughhouse thing, he starts a' growlin and drooling and you can see he might have the potential to hurt you or someone else. But in my mind, it's only potential, and if you treat the dog right, you get nothing but love in return. He remains my favorite dog I've ever met.

Here's a new one!
 

Northwest Harris County horse may die after dog attack


By KEVIN MORAN
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

A veterinarian said a miniature horse attacked by at least one pit bull dog early today could die from multiple bites.

"They almost killed him," said Crosby veterinarian Dr. James Hofmann, told a Chronicle photographer after the owner of a dog that attacked the 30-inch-tall horse around 3 a.m. brought the horse to Hofmann's clinic.

Hofmann said the horse suffered severe leg wounds and bites to its snout, among other injuries. It was too early to tell whether the horse would survive, Hofmann said.

The man who brought the horse to Hofmann refused to identify himself in a telephone interview from the clinic.

But he maintained that only one of two dogs he owns attacked the horse, which was tied to a tree at a small trailer park near the business where the dogs are penned up in the daytime but free to roam the property as guard dogs at night.

The man maintained that dogs owned by other neighbors were loose in the night and joined in the attack on the horse.

It was unclear whether Harris County animal control officers had taken the man's two dogs, one a pit bull and the other a mastiff, into custody by early afternoon.

"I'm taking care of the horse," the dog owner said. "I brought it to the doctor. The owner of the horse didn't want to do anything."

The man said he did not know the name of the horse's owner.

In another incident, sheriff's department spokesman Lt. John Martin said deputies on Tuesday were called to the 17300 block of Bamwoodin North Harris County at 5:34 p.m. to investigate a pit bull attack on a girl who entered the fenced yard of the dog's owner.

The girl, who is eight or nine years old, was taken to an area hospital by ambulance for treatment, Martin said.

Colleen Hodges, spokeswoman for Harris County's Veterinary Public Health division, said the dog involved is in custody at the society's shelter. She said the owners were considering having the dog euthanized because of the attack. But, because the dog was properly secured and the girl entered the owners' yard before the attack, the owners could choose to take the dog home after a 10-day quarantine, Hodges said.

The identities of the girl and the pit bull's owners as well as the nature of the girl's injuries could not be released because of privacy laws, Hodges said.

There is a question in my mind about gnawing on the kid for an hour. I Think it's more likely the four toes went in one bite...quite easy for that, or any, dog, approaching from the side. An hour of gnawing would cause massive blood loss, and probably death.

The Pit Bull breeders know their market, and too many of them are striving to build a reputation for breeding the baddest, meanest, most vicious dogs on the planet, because the demand is there. The breeders striving to breed gentle dogs are behind the eight ball, because many of their potential customers are scared off by the headlines and animosity. :2cents:

If you want to breed gentle dogs, why wouldn't you just breed a golden retriever...or even staffy's? They're nice dogs but they look kinda mean...in the dark.

Or a nice Irish Wolfhound. The gentle giant...who would mess with a dog that is bigger than a Great Dane? But they're totally sweet.

I have a great dane. She's the biggest sook this side of the black stump...but most people seem to be scared shitless of her if she barks. It could be because she's dark brindle and and sounds pretty ferocious...but it's really her just saying, 'come play with me...or pat me...or anything...just give me attention'

Because not everyone wants a Golden Retriever, some people like Pit Bulls. So why not try to breed gentle ones that aren't going to get the owner sued .....or eaten? ;)

Yeah but remember, pitbulls were designed to be agressive, so why choose something to be aggressive and then try and make it something it wasn't designed to be?

Because some people like pit bulls. Not all of them are agressive. The breeders have to choose which market they are after. ;)

As a pit bull owner, I have to chime in.

My pit is a sweetie but has this thing: he doesn't like children. At all. This is due to the fact that every child he has met thus far has hit/kicked/abused him.
Understandable, but not desireable. He is extremely territorial (typical for the breed) and protects me and my truck with his life.

So far, he has prevented at least one theft of truck (and load) that I can be certain of. He has also made many friends, including total strangers in guard shacks. His favorite is the Kane warehouse in Tunkhannock...they always give him a handful of doggie cookies. Whenever we go there, he leaps into my lap for his treats. No other time mind you, just there. Adults who are not messing with me or his truck are his friends. Kids are kept ten feet away, minimum, for safety. If this is not possible, I keep a muzzle handy. He is always leashed, thus limiting his lunge distance.

Oh yeah, he will attack any truck in motion too. I walk him far from travel lanes for this reason.

I refer to him as my "Active Theft-Deterrent System".

Here are two pics I took of my system in both "armed" and "standby, charging batteries" modes:

Looks like he's got a pretty sweet gig.

Brian, is this the same pup you nursed back to health awhile ago?

Nope. She is black and blind and very old. She currently resides with a friend in MD. I'll get a pic or three next time I'm there.

Dogs is dogs. Sure certain traits are bred in, but mostly dogs are who they are because of the way they've been reared.

Puppies chew. Even a breed that isn't known for being dangerous can cause a hell of a lot of pain and damage if not properly supervised around children. I've read of west highland whites that have severely mauled toddlers.

Our great dane has damaged a few children. Usually cause she doesn't know the boundaries of her own body, particularly her arse, and knocks them over. She usually slobbers all over them to make sure they're ok though.

My dog does not like children. He doesn't mind them if they're in the house, invited in and therefore known to be safe.......but I would never let him off the lead outside if there are children around.....or dogs.....or anybody with a walking stick....or anybody with a fluerescent postie bag.....or cars....or anybody on a bike/skates/skateboard/scooter.....or anybody likely to walk near/past us.

*grins* He generally gets his offlead run down in the valley, or in the woods, and I am very very alert to anybody coming into view, so I can grab him quick.

Funny thing is, other people can take him out and he's fine. Same in the car, if mum picks him up from my house, cause i am gonna be late home, he sits in the back good as gold. If, on the other hand, she picks me and Pil up together, he sits in the back barking like a nutter at everything/one the car passes and I have tried everything I can to stop him, he just isn't having it. He's clearly got it into his head that mummy needs protecting:P

Of course indoors, he has the perfect temperament and is very obedient..so I can't really complain.

I'm thinking "asleep on a mattress in the living room" is code for "passed out from alcohol and crack binge."

Any mom here capable of sleeping through an hour of baby in pain shrieking?

Yeah, that's my take on it, too. We can argue whether or not a pit bull is a good or bad dog, but in that situation the parents were sickeningly responsible for the damage done, in so many ways, and that child will have to pay for it the rest of her life. I see foster care in her future. :(

I had a full-sized, not American, basset (most don't know how powerful these dogs really are) and Giant Schnauzer when my son was born and as he has been raised.
We are, just now, at three, really letting him be alone in the same room with them... and they are our "babies" too.
He has never slept in a room with the door open, other than when he was in a crib next to our bed. It was elevated out of their reach and they were, at that time, not permitted on the bed (UNHAPPY dogs).
I never once thought that either dog would harm our son.
I never KNEW that they would not.
As a parent what is my job?
So we took precautions. Was it a pain in the ass, sure... did people say shit about "protecting our son from our babies" that they all knew? Sure... but we did our job as parents.
Dogs are unpredictable, all dogs.
Kids do stuff, poke them in they eye, whack them on the dick with a toy, etc, etc, and they react... I don't want to find out how mine would react.
So, we took precautions.
That is what Parents do.
Good kid parents and good dog parents.

The wife is now saying the ferret did it... the husband still thinks the dog did it.

No, it was Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick. :right:

btw...those parents sicken me.