Pitbulls kills 3 day old baby

Hmm, both dogs mixed with Shar-pei, a known aggressive little bastard.

Owner thinks they are tied up outside on a hot day...

I'm thinking this owner never loved these dogs and they built up a lot of pent up energy and frustration. I would blame the owner on this one.

Anecdote: I taught my pit at a young age to submit to little things like babies/ toddlers/ and little dogs. She get on her back and gives up her belly around them. Still, i wouldn't leave her attended around babies. Not because I am worried she would attack. Just a little thing I learned a long time ago that people seem to have forgotten. CYA. It's the smartest thing you'll ever do.

a reply to: dreamingawake

That isn't the one he was referring to, this one was a 7-year old killed in Maine. I linked to it above...

Hunter Bragg of Bangor was killed by the dog at the 207 Moody’s Mills Road home of Gary Merchant as the boy played in the yard with two other children, the Penobscot County sheriff said at a news conference Monday afternoon in Bangor. Sheriff Troy Morton said details of the attack are “sensitive” and are not being made public.

Another Source
I was wrong, he was referring to the baby... but maybe a list of attacks from the past month would have been more relevant...

A long time ago I lived in a crappy neighborhood, I must have been 22 at the time. The neighbors to our right appeared to be the original owners, an elderly couple but the guy seemed military. To our left we had black folk that to my naive eyes looked like regular dog breeders for pit bulls. Straight across was a crack/meth house, you always saw people spun out of their minds going in and out of the residence.

One of my roommates remarked after a half year how he thought the pit bulls were being breed for dog-fighting, that they were either fighting them to the death or to rip apart another animal for profit. Some sort of illegal showing where they made bets. It was a place where you pretty well kept to your own, and tried not to infect people with whatever you had going on within your private residence.

There was an incident, most people were at work. My roommates were out, and I heard a dog barking and a girl screaming. One of the pit bulls had got loose, and a meth head chick was trapped on top of her car. The dog looked like it was ready to rip up flesh, so my instinct after putting the door open was to step out about 20ft and bark at the dog. It ran after me, I ran back inside, and the girl got into her car with the windows up. She drove off, but the dog remained on the prowl.

If I hadn't been in the state of mind I was (we leave it there), I would have called the authorities at this point, animal control, someone, but I didn't. Later in the day kids were walking home from school, and I again heard screaming, barking, and then a gunshot. The old man had got his riffle, and shot down the pit bull as it was charging for a little girl. When the owners arrived, they were crying and telling of how he would never hurt anyone. I'm pretty sure they did abuse that dog, I never noticed it directly, but there was talk now among the neighbors not just my roommates how they had suspected they were conditioning the dogs to fight for sport & profits.

I think you have breeds of dog that are naturally more aggressive on the whole, and when you add in some abusive conditioning into the mix they can do what they do... be a wild animal and get fed as they see fit. I think it's best for people to realize that their puppies and dogs are domesticated, but deep down they have the potential to go primal, the same as human beings when they are sufficiently pressed and reach their breaking point.

It's not a good idea to have a pit bull around an infant, period. Abuse or not, that's a risk I wouldn't want to take.

To OP: Your prejudice is showing. You'd ban my dog? By the way, Dozer is a Bully, 1/2 Pit Bull and 1/2 English Bulldog. His papers from the originating shelter (he was a rescue) have the word "FRIENDLY!" underlined several times. He's not even allowed outside in the yard unsupervised because he's never seen you before in his life but if you walked up to my "county" required 6' fence with a leash, he'd happily go with you. He just loves people that much.

Six months ago he was charged & bitten by a Boston Terrier at a beer tasting/music festival/ASPCA fundraiser. He had blood streaming down his nose and the big ol' dummy thought it was a game. He tried to play with that Boston Terrier even after being bitten. The first night I "met" him I couldn't get him to pay me any attention because he'd made a new friend..a teacup Yorkie. I thought I was going to have to adopt *two* dogs that night.

These dogs in this attack were not pit bulls, by the way, but by all means please continue hating something you do not understand.

originally posted by: bonsaihorn
a reply to: dreamingawake

That isn't the one he was referring to, this one was a 7-year old killed in Maine. I linked to it above...

Hunter Bragg of Bangor was killed by the dog at the 207 Moody’s Mills Road home of Gary Merchant as the boy played in the yard with two other children, the Penobscot County sheriff said at a news conference Monday afternoon in Bangor. Sheriff Troy Morton said details of the attack are “sensitive” and are not being made public.

Another Source
I was wrong, he was referring to the baby... but maybe a list of attacks from the past month would have been more relevant...

Good link nonetheless.


Makes you wonder the backgrounds on many of these cases. One big issue, also shared in the source, is the dogs are often not neutered/have an un-spayed females in the household causing aggression.

a reply to: saadad

People in general are ignorant about Pitties as well as other large breeds...small breed dogs are more aggressive by far, and the absolute worst are chihuahuas and dachshunds.

Having said that...what kind of parent leaves a three day old infant on the sofa unattended, dogs or no dogs, and walks away...even "for a second"?? One who should not have said infant in the first place.

That parent killed her baby, not the dog. Plain and simple. Common sense is apparently not a key ingredient here. Instead of vilifying a dog for its breed, which people created in the first place, maybe we should figure out a way to get some decent lifeguards in the gene pool. Or a healthy shot of chlorine. That mother should be charged with negligence.

But the dog will suffer instead for her stupidity. I'm sure the wackos at PETA are cackling with glee over this.

a reply to: tigertatzen

I call that little bitch syndrome. You see it in small guys as well. The last residence I was at a metro apartment area where you could only have small dogs, they were all hardcore barkers, flipping out on everyone, but you could tell it wasn't any form of dominant aggression, it was motivated by a sense of inadequacy. Man, I always wanted to punt those worthless dogs! If you can't get a real dog, get a freaking cat or something!

a reply to: CB328

LIKE you know about DOGS apparently...
DO EVER get anything RIGHT?
Its simple raise a pet or raise a weapon.
A dog will do what you teach ,making WHO RESPONSABLE?
Oh yeah, THAT would be a macho moron, who betrays the trust of raising an animal, so he can have a violent tool,or a PARENT to a child which ,lets face it THAT'S what a pet IS.
NOT to mention IF A DOG isn't familiar with something it IS the parent's job to acclimate it or CONTROL the situation.
It has ZERO to do with the breed ,unless the poor thing is ill.
FUNNY ...you blow it about guns THE SAME way...what's it like being so scared?

originally posted by: harvestdog
Hmm, both dogs mixed with Shar-pei, a known aggressive little bastard.

A very dangerous mix. I don't blame the dog.I blame the breeders.. Especially of pit bulls, who seem, in the past to have been a fine family dog and now they are responsible for most fatalities.

Poor breeding of a pit and then breeding with likley a poorly bred shar-pei is a disaster waiting to happen.

I don't blame the mother, no one is with a baby every single second. She will blame herself for the rest of her life. Usless for me to blame her or the dog. A perfect storm of a lot of events led to this tragedy.

a reply to: CB328

I have a Pittbull. I love her and raised her to be a good girl. She is so gentle.

a reply to: reldra

I would add to that a lack of socialization (dangerous with *any* dog breed) likely contributed as well.

While it is true that pitbulls are very powerful dogs, they also respond well to training and are wonderful companion animals. I do a lot of animal rescue volunteer work and it is shameful how many people get pit bulls and don't spend a minute to work with them and when they become unmanageable they either abandon them or turn them over to a shelter. I would say 70 percent of the dogs I work with at the shelter are pit bull or pit bull mixes. With persistent effort I have rarely seen any of them not respond well to training. There were a rare few that have been so abused that they were not able to respond to training, they had been too traumatized by human abuse.

Once again, this is a case of dumb humans causing animals to suffer for behaving as animals do. Why would a dog have access to a 3 day old baby? That makes about as much sense as leaving your infant alone with a 4 year old kid. These people were either careless, or were lacking common sense. But it will always be the dog that takes the brunt of the punishment. After all, animals have been the whipping boys for humans as far back as history is recorded and probably longer.

There was an actual study done in 2013, that looked at hundreds of dog bites in the US, many of which were claimed to be Pitbull bites. In 80% of them they couldn't positively identify the breed of dog involved. ANY dog that has a square head is identified as a Pitbull when it comes to dog bite statistics, which blows their bites out of proportion.

a reply to: pointessa

Right, no matter how good any dog is you don't leave your infant alone. Sad

Dogs don't hurt or kill people unless they are trained to do so!

I have a 150 Labradane, sweetest thing in the world, very social and happy. I have had him since he was rescued at 8 weeks old. I had to carry him everywhere and hand feed him. I could have spent months and years training him to be a vicious attack dog and with his instinct to love and protect, fiercely, the ones that he loves, he would have made a perfectly vicious dog that would kill at my command. But I didn't. I raised him and trained him with love and respect, discipline and reward. If you don't train em' ya can't blame em'! The dog owners are the idiots here and they should suffer the consequences, not the animal.

I also had a big grey and white male Husky who looked exactly like a wolf. Every where I took him people were afraid. I even witnessed mothers ushering their kids to the other side of the street and yelling at them to "Stay away from the wolf"! People are stupid.

Here's Bubba-Duke!

a reply to: Zaphod58

When I walk my Pittbull. I hear parents tell their kids not to pet that dog because it's a Pittbull.

Wikipedia: Fatal Dog Attacks in the US
Look through the fatal dog attacks over the years, you will see that most of the victims are either very young or very old.
There is a fatal attack by a Pomeranian on the list.
To be honest, there are a lot of Pit Bulls there.

Upon seeing the initial headline, I honestly thought the thread was about this guy killing a baby:

Pitbulls are the AR-15 of the dog world.

That kid could have been killed by a cocker spaniel and someone would blame it on a Pitbull.

With that said, I don't trust any dog around my kid. All dogs bite. You have to be more careful around Pitbulls and other bully / working breeds because of their athletic nature. It is one thing when some little lap dog is acting out but entirely different when a 60lb pit or 100lb Rottie decides they want to have a bad day.

Pits are great and loyal dogs. The problem is that they are very popular among people who want them for image and they often encourage the bad behavior along with not properly socializing the dogs.

a reply to: netwarrior

I've got a mastiff blend, about 100lbs., and a pittie, about 70lbs., both rescues; Scarlett (pittie) was a breeder dog for a fight ring and was burned with acid and Butch was a country stray who never saw the inside of a house in his life. Both abused, both rescued right off the street, and both of them are the best dogs I've ever had. Never bitten anyone or anything, play with and nurture entire litters of kittens (I'm a rescuer so we've always got baby things underfoot), gentle giants, both of them.

We live on a lake and there's a path around it. We take them walking every day, twice a day, and there are tons of dog owners here who walk their kids too. And neither of my dogs were leash trained or otherwise until they came here, but do they go after the other dogs and the kids? No they do not. Instead, it's the terriers, chis, schnauzers and other yipper dogs try going after them. And most incredible of all, their owners look at me and my behemoths as if we're axe murderers about to strike any second.

I actually had a woman steer her aggressive little mutt right toward Butchy the other day, snapping and growling, after I had moved him off the path to avoid them, and scream at me to get my dog back. Literally, "you better get that dog BACK! My dog can't stand him!" Uhmmmm...really? I said, "Then why are you bringing him over here after we were polite enough to move off the path? Get out of here with that nonsense." She backed off, but my blood was boiling. Idiocy has that effect on me.

Responsible dog owners, regardless of breed, would never think to leave a dog unsecured around an infant. And any parent with a functioning brain cell would not think it remotely acceptable to place an infant on a sofa and walk away from it. Both elements are present here.

So...why is this irresponsible dog owner and even more irresponsible parent not being questioned for her actions? No, let's blame the poor dog for being allowed to go freely into the open door, where it was nice and cool and inviting, and encounter a baby...which are in general very frightening to dogs...and be expected to somehow know that squirming, tiny, strange, scary thing was a human baby and therefore off limits. Because that makes so much more sense.

Ignorance is a disease, and people really need to stop spreading it. Of course, that's not going to happen.