Imagine someone pointing an air gun at you from about 10 feet and firing a pellet at your chest. It’s gonna hurt, right?
Now imagine, from a similar distance, the same yahoo taking aim at your torso with an assault rifle and letting rip.
Can you feel the difference?
It kind of vexes thee a tad when — in the context of the do-we, don’t-we ban pit bulls debate — people start comparing the number of bites from pit bull-type breeds with other dogs, such as German Shepherds and those vicious, little Jack Russell terriers. Really?
I know what multiple Jack Russell bites feel like, having been surrounded by a pack of them while delivering letters as a mailman in a former life.
It wasn’t pleasant. And I had to be saved by the dogs’ seven-year-old “owner.”
But one tetanus injection and a “there, there” from my wife - who still thinks it's funny when I tell the story - and I was bravely back out on the bike the next day.
Joking aside, the argument over muzzling and/or banning specific breeds is a serious issue for all concerned, not least for the Bird couple featured in today’s Richmond News, who were forced to abandon their Steveston roots and relocate to Tsawwassen to provide quality of life for their blind pet, which has some pit bull in its mixed breeding.
I empathize with them, I really do. I’m a dog owner and if the authorities ever ban or legislate the life out of Scots terrier/daschund/Labrador crossbreeds that look like Donkey out of Shrek, then I’d also have to consider shipping out to a municipality that’s more, shall we say, “tolerant” of my pet’s DNA.
I get it. All dogs can be “dangerous” to varying degrees. The trouble I have with comparing across breeds is that when dogs other than pit bull types bite, hospitalization, surgery and permanent disfigurement is rarely required.
They don’t bite that often, but when they do, the results tend to need more than a tetanus and a few soothing words.
As it stands, Richmond requires a leash and a muzzle when any pit bull type dog is in public. The pro-pit bull camp, including the Birds, claims, however, that such rules don’t reduce the number of incidents and a lack of enforcement renders the bylaws worthless.
What I do like the sound of — and it’s in reporter Graeme Wood’s feature on muzzling specific breeds, published in Friday's Richmond News — is the suggestion by an MLA and a vet to hold dog owners, no matter what breed their pet is, liable for any unprovoked attacks.
Liability = responsibility = prevention.
And, by default, if an owner is worried over getting sued for millions, one wonders how quickly he or she might rush to buy from a breeder a pit bull type dog to have and behold as a family pet?
Alan Campbell can be reached at [email protected]
