150 Years Ago

"Bloodhound" Hysteria

 

 

During the 1870s and 1880s, Tom Shows, stage productions based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, were among America's most popular theatrical attractions.

 

The negative portrayal of bloodhound-type dogs in these plays caused many people to fear them, while others, anxious to have a "vicious" dog, purposely sought them out. As this breed/type of dog became increasingly popular with substandard or unsavory owners, reports of incidents involving dogs identified as bloodhounds noticeably increased.

 

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100 Years Ago

Common sense is restored as Bloodhound hysteria fades

 

"At this season of the year dogs that are suffering from the heat and the attacks of pestiferous insects, are ill humored and cross. That they should snap at children passing by or bite tormentors of more mature years is not surprising.

 

Perhaps, (the dog), is not to blame for all the assaults which he commits. More blameworthy, possibly, is the owner. The dog owner's duty to the animal and the public does not end with the payment of the tax. If he does right he will protect the animal from the torments of the heated season and by keeping him off the streets, safeguard innocent people from the animal's hot weather temper. There are two sides to the vicious dog stories."

 

   - Fort Wayne Daily News, July 21, 1905

 

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50 Years Ago

As concern for rabies declines, authorities begin to examine dog bite injury as a health issue in and of itself

 

By the 1950s, rabies was largely under control in the U.S. Public health officials began to examine dog bites not simply as a vector for rabies, but as an injury that affects individuals and the community. In 1959, a preventative medicine specialist, Dr. Henry M. Parrish, and three collaborating veterinarians, published what they believed to be the first epidemiological study on dog bites in the United States.

 

They attempted to describe the interaction of a broad complex of human, canine, and environmental factors that contributed to dog bites.

 

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40 Years Ago

Authorities understand that the cooperation of dog owners is vital in

order to reduce dog-related injuries

 

Nevada State Journal, May 1971

 

 

Towns and cities, even the U.S. Post Office, appealed to owners to contain their dogs, as authorities recognized that dogs running loose were responsible for dog bite-related injuries inflicted on humans, other pets, livestock and wildlife. While pleas to dog owners sometimes involved humor, the lack of responsibility of some dog owners resulted in a number of serious incidents involving both humans and livestock. Behind the humorous tone, authorities began to threaten dog owners with fines and jail time.

 

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30 Years Ago

Recognition that animal abuse effected canine behavior: Some dogs involved

in incidents were also victims

 

 

"Starving dog kills baby"

 

"Unattended baby killed by dog"

 

The above photo and headlines were printed in a number of newspapers in 1976, reflecting an understanding of the effects of abuse and neglect on the behavior of dogs.

 

It was understood that dogs may bite under a variety of circumstances. Recognized as a preventable injury, public health officials and academics began to study the frequency and circumstances of dog bites. Many communities enacted leash laws.

 

None of the dog bite or dog bite-related fatality studies conducted from 1959 to 1979 make any mention of either the "pit bull" dog or the Rottweiler. These two types of dogs were not popular as guard dogs, as the dogs of choice for negative functions were the German Shepherd, Great Dane or Doberman pinscher. Indeed, in the decade from 1965-1975, less than 2% of all the dog bite-related fatalities in the United States were attributed to either a "pit bull" dog or Rottweiler.

 

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20 Years Ago

Breed hysteria explodes, propelled by the omnipresent media

 

 

Beginning in the mid 1970s, the small violent sub-culture of people who fight dogs became a target of law enforcement and of an anti-cruelty campaign by the Humane Society of the United States. The exposure of the brutal practice of dog fighting brought the victims of this cruelty- the "pit bull" dog – into the limelight.

 

Glamorized because of the cruelty and criminality of their owners, "pit bull" dogs replaced German Shepherds and Dobermans as the breed of choice for the unsocial among us who wanted a "vicious" dog. The media geared into overdrive when they realized that "pit bull" stories, and rumors about "pit bull" super-canine abilities, provoked an hysterical reaction from the public and politicians. The press covered incidents involving "pit bull" dogs far more frequently and extensively than they did comparable incidents involving other types of dogs.

 

In a single month, July 1987, four major magazines published cover stories and/or in-depth articles about the "pit bull" dogs with negative connotations (Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone). Earlier that year, a single dog bite-related fatality involving a "pit bull" dog had been publicized in over 400 newspapers; while a similar dog bite-related fatality attributed to another kind of dog, only a month later, had not been reported in any news outlets at all!

 

It seemed as if no one was immune to the latest breed hysteria. The dog bite studies published during this period ignored almost all previously recognized stimuli for canine aggression, (abuse/pain, maternal aggression, pack mentality, etc.) and focused only on a single factor – breed – which also happens to be the most difficult factor to identify correctly.

 

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Today

"Family" Pit Bull - A distorted view of reality

 

 

"Family Pit Bull Kills Boy"

 

The Media

 

In 2005, the dog pictured above killed a child. The media reported the dog to be the "family pit bull." Unlike the case thirty years ago of a starved dog involved in a fatality, the media did not print a photo of the dog, nor was the starved/abused condition of the dog mentioned. This type of reporting– or lack of reporting–which leaves out critical facts is nothing less than a distortion of reality. Nevertheless, such reports have had a profound effect on the public's view of dogs and dog bite-related injuries. Additionally, the Internet now insures that hastily written, misleading, and even grossly inaccurate articles are accessible to millions of readers. Unless removed by their authors/publishers, these articles remain permanently archived on the web, to be "googled," read and believed, errors and all, for years to come.

 

Dog Bite-Related Fatalities and the Centers for Disease Control

 

From the time of Dr. Henry Parrish's 1959 paper until today, the most publicized, quoted and misquoted study of dog bite-related injuries is the Centers for Disease Control's "Breeds of dogs involved in fatal human attacks in the U.S. between 1979 and 1998." The CDC had set out to estimate the extent of canine-caused mortality, to identify, insofar as they might be able to, the breeds of dog responsible, and then to decide if there were any "policy implications": that is, were there actions that governments should be undertaking based upon the resulting data. Breed identifications were gleaned from whatever newspaper articles the researchers were able to locate concerning an incident, in which a breed identification was reported.

 

In the body of the paper, the researchers explained the limitations of their study. Their work covered only a particular 20-year period, and they recognized that the breeds of dogs reported in dog bite-related fatalities had changed over the decades. They understood that, to the extent that incidents involving one or two breeds of dogs were more newsworthy, searching the newspapers might turn up a higher percentage of incidents attributed to those dogs, while incidents involving less newsworthy dogs went unreported. Breed identifications, they knew, were subjective. Even experts could disagree on breed description based upon the visual inspection of a mixed breed dog. The researchers were not clear in their own minds how they should record incident involving dogs reported to be of mixed breed. (Who gets the black mark? Why?) Finally, as animal experts and epidemiologists, they appreciated that correlating mortality with only a breed attribution (known as a single-vector study) did not account for what they called "owner-related" factors.

 

These experts concluded that there were no policy implications to their study. Instead, their recommendations were for the same kinds of breed-neutral public policies directed at irresponsible owners that characterize the recommendations of the researchers who came before them, and those who have came after.

 

Nevertheless, the very small data set from the CDC study (238 incidents drawn from a particular 20-year period), and not the conclusions and recommendations of the authors, have been used to endorse breed specific legislation.

 

So it was that the public, the press, and community leaders came to imagine any episode of canine aggression as a breed specific behavior. Even the sheltering community was not immune. Subscribing to the new hysteria, shelters across the country refused to adopt out dogs they had identified as "pit bull" dogs. In such shelters, a dog's physical appearance resulted in a sentence of death.

 

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Tomorrow

Time to restore common sense and practice compassion

 

 

Happily, Sports Illustrated has come a long way from July, 1987 to December, 2008, and has taken a monumental step in calming the hysteria that brought suffering and death to an untold number of "pit bull" dogs, and rained prejudice and discrimination on their owners. *

 

If dog bite-related incidents are a public concern, it then becomes the responsibility of authorities to make a serious attempt at understanding how and why these incidents happen. Simply pointing to the appearance of a dog and making no effort to understand the human and canine behaviors that contributed to an incident will never prevent or reduce canine-related injuries. Victims, the community, and the dogs deserve a more reasoned, intelligent and effective approach to addressing the problem of "dog bites."

 

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* Click here to Sports Illustrated Article about the Vick Dogs by Jim Gorant.

 

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This page is an overview of The Pit bull Placebo: The Media, Myths and Politics of Canine Aggression by Karen Delise.