Canada: "Pit bulls are not safe family pets"

CANADA -- If there was a bowl of cherries and you knew one of them was poisonous, would you take a chance and feed them to your family?

Virtually no one would, yet the famous Canadian hockey icon Don Cherry wants the general public to accept this type of risk with pit bulls because he claims in “99 per cent” of the cases, the dogs aren’t dangerous.

That’s not a smart gamble considering pit bulls are by far the No. 1 killer canine of people and animals and can inflict as much damage as a tiger.

For centuries pit bulls were purpose bred for bloodsport. Ninety-nine per cent of them might never hurt anyone or anything, but there’s no way of knowing which ones will act on their genetic instinct. Those stakes are too high for most people once they’re equipped with the facts.

Pit bull advocates aren’t known for sharing facts, though. They spread misinformation that can fool the public into thinking pit bulls are safe when they’re not.

The mother of Mariah Salomon was one of those people who believed the myths until a trusted family pit bull violently attacked her beautiful two-year-old daughter in their home in Coachella, California.

Veronica Pena had known “Cheddar” since her cousin got him as a puppy when she was pregnant with Mariah. He was docile and sweet — the perfect example of the nanny dog we keep hearing about from people like Cesar Millan, Tia Torres, Rachael Ray, Kaley Cuoco and many other famous pit bull promoters.

“They were inseparable,” Pena said. “They loved each other. He was so gentle with her, and when they played together he would lay on the floor and nuzzle her with his nose.”

Pena believed pit bulls could be wonderful family pets if they were raised right and lived in a loving environment.

When Cheddar suddenly lunged at Mariah last August with no reason or provocation, she was shocked and horrified. 

With one single bite, the middle of her little face was avulsed, including her entire nose and upper lip.

Mariah was taken by life flight to Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, where a team of amazing surgeons skilfully re-implanted a large portion of her facial tissue in a complicated and precarious five-hour surgery, followed by the use of leeches to help with blood flow until her veins grew back.

Like the vast majority of pit bull attacks, the media wasn’t notified at the time. The public would never have heard about Mariah if the groundbreaking surgery wasn’t explained on video in a recent press release.

Pena is helping the hospital share the miraculous success of her child’s operation in the hopes it will inspire other surgical teams to consider similar interventions. She also joins the thousands of pit bull victims and victim advocates by warning the public about their inherent dangers.

She has learned “it’s all how you raise them” isn’t true.

If Pena had understood their genetic heritage or the indisputable reality that pit bulls kill, disfigure, disable and severely injure more humans and animals than all other breeds combined, she never would have endangered Mariah by allowing her around Cheddar.

The facts are available, so why didn’t she know? Why did she allow such an unpredictable, dangerous animal to live with her baby girl?

There are several reasons. One is the well-funded pit bull lobby has been incredibly successful in convincing people that pit bulls are dogs just like any other dogs. The lobby and its advocates extend across the United States and Canada, and are responsible for hundreds of pit bull attacks every year on unsuspecting owners. Shelters have so many surplus pit bulls they can’t even give them away for free. About 3,000 of them are euthanized daily, yet the shelter that Cheddar was taken to asked if they could put him up for adoption as an “aggressive” dog. Fortunately, Pena’s cousin had the common sense to have him euthanized rather than risk anyone else’s life.

Second, the attacks that make the news are rare, and most of the ones reported remain local. National Pit Bull Victim Awareness calculates an average of two pit bull attacks on humans in the media every day in North America. However, people like Veronica Pena weren’t aware of the odds because these reports don’t get the national exposure they should. Many severe and fatal dog attacks are also labelled “mixed breed,” or never identified at all. Photographs should always be supplied to the press.

A third explanation is there are too many ineffective, unethical and misinformed politicians who fail to dutifully protect their citizens. Instead, they cater to the one per cent of the population who own pit bulls and are incessantly vocal about it. Legislators in most areas in the U.S. and Canada allow anyone to breed, sell, transport across borders and own these bred-to-kill canines without control or restriction.

In the last eight years pit bull attacks have increased by 830 per cent. In that period of time more than 200 people have been torturously mauled to death and thousands mutilated. Already this year, at least 36 children have been violently assaulted by pit bull-type dogs, and five people have been killed by them.

Despite these horrific and completely preventable tragedies, the pit bull lobby relentlessly continues to dismantle pit bull bans by spreading lies they’re a failure and discriminatory. In Ontario, they have gone so far as to claim that dog “bites” have increased overall. BSL (breed specific legislation) for pit bulls has never been about decreasing dog bites generally, but decreasing life-altering bites from fighting breed dogs. Wherever BSL is enforced, it works.

What happened to Mariah could happen to anyone. Pit bull victims are attacked by trusted family pets or pit bulls that escaped their property or strayed. Unless citizens are fortunate to live in an area with BSL, they are all subject to the nonconsensual risk of catastrophic attacks.

If these were shark attacks there would be national outrage and something would be done. How many more innocent human beings and animals need to be mutilated or mauled to death before the breeding of these fighting and gripper dogs is outlawed? When will famous folks with millions of fans stop telling lies that kill and tell the truth instead?

Perhaps Mariah’s namesake Mariah Carey will become a desperately needed voice of reason and compassion in an effort to save lives and prevent attacks. If she does, her song “Hero” will take on a whole new meaning to the silent majority.

Click here for Mariah’s fundraiser.

(The Province (blog) - March 5, 2016)