Completely Doggone

A couple of weeks ago, a child here in this country was killed during an attack by two American Pitbulls. Of course, such an event always triggers ye olde war between the dog lovers and the dog haters.

The haters will go ballistic when the lovers defiantly walk their beasts after such an attack, personal abuse and threats (from both sides, mind you!) become part of the daily life for a while.

Now, something about this is funny. Something that makes me wonder if people have some kind of eyesight left, or at least some common sense. (Well, looking at mankind today, not much hope for the latter...) Of course the lovers will blame the owners, heftily pointing out that THEY of course are good owners, responsible and careful, and that they would never let their disguised fighting machines off the leash if there's any kind of danger.

There's a couple of sides to this. First, look at the dogs. Look at the first picture. That's not a dog, if you ask me (but nobody will, so never mind). It's one ugly son of a bitch (pun intended.) It's got nothing beautiful about it. Nothing that reminds me of the dog being man's best friend, nothing that is endearing or pretty. It's a butt-ugly bastard. Just like this one. This is a Bull Terrier, and I'll even admit that it's not a good picture, but one would be hard pressed to take a good picture of such a creature.

Maybe it's personal taste, but I like dogs with hair. It makes them fluffy and cuddly, and nice to look at, or touch. But these suckers look like nature played a really cruel trick on them - but it wasn't nature. It's decades of inbreeding which made them this ugly and this nasty.

Make no mistake - I firmly believe that these suckers are nasty, aggressive and dangerous! I don't give a flying rat's ass whether it's their owners that made them this aggressive and/or dangerous. I couldn't care less if it's a couple of bad guys who made these dogs the fighting machines they are. They are, period!

Guns are ugly, too. And they're made for one purpose. So, if some owner of such an aggressive breed is trying to tell me that they got this dog because it's proud, it's beautiful, it's strong, it's whatever-fucking-justification-they-find, I don't believe them for one split second.

People get killed by guns. People get killed by these dogs. How often it happens, or why, is of no importance.

Ah, I hear the car owners raising a scream? Yes, of course - people get killed by people in cars, too. But cars weren't made for the single purpose of killing! So, settle down again, I love my cars, too.

There are dogs which are nice to look at. There are dogs which don't have the inbred aggression that the aforementioned breeds have, there are dogs which are frigging HARD to make into aggressive dogs! There are dogs which help people, which find victims under avalanches, which find people buried under the rubble left behind by earthquakes and other catastrophes. There are seeing-eye dogs which make life for blind people bearable. There are dogs which help children during therapy. There are dogs which we can play with, walk with, laugh with, dogs which make life for us easier and nicer.

I'm not saying that even these nice dogs don't bite people - they do. Sometimes out of self-defence, sometimes out of aggression. But the latter is a much more rare occurence with non-fighting-dog breeds than with Bull Terriers or American Staffordshires or other such species. Plus, I've never, ever, heard of a case where a Border Collie or a Golden Retriever killed a kid - correct me, if I'm wrong, but if you try, then fucking back it up with speaking numbers! Don't come to me with a single case in 10 years, or some "my brother heard from the friend of a friend that this or that incident happened." I've never heard of anybody needing facial surgery after a Golden Retriever attack!

There are dogs that are easily formed into aggressive fighting machines, and there are dogs with which this is very hard, and therefore simply not done. Or has your Chihuahua ever maimed somebody? (Not that I like these, either, but for different reasons...)

The district I live in has, after the mentioned recent attack in another part of the country, issued a law which prohibits ownership of 12 breeds (and crossings of these).

This is, I think, the first time in a long time, that I agree with a decision taken by politicians. Even if they took the decision way too late and for all the wrong reasons (i.e. media pressure etc.) But they took it. Kudos.