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Pittston Tomato Festival set to kick off four-day event Thursday

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King’s College announces Adam Healey as new wrestling coach

<p>Our community experienced tragedy that unfolded at a home in Wilkes-Barre Township, leaving a 4-year-old girl with severe injuries.</p><p>It is my understanding that a family member&#8217;s dog attacked this young child, leaving her wounded and fighting for life. Our thoughts are with the family of this young girl, and we hope for a full recovery.</p><p>I am writing in response to an editorial written by the Times Leader, suggesting the need for breed-specific legislation or at minimum the placement of restrictions on specific breeds of dogs while in public. As executive director of the SPCA of Luzerne County, I felt the need to share some information about these animals<ins> in order to provide our community with a more complete representation of the breed and the issues</ins>.</p><p>Tragic situations such as the one above inevitably draw out the media and opinions of individuals who believe that many strong-breed dogs should either be banned altogether or muzzled in public regardless of their individual behavioral history or tendencies toward aggressive behavior.</p><p><ins>The opinion goes onto suggest that owners of these strong breed animals are part of the problem.</ins> I believe most of us can agree that the life of an animal is secondary to that of a person. I can also appreciate and respect the desire to provide further protection for children. However, doing so in a blanket, over-generalization of a specific breed or type of animal is grossly misguided. I have had the opportunity to meet and interact with thousands of strong-breed dogs &#8212; ones with behavioral issues, but most with not. The majority of the dogs are loving, beautiful, well-adjusted animals<ins> and yet this discussion almost always leads to the pit-bull-type dogs, Rottweiler, Dobermans, and many other strong-breed dogs and the suggested banning of said animals</ins>.</p><p>The reality of dog bites has been explained quite well in the following excerpt on breed-specific legislation as stated by the American Veterinary Medical Association.</p><p>&#8220;Any dog can bite, regardless of its breed, and more often people are bitten by dogs they know. It&#8217;s not the dog&#8217;s breed that determines risk &#8212; it&#8217;s the dog&#8217;s behavior, general size, number of dogs involved and the vulnerability of the person bitten that determines whether or not a dog or dogs will cause a serious bite injury.&#8221;</p><p>Utilizing the logic of passing legislation or imposing blanket restrictions on animals that have the potential to harm people is an unrealistic, passion-driven pursuit in the absence of logic. Assume for a moment this is the direction we as a society believe we should move in, should we also consider the closing of zoos for this reason? Tragic accidents occur every year in our nation&#8217;s zoos. <ins>Should we also legislate or close down zoos because of the potential that exists for an individual to be harmed by the wild animals housed at the zoo?</ins> For that matter, should we consider the closing of all state fairs and carnivals due to the horrific accident that occurred recently in Ohio? This logic is flawed<ins>, we as a society cannot legislate away every potential accident that may occur</ins>.</p><p>The American Testing Temperament Society<ins>, https://atts.org/breed-statistics/statistics-page6/</ins> promotes their mission of temperament testing dogs. ATTS has tested tens of thousands of dogs throughout its history, including thousands of strong-breed dogs with many of these breeds passing the tests at 85 percent or greater. These statistics do not support the banning or the implementation of restrictions placed on a specific breed. I understand that individual dogs may require stronger restrictions, but the state of Pennsylvania already has legislation in place for deeming a dog as aggressive or dangerous.</p><p>The problem is not the dog, or its breed, it is the irresponsibility and/or inexperience of the owner. Not all, but many, of these situations could be avoided if responsible precautions were exercised by the animal&#8217;s owners. <ins>When a tragic accident occurs like the one above the individual animal owner and the dog in question should be reviewed for further action when warranted, both civilly and possibly criminally.</ins></p><p>Most media outlets in the face of a tragic accident involving strong-breed dogs immediately begin to demonize the breed and in many cases call for broad sweeping legislation. The media coverage of these situations would lead the general public into believing that all strong-breed dogs are dangerous and will attack, which is simply not an accurate statement. <ins>This irresponsible media coverage only sensationalizes and further promotes the negative stereotypes associated with certain breeds.</ins></p><p><ins>In 2008, there was a report completed to illustrate media news bias. Over the course of four days in August 2007, we saw two children attacked by dogs (one fatally), and one elderly man attacked. They each received one local article in the local newspaper. On the fourth day, two &#8220;pit bulls&#8221; attacked a woman, hospitalizing her. It received &#8220;more than 230 articles in national &#8230; and on major cable news networks.&#8221;</ins></p><p>We cannot legislate dog bites/attacks out of our reality. We can, however, take precautions as responsible animal owners and hold individuals accountable for the actions of their pets. <ins>As mentioned earlier, the state of Pennsylvania already has a system in place to evaluate and deem a dog dangerous based upon their individual behavior.</ins></p><p>On a personal note, my wife and I are the proud parents to four rescued pit bulls, and we took offense to the suggestion that we, as owners, are part of the problem.</p><p>I vehemently disagree with this sentiment. Our dogs are well-behaved, loving animals. How could someone believe and suggest that my pit bulls and many others like them are somehow part of the problem merely because they have been labeled a pit bull terrier?</p><p>The truth is most dogs labeled a pit bull terrier are mixed-breed dogs that exhibit physical characteristics typically associated with that of a pit bull terrier. This breed has a long, decorated and celebrated history of serving in our nation&#8217;s military.<ins> In fact, &#8220;Sergeant Stubby&#8221;, a pit bull is recognized as the most decorated war dog ever. During his active duty time in World War I he provided moral boost to troops but his contributions go far beyond moral, he, independently captured a German spy, alerted our soldiers to immanent attacks and he warned troops of pending poison gas attacks providing the life-saving moments they needed. He is the only US military dog to ever be promoted to the rank of sergeant. Sergeant Stubby is one of many pit bulls that have served in our military as far back as the civil war. There are more and more pit bulls being used as first responders to rescue victims and assist police departments with protecting our communities.</ins> These animals are not unpredictable, loaded weapons we are lead to believe; one should be far more cautious of the owner than of the dog.</p><p>Strong-breed dogs should be judged on their individual history and behavior not on a label or breed name. Focusing on an animals&#8217; breed is misguided approach to reducing dog bites. Breed-specific legislation has proven to be ineffective and has been opposed by many nationally recognized and respected animal welfare organizations<ins>, including the American Veterinary Medical Association, American Kennel Club, Humane Society of the United States, ASPCA, American Humane Association, Animal Legal Defense Fund, numerous reports highlighted in the Animal Legal and Historical Center, Best Friends Animal Society to name just a few</ins>.</p><p>A far more reasonable and likely effective method of dog-bite prevention or reduction is education. Owners should learn and take proactive steps to train and socialize their pets. They should understand and utilize proper security methods to maintain proper control over their pets.</p><p>The keystone to dog-bite reduction or prevention is responsible ownership and supervision of the animals we bring into our lives.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Todd Hevner</p><p>Guest Columnist</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Todd Hevner is the executive director of the SPCA of Luzerne County. The Times Leader encourages officials of local nonprofits to contribute guest columns. Submit columns to jsoprano@www.timesleader.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Their view: Ignorance more dangerous than pit bulls