Pit Bull Puppies, Killed And Dumped Into Dog Food Bags

A resident of Bluefield, discovered 10 pit bull puppies dumped in dog food bags on a Bluefield back road. Investigators recovered the puppies bodies on Tuesday from a dump site. A property owner, Bernard Neal, cut open the bags which revealed 10 lifeless puppies around 6 months old. A necropsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. “Every animal cruelty case is awful, but at this point I couldn’t tell you how bad this actually is,” McGinnis said. “Until we determine the cause of death of these animals I can’t speculate this is an animal cruelty case.” A pit bull awareness team is offering a cash reward for any tips that leads to a conviction. “The reason why anyone would do this is because of the city’s stupid ordinance against pit bulls,” Neal said. “Pit bulls aren’t dangerous. It’s these idiots that own them that makes them dangerous,” Neal said. 

Since there is an ordinance against pit bulls, the city council is just as guilty as the person who did it.  

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10 Year Old Pit Bull Saves Family And 5 Other Dogs From House Fire

A 10 year old pit bull named Baby, saved Rhonda and her sister, Evelyn Westenberger after their house caught on fire in Lincoln County, Oklahoma on Tuesday morning. Baby went back into the burning house to save 5 other dogs that lived there, she walked out the Westenberger sisters from sleep for them to escape the fire. All the family’s belongings and home were burned but they were so thankful for their loyal dog, Baby. The house caught on fire after a malfunction with the dryer but Baby refused to let her owners sleep after she kept nudging them and barking at them to wake up. There was still 5 other dogs in the burning house and Baby was not prepared to lose anyone to this fire so she faithfully entered her home to save the other dogs.

Evelyn, one of the sisters saved by Baby, suffered a congestive heart failure and was hospitalized after the fire. She was recovering in her hospital bed and was in good spirits knowing that her pit bull, Baby, saved her life. With tears in her eyes, Rhonda said :  “There were flames shooting down the hallway. If Baby hadn’t woken Evelyn up, I don’t think either one of us would have come out of it. It brings my spirit up a lot to see the dogs. I’m so proud of her. She is my hero. She’s the hero for all of us.”

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Pit bulls, Rottweilers And Wolf Hybrids Are Being Excluded By Farmers Insurance

On Tuesday, February 12th, Farmers Group, INC announced that they would no longer be covering dog bites from pit bulls, rottweilers or wolf hybrids anymore with homeowners insurance anymore. Homeowners in California will be notified of the change when their policies come up for renewal. The reason for the change is that it costs too much to cover these breeds because the number of bites have risen. “We reviewed our liability claim history and we determined that three breeds accounted for more than 25% of dog bite claims,” Erin Freeman, Farmers Group spokeswomen said.  “In addition, these three breeds caused more harm when they attacked than any other breed.”

Pit bull advocates, trainer and rescue groups have criticized the decision made by Farmers saying that it is condemning the breed, which are not vicious by inheritance, rather than punishing irresponsible owners. According to NBC, Farmers is not the only insurance company that is finding ways to limit the increasing level of liability for dog bites. U.S insurance companies have seen a rise by 50% in payments to the people who have been attacked by dogs. In trying to decrease the costs of  dog bites and attacks, Farmers and other insurance  companies around the country, are now asking their  customers to sign a waver that acknowledges that bites will not be covered. 

Some companies will be charging extra for owners who own pit bulls or other breeds with a high bite rate. Some companies are refusing to cover any dog bites at all. The majority of insurance companies have a “one bite rule” which will cover the initial bite but no other bites by the same animal, the report states. 

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Sacramento Offering Free Spay And Neuter For Pit Bulls In Certain Neighborhoods

Free spay and neutering procedures for pit bulls and pit mixes are being offered The Sacramento Animal Shelter after they have received a grant to provide it. Two zip codes in the city will be able to have these free procedures done. Gina Knepp, the shelter manager, says that 40% of the 5,000 dogs in the shelter are either pit bulls or pit mixes. The $5,000 grant that was given to the Sacramento Animal Shelter was from the Chako Pit Bull Rescue will allow the shelter to help most of the stay pit bulls in the 95816 and 95818 area codes.

The dogs that are not adopted will be euthanized, however, the adoption rates for the dogs are 60% but Knepp says there are still too many. Knepp says “If i treat say 200 hundred animals, 100 pairs, with 3 to 8 puppies a pair. That’s a lot of animals.” For the owners who choose to take the free spay and neuter offer, the city will throw in micro chipping, vaccinations, I.D tags and collars and city license. The city would save money if they didn’t deal with pit bulls and pit mixes and other animals. You don’t need to be an owner of a pit bull to get these discounts, the shelter also does have a yearly round spay and neuter program based on income for any breed.

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27 Pit Bulls Taken From Dog Fighting Operation

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg police rescued 27 pit bulls and arrested two men in what they are calling the biggest dog fighting operation they’ve ever seen. The two men arrested, Melvin Smith and Lefonze Williams, were both charged with felony training of animals with the purpose of dog fighting and baiting. The dogs that were taken from the operation are evidence in the case but they will be sent to a rehab facility and will be observed so they can be adopted. The dogs had some scarring, but overall were healthy and happy, said Chris Dozier of Animal Care and Control. The officers who responded to the scene had heard dogs barking behind a large fence on the property and then they saw a few pit bulls chained to spiked driving into the ground. The Animal Care and Control was called to the scene and the officers had found evidence “consistent with training dogs for the purposes of fighting” and there was aerial footage also showed more evidence of the dog fighting operation. 

The officers obtained a search warrant and found the 27 dogs, a dog fighting arena and other evidence like tethers, antibiotics for the animals and also two few week old puppies dead on the property.

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Animal Planet’s “The Puppy Bowl” Is Pro Pit Bull!

The “Puppy Bowl” on Animal Planet is a yearly program on TV,  that is like the Super Bowl but except football players, they use puppies! The show consists of a number of puppies playing in a model stadium that looks like an actual football field, with commentary on what they’re doing. This years “Puppy Bowl” lineup is featuring two pure bred pit  bulls and four pit bull mixes out of thirty one puppies. However, the Puppy Bowl takes place in Miami and there has been a twenty year ban on pit bulls. Failed efforts to downturn the legislation last year, Miami-Dade is the only county in Florida that has an active pit bull ban. Animal Planet has been doing an amazing job with promoting pit bulls and changing peoples misconceptions about the breed. You can watch The Puppy Bowl this Sunday at 3 p.m. 

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The Truth About Media And Pitbulls

Animal control officers around the country have told the ASPCA that when they alert the media to a dog attack, the news outlets respond that they have no interest in reporting on the incident unless it involved a pit bull.

This didn’t completely surprise me but what did surprise me was that the news outlets were so upfront about it. I would expect them to be a little more discreet with this because of the unwanted attention they would most likely get from people like me and pit bull owners. I always knew the media was biased around pit bulls, its called “sensationalism.” It’s also partly the police and animal control officer’s fault because they don’t give the full story, they don’t say who the owners were, they don’t say why the pit bull escaped or why wasn’t it  in a secure place. Then at that point, people don’t care to find out the truth, they have already heard enough. Once, there was a Golden Retriever who killed its owner and it made the front page of a news paper, and a pit bull bit someone and it was all over the TV news. The media is adding to the misconceptions about pit bulls and giving them a name they don’t deserve. 

 

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Beyond The Myth Documentary

In the Vancouver Sun there was an article written titled “Certain dogs and owners combine for violence” and underneath it, it read “Pit bulls, Rottweilers and dog-wolf hybrids are responsible for most attacks – so why aren’t they more restricted?” Basically Stephen Hume, the writer who wrote the article, is an uneducated, biased and ignorant. He wrote “Pit bulls, Rottweilers and wolf crosses are the bazookas of the dog world. Perfectly safe as long as they don’t go off; devastatingly lethal when they do. And nobody, least of all their owners, seems to be able to predict when they will go off.” Really? Another article was published in the Vancouver Sun in response to the article written by Hume, Kathy Powelson who is with Paws for Hope Animal Foundation wrote the response article. To what he said that I stated above, she wrote “Huh? This is an issue of responsible pet guardianship, not inherently aggressive breeds” I was pleased to read her response to Hume’s previous article. She also said how the Paws for Hope Animal Foundation and Hug-A-Bull have partnered together to bring Vancouver a documentary called “Beyond The Myth” There will also be a panel of experts to discuss issues such as dangerous dogs, breed bans and responsible pet ownership. They’re screening the documentary at the Vancity Theater on October 20th and 28th at 2pm. I’m excited to attend this screening and meeting others who have the same passion to pit bulls and other misunderstood breeds.

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Maryland Apartment Residents

Earlier this year, Maryland ruled that pit bulls were “inherently dangerous” and also if a tenants dog bites someone, the landlord can be sued. Earlier this month, a letter was sent out to every resident at the Armistead Gardens apartment complex in East Baltimore. The letter reads: “If you have a pit bull or cross-bred pit bull mix, you must get rid of the animal immediately.” One of the residents refuses to get rid of his pit bull, but his only option is to go to court. 

 “What may be in the interest of the community may be to ban pit bulls and anything that looks like a pit bull so they don’t have a financial judgment issued against them.” said the attorney of the resident refusing to get rid of his pit bull.

The ruling from the Maryland Court Of Appeals applies statewide and the first apartment complex to want to get rid of all pit bulls was the Armistead Gardens apartment complex, however this isn’t the only apartment complex willing to do so. While reading through different articles, I read that this only applied to pure bred pit bulls but no such thing exists because a pitty is a type of dog.

 

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Facebook Encourages Animal Abuse

On Facebook, there is a page called “I HATE PITBULLS” I am not sure if the page was removed of if it is still up and running. There is no administrator, so you can’t message them to ask to remove the page. On the page, there are graphic pictures of dead pit bulls, dead pit bulls on grills and they took pictures off peoples Facebook pages of their pit bulls and made jokes about shooting and killing their pit bulls. I was disgusted going through these pictures and couldn’t believe someone could ever dedicate a page to one breed of dog they no nothing about. Facebook deletes rude comments that insult others almost instantly but they have not done anything about this page (as far as I know). There is a petition to get the page taken off and please sign it, they already have 21,813 signatures when their goal was only 10,000! I think the more signatures, the better. This Facebook page is vile and needs to be removed immediately. There have been countless people commenting on their pictures and wall, talking about shooting a pit bull dead if they ever saw one. I have spent much of my time reporting this page with the hopes of  it being shut down. Below, I will post the petition site along with some of the pictures on the page *Warning, they are GRAPHIC*

Petition site- http://www.causes.com/causes/791870-take-i-hate-pitbulls-off-facebook/actions/1681884

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