[Murreydobe]

Elston said the pit bull was allowed to run freely around Carter’s property and was not kept in a pen. The officer said Carter was ordered to get rid of the dog because it poses a danger to children living in the area. If the man fails to remove the pit bull from the property by the end of this week, he could face charges for permitting a dangerous animal to be at large.

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It's a shame those dogs were killed..but I'm kind of having a problem with the ruling that was made in this case. There's NO mention the dog was off of the owner's property when these dog fights occurred. All it says is that the dog was allowed to run freely on the owner's property and wasn't kept in a pen. It could very well be the dogs that were killed were strays-and wound up paying the ultimate price for the "sins" of their owners for letting their dogs run free.

I'm just thinking of the dogs I've owned that were very high prey drive. If a neighbor's cat came onto my property, there was a good chance that dog would kill it. But I didn't consider those dogs to be dangerous to anything but small prey type animals, and I didn't (and don't) consider keeping an animal ON MY PROPERTY to be allowing an animal to be "at large". At large to me means the animal is roaming the neighborhood unleashed and without human control.

Additionally, dog aggression doesn't necessarily always go hand in hand with aggression directed towards humans. I've known many a dog aggressive animal that never ever looked wrong at a human.

Obviously if this pit bull was running loose and killing dogs in the neighborhood, then some action needs to be taken. In that situation, I can see both removing the dog from the home and laying a hefty fine on the owner for being a bad dog owner. But I'm just not real comfortable with the way this scenario was described. If the dog was on his own property, then the people who owned the strays who came onto that property were the ones at fault-for not restraining their dogs.

 

[Murreydobe]

The only thing that could give me a moments pause is if the yard was fenced. But then that comes full circle to how did the other dogs get in. .

I have two acres, the entire property fenced with six foot chain link. None of my dogs have EVER jumped that fence, or escaped from my yard in any way. They've been trained to respect boundaries, they've been gate trained to not crash through if/when the gate is open (the only time the gate being open is when a car or person is going in or out).

Yet I've had stray dogs try to dig INTO my yard..I've had a chihuahua-type dog squeeze under the bottom bar of the chain link gate, making it all the way onto my property.

I wouldn't have felt it the least bit just if my dogs had been taken away from me for what happened when another dog came onto their turf. Why should the responsible dog owner (and their dogs) pay the price for someone else not containing their animals? I don't think we have enough information about what happened with this pit bull to say it was a good decision one way or the other..but the precedent DOES make me uncomfortable with the way that article is worded.

To me (and the Animal Control facility in my town), a stray is any dog running loose, unleashed and not under the control of a human.

 

[Murreydobe]

I just wonder that the dog being a pit was going to get blamed even if the others had been wrapped in filet mignon. I have a sneaking suspicion that if it had been a lab or a golden the article might have read differently (even even written) and the community response would have been different too.

cc

Good observation, and I agree 100%.