Slate published Dog Bites Man by Jon Katz. The focus is about the responsibilities that dog owners have. The central tragedy is described here:
Spice was a sweetheart, gentle with kids, the best pal of my border collies, generous with her toys and snacks, happy to play tug of war and chase endlessly across suburban lawns. Her owner Jan, an ad executive in my northern New Jersey town, was deeply involved in dog rescue. She believed it immoral to spend hundreds of dollars for a purebred dog (like mine) when so many dogs are in shelters facing death. Accordingly, she had plucked Spice—a 3-year-old mix of pit bull, Labrador retreiver, and probably a few other breeds—out of a Brooklyn animal shelter days before she was slated for euthanasia. Jan didn't know anything about her history, except that she'd been found on the street, half-starved and beaten, and that "because she was a pit, she didn't have much of a shot at being adopted."So Jan bypassed calmer and easier shelter dogs and brought Spice home, trained her conscientiously and consistently, loved and pampered her. Spice proved a wonderful pet—obedient, easygoing, affectionate. I had no hesitation about her playing with my dogs, and I listened sympathetically as Jan complained about harassment and what she called "breed prejudice"—that fear of pit bulls that caused people who encountered them to grab their kids and dogs and cross the street.
...
Last fall, while they were walking in a park, a Pekingese slipped out of its collar and dashed toward Spice and Jan, growling and barking. Spice, startled, almost reflexively grabbed the dog's head in her mouth, bit down, and hung on. Neither Jan nor a horrified dog owner passing by could get Spice to loosen her grip. The smaller dog yelped, then went still. The Peke's owner, a woman in her 60s strolling with her 5-year-old grandson, screamed and rushed up to intervene. Spice had always been friendly and reliable around children, but now she was aroused, almost frantic. People were shouting. The boy cried and screamed in fear.
It all happened in a few seconds. Spice bit both the woman, who required 30 stitches in her arm, and the child, who after surgery still had small but permanent facial scars and most likely some psychological ones. The animal-control authorities seized the dog. Local ordinances meant near-certain euthanasia.
The moral question that Katz explores is if Jan was at fault for the tragedy. Jan seemed to have done everything right. Spice wasn't mistreated and seemed well trained. But was Spice so dangerous, because of her breed and unknown background, that Jan was exposing her community to an inappropriate risk? Are some dogs and breeds just too dangerous to allow out in public?
This seems like an extreme viewpoint. But I have some sympathy for it. Spice was found "...on the street, half-starved and beaten." Jan had no idea of Spice's history. Spice could have been (and seems to have been) a time bomb waiting to go off. It is possible that no amount of training by Jan could have stopped the tragedy.
I like stories about people who sin and then redeem themselves. The idea that people would like the feeling of seeing their pets redeemed makes sense to me. However, I'm not sure it is a rational feeling. And in this case, the cost of Jan's attempts to redeem Spice was unfortunate.
Posted by georgegmacdonald at November 19, 2004 01:15 PM