Canine Racism
This (link via Drudge) is a terrible tragedy, and quite possibly a crime to boot. Soon after the mauling, all three dogs were promptly put down, as they should have been. If it were up to me, their owners would be, too, unless they could show a really, really good reason why they should not be. But there is a second story-within-a-story here, as well, and that is a story of journalistic malpractice.
Let’s start with the real story: three aggressive, undisciplined, poorly socialized dogs of medium stature were allowed to roam free in violation of a local leash ordinance. As a result, these three dogs ended up mauling an innocent woman to death and injuring two men. That’s the story, in a nutshell. But as with John “I’m a Viet Nam Veteran” Kerry, staff writers George Merritt and Jim Kirksey latch on, pit bull style, to the largely irrelevant detail that the dogs were (supposedly) pit bulls. Counting the headline, the story throws the phrase “pit bull” at you seven friggin’ times, as if Merritt and Kirksey thought that were the story itself. Would the victim, Jennifer Brooke (whose name appears only five times in the story) have been any better off if she had been mauled to death by three non-pit bulls instead? All this assumes, of course, that the dogs were in fact pit bulls. Given the absence of any photos and the general tendency of both the public and the media to label any aggressive dogs of undetermined breed as “pit bulls,” I’d put the odds of that somewhere around 50-50, on a good day.
Picture, for a moment, the outrage you would see if the Denver Post were to adopt a similar policy toward humans. It’s one thing to report, that a white/black/Hispanic/Asian/etc. is suspected of robbing a liquor store and murdering the cashier, and quite another to remind the reader of that irrelevant detail seven times within the span of a single article. No, I’m not saying that dog-racism is morally equivalent to racism directed at humans. What I am saying is that the two are equally irrational. Stating or implying that pit bulls, as a breed, have a common tendency toward dog-aggression is a fact, and one any prospective pit bull owner will have to be prepared to deal with. By contrast, suggesting that they tend, as a breed, to be more aggressive toward humans is simply false.
Compare the amount of pit bull bull you saw in this one article to the relative lack of attention to the breed of those two widely-reported ____________ dogs in San Francisco who mauled Diane Whipple to death three years ago. Can you name the breed of those dogs? A free box of cereal to the first commenter who gets it right without peeking.
UPDATE: Apparently, my example of a race-obsessed crime story wasn’t quite as far fetched as I thought.
December 1st, 2003 at 2:13 pm
I don’t recall whether it was a Chicago city ordinance or Illinois state law which required that any dog which was a wolf cross be destroyed. I’ve been out of that city and state for six years, in part to get away from repression, but I always figured that there was some interesting lawsuit potential there. I’d like to see the legal proof that my neighbor’s toy poodle with the pink toenails doesn’t have any wolf DNA.
December 1st, 2003 at 3:48 pm
I read the article once and don’t want to read it again but was there any evidence that the dogs were indeed owned? Pit bulls tend to look similar to your standard hound-style mutt. In fact, I bet if you put up three pictures of dogs — pit bull, mutt and bulldog — people would be hard pressed to guess which was the pit bull. Throw a rottweiler and a doberman without the ear job in and they’ll never get it.
December 1st, 2003 at 4:02 pm
This part of the story suggests the dogs were owned, just not controlled:
My guess is that the dogs were either mutts or members of some lesser-known (or less easily identified) breed. IOW, they probably weren’t German shepherds, Doberman pinschers, toy poodles or Rottweilers, but they could have been almost anything else.
December 1st, 2003 at 4:13 pm
Prejudicial Bias
Another story in the news which purports to be about pit bulls . . . I want pictures and pedigrees. Proof, please. As Raging Dave pointed out in comments the other day, the breed with the most reported attacks is…
December 2nd, 2003 at 10:48 am
The dogs that killed Diane Whipple were Canarios, a rare dog bred almost exclusively for fighting. Apparently gaining popularity among gangs for their macho status, most definitely NOT dogs you want to keep in an apartment.
December 2nd, 2003 at 11:37 am
We have a winner. The precise name is presa canario, but this is close enough.
December 2nd, 2003 at 12:23 pm
Yay! I knew there was another word in the breed name, but I couldn’t think of it and didn’t want to cheat.
Here’s a link with some info…
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art2609.asp
December 5th, 2003 at 9:50 am
Prejudicial Bias
Another story in the news which purports to be about pit bulls . . . I want pictures and pedigrees. Proof, please. As Raging Dave pointed out in comments the other day, the breed with the most reported attacks is…