Thursday, February 14, 2013

The Book of Numbers

In all of the religions of the worlds, numbers often hold a mystical and symbolic meaning.    Are there mysteries written in the stars that numbers, ratios, and proportions can reveal? The Holy trinity.  The Five Pillars of Islam.  The laws of beauty governed by the Fibonacci sequence. Then there is the number of the beast...666.  Is that the number of the pit bull and what it represents?  

In the Judeo/Christian Bible, there is the fourth book,  The Book of Numbers.  It's so called, because it begins with a census.  It's an account of 40 years of wandering in the desert because of  disobedience, lack of faith and stubbornness.  Isn't that US?  We don't look at the numbers, we refuse to listen to logic, and we are having a very difficult time traveling the short distance from Egypt to Israel.  Who do we bow to....what is good for the public, or what is good for a certain breed of savage dog?   How many people will be maimed and will be killed on our journey to get there?  

Numbers are also cold and stoic, unlike words they transcend time and space.  They appeal to what is rational, we seek them to answer problems, to solve difficulty, to design and plan and envision a better world.  Isn't that the goal of humanity and civilization?  We have those who are keeping score at our arm chair, those of us who had a collision with the "game of chance",  and we have the actuarial scientists who 
compile the numbers and we use them to make policy.  Policy for humanity, to create a more civil and just world.   Those numbers are speaking.  This is a list of numbers compiled for pit bulls.

I think it reads clearly..the number is up, and it equals ENOUGH!

Dog bite claims totaled $92.7 million for 2,400 claims in California.(Insurance Information Institute, 2011)

$500,000 -   The typical cost of settlements in attacks  by pit bulls and Rottweilers causing death or serious injury.

29,396 $29,396, the average cost of a dog bite case in 2011.

3000 %-  Pit bulls and Rottweilers do three times more killing and maiming than all other dogs combined, meaning that their actuarial risk is approximately 3000% higher than that of the average dog.   More than

2,500  times higher risk of killing than Labradors.

66% - 80%  or 2/3 of the pit bulls who end up at the shelter are surrendered by their owners.


65% - Pit bulls are responsible for 65 percent of all fatal dog attacks nationally.


58% of dogs euthanized at shelters are pit bull types.

44% - of Seeing Eye teams have reported being attacked by other dogs.

25 - 25% of all dog bite claims were by due to pit bull bites

14 - every fourteen days, someone in the U.S. is killed by a pit bull.


14 times more likely to escape their confines.
  
11th in popularity - *American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers and Staffordshire Bull Terriers, ranked 11th in popularity among 16 AKC-registered breeds and had by far the highest risk of killing — more than 2,500 times higher than Labs.

8 - times more likely to have been charged with drug crimes than owners of low-risked licensed dogs.

6 - times more likely to kill their owners.

5.4 - 5.4 - every 5.4. days, a body part is severed and lost in a pit bull attack

3 - Owners of dangerous dogs are more than three times more likely to have been convicted of domestic abuse.

 1/3 of all home insurance claims are dog bites (25% of them, pit bull bites)


3 - It is estimated that pit bull type dogs represent 3% of the total population of dogs in the U.S.A.. 

1 -  The Leading biters in 25 states.  

Leading biters

1 -  Leading in deaths and serious disfigurements and maimings.

 
ENOUGH!

10 comments:

  1. "“They didn’t send me a notice. My agent didn’t call me,” said Dawn Capp, who owns two pit bulls and learned about the change from a friend. “They are discriminating against me and my dogs, not based on our individual responsibility level or risk level, but just because my dog happens to look a certain way.”

    Read more: http://www.kcra.com/news/Farmers-Insurance-no-longer-covering-dog-bites-for-certain-breeds/-/11797728/18506972/-/fpvdpn/-/index.html#ixzz2KvV6JPtJ"

    This nutter is making the snowflake argument. In other words, all situations are so unique, that the idea of actuarial risk or generalizing no longer holds.

    Yes, if we had perfect knowledge then perhaps we could predict the outcome for each individual pit bull, but that is not possible. I suppose smokers would like life insurance companies to go by their individual risk of smoking-related disease and not use cruel statistical techniques (which happen to be our best way of dealing with complex and uncertain issues).

    ReplyDelete
  2. the insurance industry is the only way to win this fight. politicians are cowards.

    dawn capp is a media whore. it wouldn't be surprise me if she didn't even have farmer's insurance. and did you notice that her "service" dog savvy was sporting a testicles? i am under the impression that REAL service dogs are neutered.

    ReplyDelete
  3. All I know is that I rescue these beautiful creatures from the evil that MAN has imposed upon the breed. Pit bulls are by nature; affectionate, caring, and desperate for approval from their "master" or family. I see thousands of innocent pits being slaughtered because uneducated people breed them for $$$ and fighting while most end up in the shelter system.
    If the people breeding Pits for FIGHTING were to stop this horrific and inhumane process, I guarantee you the fatalities would decrease. MAN tortures theses animals. MAN breeds them, raises them & trains them to be killers. If you were fed glass for breakfast, gunpowder for a snack, forced to run on a treadmill after being given hot peppers in your food, DAY in and DAY out. Wouldn't you want to kill?
    I have rescued ALL of my pits for 20 years now, and I have never experienced a problem: a bite or a fight. I think it's tragic and TERRIBLE that pit bulls have killed innocent children and people but I will tell you this: If every pit were to take the "temperament test" that the Humane Society uses to assess if dogs are legally adoptable, then we would have a better hand on the problem. Yes, pit bulls were bred to fight but clearly though my experience the owner is 100% responsible for any negligence. Insuring proper housing and security for the owner's home is a start. Most of these fatalities occur when an owner has failed to secure a fenced in area, or in NYC for example kept them on a leash. Training pit bulls is ESSENTIAL. They have an enormous amount of energy and again most uneducated folks that own pits fail to exercise them properly which can lead to "escape" and roaming through streets. Socialization is paramount when owning a pit. There are many many other factors that I could go on and debate here but the truth is, no one really cares. Everyone is SO QUICK to judge the dog and refuse to look at the irresponsible owner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joe,

      “Everyone is SO QUICK to judge the dog and refuse to look at the irresponsible owner.”

      First of all there are certain cases were the dog needs to be judged. Some people on here have had issues with their own dogs being attacked. That is a BREED problem. These dogs were bred to be DOG aggressive. It’s not something that is just going to go away with some love and compassion on the part of the owner. If a pit bull is dog aggressive it needs to be handled by a responsible person that is going to make sure it doesn’t harm or kill someone’s pet. End of story. There are dogs of other breeds that attack other people’s dogs. Some dogs just don’t like other dogs and are DA. Pit bulls were bred to be that way…it’s different. No other dog breed was specifically bred to be that way. Some dogs of other breeds just end up that way. Pit bulls should be expected to be that way and contained and handled properly because of that.

      Well actually, there are some dog breeds more dangerous to smaller dogs and animals because of breeding. I won’t get into that. Either way, those problems are acknowledged and accepted and explained to people interested in the breed. It should be the same with pit bulls.

      Delete
  4. All I know is I would like to go for a walk in be in my backyard garden without the very real possibility that one of these dogs purposely bred to fight other dogs will go after me or my dogs or Miss Milly or the school kids or my post man. Apparently, these dogs require so much more expertise and consideration for what "Joe Schmo" provide for them, so if you can afford the possibility that your dog will maim or kill(which among being "affectionate, caring, and desperate for approval from their "master" or family" have been purposely bred for the sport of bull baiting or dog fighting, and are naturally "dog aggressive"), can accept that if you fail, you will go to jail, and your dog sent accross the "Rainbow Bridge", I'm fine with that. Apparently you can accept that you are 7 times more likely to be killed by your "beautiful" dog. Good luck and keep the beast on a leash.

    ReplyDelete
  5. joe - yes, we humans are responsible for their initial creation and their continuation. yes, i agree that we should stop breeding dogs for fighting. but guess what? the pit bull will cease to exist. form follows function.

    and most of these tragedies occur because it is incredibly difficult to contain pit bulls.

    regarding your rescue hobby, do you advocate the destruction of man biters or do you get all emotional and send money to chip ins to save these fuckers?

    obtw, the glass and gunpowder diet is a myth. never heard the hot peppers before. dogmen might do cruel shit them for losing but why on earth would they do this to make a dog a better fighter? use your brain man.

    ReplyDelete
  6. joe
    ive never heard anyone say much different about their pits than you just did and yet i know what they are often like , so i just have to believe my own self and figure you guys are maybe not so honest.

    ReplyDelete
  7. look et the cute pitbull wid de rubber chicken in its bloody maw.


    ahhhwww its so sweet !!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Riverside County just submitted it's Dog bite report to the state veterinarian...Here's the breakout

    Chihuahuas 51 bites; 9 rose to the level of moderate

    Pit Bulls 185 bites; 19 Severe, 2 Major; 49 moderate

    The woman killed at the Motel-6 last week was Riverside County's 6th pit bull DBRF. There are no recorded Chihuahua DBRFs anywhere in the history of the breed. Just sayin...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Professional dogmen don't supplement their dogs diet with weird shit. A dog has to have the drive to fight and the gameness to stay even unto death on its own merit. That's actually the point of the whole business. Dogs that quit are put down humanely or not, generally not, but that's the dog game. Dogfighting is a outlawed in most civilized countries. Being a dogfighter is also outlawed. It's well past time for fighting dogs to also be outlawed and go the way of the dodo. There is no place for them in a civilized society.

    ReplyDelete