June 07, 2005
Of Petey and Puff and Other Pit Bulls
Both Eric Scheie and Dean Esmay have posted recently on unfair treatment of pit bulls in the mainstream media (of course, no blogger of any stripe would ever stoop to unfair treatment of any critter, person, or issue...). Their comments are worth reading, and their links are worth following. Dogs such as pit bulls and Rottweilers, German shepherds and Dobermans are considered to be frightening and dangerous, while politicians, badged thugs law enforcement officials, and bureaucrats get an undeserved free pass, time after time.
I'm pro-pit bull, by the way. Since I was a kid, my dogs have usually tended to be some flavor of German shepherd, and I could with justice be accused of shepherd chauvinism. Guilty as charged. So I've never owned a pit bull of my own. But pit bulls make great pets and there was a time when most of America felt comfortable recognizing that -- actually, they're still one of the most popular dog breeds in this country, so if they, and their German shepherd and Doberman and Rottweiler cousins were so dangerous, there'd be zero children left in this country, and al-Quaeda could just walk in and take over an aging American populace and impose sharia overnight.
That would be an anti-pit-bull utopia, wouldn't it? We already know how those fine folks feel about dogs.
There was a time when, if the bulldog was a fair symbol of England, then it was seen as fair to have the pit bull stand in for America, as can be seen in this World War I era poster:
With everything else there is to worry about, there are people out there who think we should ban certain animals. Now, pardon me for askin', but wouldn't "ban" imply "kill?" Would it not imply, oh I dunno, extinction? Wonder if they'd run afoul of PETA or any of the eco-freaks?
When I was growing up in Florida, alligators were an endangered species and it was illegal to hunt the damn things. Far as I know, though, no alligator has ever been loved by generations of American children.
Posted by Craig Ceely at June 7, 2005 10:52 PM