Pit bulls attacks redux

[Dan in Pasadena]

Rika,

My 13 year old black lab - fully white around the snout and eyes, walks with a decided limp, can no longer run, blueish milky eyes....barked at the mail carrier twice in my front yard. USPS made my put up a curb mounted mail box because of my "vicious" dog. Make no mistake, he didn't approach the mail carrier (Hell, I'm not sure he SAW the carrier!, I think he heard him or smelled him).

Now, I have no doubt that a big black dog barking at you is frightening...no argument.

But...........PERHAPS you should have picked a profession OTHER THAN mail carrier if you're that afraid of dogs?

[Rikao4]

Hawk , that is fine looking dog,
Dan, wishing the old guy and you ... more time together,
believe in dog-heaven, god gives them treats that look like a those people that don't like animals...loads of fun

we eat them, ***** them..and Fred over there eats them again.
Rika

[bivenator]

Originally posted by Jeff Higgins
Hmm, Harris County, Texas. I would be willing to bet they have a substantially higher population of hunting Labs than domestic pit bulls, by a factor of several hundred fold. Pit bulls are almost exclusively city and suburban dogs; you won't find many in rural America. They don't hunt. It would be interesting to see the number of attacks in Harris County expressed as a relationship to the breeds' populations.

Harris county is where most of Houston is located. Not alot of rural area.

[syncroid]

I have a Pit bull / Boxer mix. She is the sweetest dog ever. We adopted her from the Humane Society at 7 months old. Actually she adopted us! She does not have a mean bone in her body....unless....you are a stranger and try and touch my daughter. Our mail carrier got the brunt of just such a scenario. I had gone in the house for about a minute. My daughter was out in the front yard with the dog. The mail carrier decided to just walk straight up to my daughter and hand her the mail instead of putting it in the box like normal. Big mistake! The dog went nuts! I heard the first bark and ran out the front door just in time to see a cloud of mace in the air and the mail man getting planted on his butt at the same time. My dog never bit him. She came away immediately when I yelled "NO!" To this day she cannot stand any mail carriers. We have been working with her to recognize that "they" are not the enemy. For the most part I have to agree that Pits are nothing but big mushballs. The owners of them are the ones that mold them into the vicious dogs that we read about in the papers. Right now my pound pup is sitting here on the floor at my feet looking at me like..."How ya doin dad? Lets play"
Meet Snap (as in ginger snap cookie)

[BertBeagle]

Dogs that bite don't warn with barking. They like the element of surprise. They will just wirl around and bite for all they have.

Some dogs can bark and growl and then nip at a pant leg etc. but that is not really biting and going for blood.

I have a mostly boxer, Rhodesian mix that may have some pit in her. I love that dog. She can growl (the boxer side) when playing and she can scare some people but she won't bite. I will leave her with my grand kids anytime. Looks a lot like syncroid's girl with a white chest and feet (boxer)

Here's a picture