K9soul
10-20-2004, 08:02 PM
After watching the video that Julie (Goldenretrluver) posted, I've been reading more about the pit bull controversy, what they go through, what is going on to stop it or not stop it, and ran across several statements about Peta being anti-pit bull and an article (from January 2000) put out by Peta's president Ingrid Newkirk in support of pit bull bans.
I first saw it mentioned while reading/looking at this site: http://www.workingpitbull.com/, which is extremely educational and informative overall in everything to do with pits.
The article is reprinted or referred to on nearly every pit bull advocate site I looked at.
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PeTA Supports the EXTERMINATION of "PIT BULL" BREEDS!
Thursday, January 27, 2000 By INGRID NEWKIRK
MOST PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA that at many animal shelters across the country, any "pit bull" who comes through the front door goes out the back door -- in a body bag. From San Jose to Schenectady, many shelters have enacted policies requiring the automatic destruction of the huge and ever-growing number of "pits" they encounter. This news shocks and outrages the compassionate dog-lover.
The pit bull's ancestor, the Staffordshire terrier, is a human concoction, bred in my native England, I'm ashamed to say, as a weapon. These dogs were designed specifically to fight other animals and kill them, for human sport. Hence the barrel chest, the thick hammer-like head, the strong jaws, the perseverance, and the stamina. Pits can take down a bull weighing in at over a thousand pounds, so a human being a tenth of that weight is small potatoes to them.
Pit bulls are perhaps the most abused dogs on the planet. These days, they are kept for protection by almost every drug dealer and pimp in every major city and beyond. You can drive into any depressed area and see them being used as cheap burglar alarms, wearing heavy logging chains around their necks (they easily break regular collars and harnesses), attached to a stake or metal drum or rundown doghouse without a floor and with holes in the roof. Bored juveniles "sic" them on cats, neighbors' small dogs, and even children. In the PETA office we have a file drawer chock-full of accounts of attacks in which these ill-treated dogs have torn the faces and fingers off infants and even police officers trying to serve warrants.
Today, organizing dog fights is a federal offense in this country, yet pits are still king of the ring. Humane officers and other law enforcement agents routinely break up rings in New Mexico, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Florida. They confiscate dog-fighting paraphernalia, including treadmills used to build doggie endurance and drugs used to numb pain from injuries inflicted by opponents and to "jazz up" the dogs. They find mesh bags in which kittens, rabbits, puppies, and other small prey are suspended over the dogs to encourage fighting spirit. Not uncommonly they find what's left of dogs who have lost their battles. They are not always dead. Those who argue against the euthanasia policy for pit bull dogs are naive. One dog that had just been adopted by a family suddenly clamped his jaw onto the thigh of a 7-year-old boy. Two grown men had a hard time getting the dog off and the child suffered permanent nerve damage. Tales like thisabound. I have scars on my leg and arm from my own encounter with a pit. Many are loving and will kiss on sight, but many are unpredictable. An unpredictable chihuahua is one thing, an unpredictable pit another.
People who genuinely care about dogs won't be affected by a ban on pits. They can go to the shelter and save one of the countless other breeds and lovable mutts sitting on death row through no fault of their own. We can only stop killing pits if we stop creating new ones. Legislators, please take note.
By Ingrid Newkirk
Ingrid Newkirk is president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. She may be contacted at PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, Va. 23501, or on-line at www.PETA-online.org. © 2000 Bergen Record Corp.
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One of many links to this: http://www.realpitbull.com/peta.html
I first saw it mentioned while reading/looking at this site: http://www.workingpitbull.com/, which is extremely educational and informative overall in everything to do with pits.
The article is reprinted or referred to on nearly every pit bull advocate site I looked at.
--------
PeTA Supports the EXTERMINATION of "PIT BULL" BREEDS!
Thursday, January 27, 2000 By INGRID NEWKIRK
MOST PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA that at many animal shelters across the country, any "pit bull" who comes through the front door goes out the back door -- in a body bag. From San Jose to Schenectady, many shelters have enacted policies requiring the automatic destruction of the huge and ever-growing number of "pits" they encounter. This news shocks and outrages the compassionate dog-lover.
The pit bull's ancestor, the Staffordshire terrier, is a human concoction, bred in my native England, I'm ashamed to say, as a weapon. These dogs were designed specifically to fight other animals and kill them, for human sport. Hence the barrel chest, the thick hammer-like head, the strong jaws, the perseverance, and the stamina. Pits can take down a bull weighing in at over a thousand pounds, so a human being a tenth of that weight is small potatoes to them.
Pit bulls are perhaps the most abused dogs on the planet. These days, they are kept for protection by almost every drug dealer and pimp in every major city and beyond. You can drive into any depressed area and see them being used as cheap burglar alarms, wearing heavy logging chains around their necks (they easily break regular collars and harnesses), attached to a stake or metal drum or rundown doghouse without a floor and with holes in the roof. Bored juveniles "sic" them on cats, neighbors' small dogs, and even children. In the PETA office we have a file drawer chock-full of accounts of attacks in which these ill-treated dogs have torn the faces and fingers off infants and even police officers trying to serve warrants.
Today, organizing dog fights is a federal offense in this country, yet pits are still king of the ring. Humane officers and other law enforcement agents routinely break up rings in New Mexico, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Florida. They confiscate dog-fighting paraphernalia, including treadmills used to build doggie endurance and drugs used to numb pain from injuries inflicted by opponents and to "jazz up" the dogs. They find mesh bags in which kittens, rabbits, puppies, and other small prey are suspended over the dogs to encourage fighting spirit. Not uncommonly they find what's left of dogs who have lost their battles. They are not always dead. Those who argue against the euthanasia policy for pit bull dogs are naive. One dog that had just been adopted by a family suddenly clamped his jaw onto the thigh of a 7-year-old boy. Two grown men had a hard time getting the dog off and the child suffered permanent nerve damage. Tales like thisabound. I have scars on my leg and arm from my own encounter with a pit. Many are loving and will kiss on sight, but many are unpredictable. An unpredictable chihuahua is one thing, an unpredictable pit another.
People who genuinely care about dogs won't be affected by a ban on pits. They can go to the shelter and save one of the countless other breeds and lovable mutts sitting on death row through no fault of their own. We can only stop killing pits if we stop creating new ones. Legislators, please take note.
By Ingrid Newkirk
Ingrid Newkirk is president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. She may be contacted at PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, Va. 23501, or on-line at www.PETA-online.org. © 2000 Bergen Record Corp.
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One of many links to this: http://www.realpitbull.com/peta.html