When Augie Doggie turns into Cujo

Today the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock to 11:55 -- two minutes closer to the end of the world. The reasons for humanity's hastening destruction are the usual suspects: terrorism, nuclear standoffs, global warming, the bird flu, and Pat Robertson. However, there is a far more terrible threat to the citizens of Earth that should be added to America's docket of fear. This brutal enemy has lived side by side with humans since the Middle Ages and came to America along with our colonial precedessors. Of course this lurking menace I am speaking of is the pit bull.

It seems every time I look up someone new has been mauled by a pit bull. I had originally started this post a couple of weeks ago, but had tabled it until I saw that yesterday another little girl was killed by her neighbor's dog. This comes a week after a toddler was killed by her uncle's pit bull in the UK, and two weeks after a teenage boy in backwoods Tennessee was attacked and mauled by a pack of wild pit bulls before his neighbor chased them off. The week before Christmas a pair of pits in the Boston area jumped into a family's livestock paddock, killing their miniature horse and severly wounding their other horse.

I don't know exactly what the solution is, but something certainly needs to be done to curtail a disturbing trend that is on the rise nationwide. The libertarian in me rails against passing laws that make owning pits illegal, such as the one that exists in Great Britain and in many states across the country. The Georgia legislature was considering such a bill before I left and I was originally all for it, but reading social scientist/columist Malcolm Gladwell's thoughts on the topic changed my mind.

Yes, pit bulls and similar breeds can be extraordinary vicious and aggressive dogs, but so can other dogs like German Shepherds and Golden Retrievers. The French woman who had the face transplant was mauled by a Lab, which is seen as a loving family pet. There is even a documented case of a fatality involving a Pomeranian. I am very mistrustful of an animal that was specifically bred to bait bulls and bears, but I certainly realize that not every pit is a cold-blooded killer.

The real problem starts with the owner, and in just about every fatal attack case I have looked at the dog's owner was incredibly irresponsible and ill-suited to have the dog. And it certainly doesn't help to have idiots like Joey Porter (his pit bulls killed a horse), Latrell Sprewell (his pit bull tore his daughter's face off and he still refused to have it put down), and multitudes of rappers sporting pit bulls as status symbols, as if the dogs were jewelry. Whatever the answer, something does have to be done. The pit bull population is growing along with America's fascination with the breed and the issue is not going to just go away.