On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend in 1997, I was attacked and bitten by a pit-bull mix while I was at work. We were doing smoke detector inspections in a poor neighborhood, and I was standing in front of a house, when one of my men called out "LOOK OUT!"
The dog approached from my left, stopped about six feet in front of me, bared his teeth and growled. I backed away slowly...and he ran around to my right and bit me hard on the side of my right thigh, midway between my knee and my butt. The bite tore my uniform trousers and punctured my skin.
Amazingly, a teenage girl came out of the house next door, grabbed the dog by the collar, and put him in the fenced back yard of the house I'd been standing in front of. Turns out that was his home, and his owner was in the habit of letting the dog roam the neighborhood while he was a work.
I was taken to the hospital, where they cleaned the wound, injected it with antibiotics, and gave me two shots of gamma globulin in my butt. The next day, the police called me with the cheery news that the dog had never been vaccinated...which meant I had to get rabies shots.
I love dogs...but I can't stand pit bulls. And I have no tolerance for that nonsensical "blame the deed, not the breed" argument. Just as sheepdogs are bred to be herders, and greyhounds are bred to run,
pit bulls are bred to be aggressive. Frankly, I cannot understand why anyone would want one as a household pet.
Okay, fire away...
America's Most Dangerous Dog Breeds [Infographic]