My thoughts on the pit bull attack in Washington

This attack has made national news as do most incidents involving pit bulls. I have talked to media outlets as far as New York, regarding this tragic, yet avoidable incident. So I felt I should address this incident publicly on my blog.

This, like the majority of dog attacks, was completely avoidable. This poor woman is suffering, as is the neighbor's family who lost their beloved Jack Russel, for a few reasons-- irresponsible owner and Animal Control's lack of action (It is unknown if they didn't handle the incidents correctly, or if laws didn't allow them to react).

The owner of the female pit bull is quoted: "We never saw it coming. They’re the kinds of dogs you’d let play with your babies,” Martin said." However, in talking to neighbors, there are at least 5 incidents of human aggression by these dogs or other dogs in this person's care. Incidents that involve the dogs pinning a man in the garage to the point he had to shoot at the dogs with a BB gun, that same day they charged a young child on a bike. In another incident they charged a guy and snarled at him, preventing him from getting to his truck, he had to start throwing rocks at them. A year before that, Martin's dogs attacked his dog. Yet... "we never saw it coming" ??

As for Animal Control, the ACO is quoted "Boman said animal control officers have had past run-ins with the pit bulls, but couldn’t say exactly how many."

Now from the ACO's comments as well as the neighbors comments, these dogs should have been removed from the home long before yesterday's incident. This should have never happened. Was it because ACO didn't follow up and do their jobs by visiting the neighborhood and checking on the dogs? Or was it they didn't have the authority to remove dogs because of the way their local laws are written? I can't imagine 4 incidents being reported to this degree and nothing happening. These are the laws we need to change. We need to give animal control organizations the needed budgets to become proactive and not reactive. We need to have non-breed specific laws that empower animal control to remove dogs if they are a danger to society.

As a side note: The media keeps reporting that the dogs entered through a pet door. That is inaccurate. The dogs entered through a sliding glass door that was left open for the owner's dog to go in and out of the house.

Again, this is a tragedy that should have never happened.