http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174712,00.html

From the news article:



Escaped Pit Bulls Attack Six People
Sunday, November 06, 2005

CARY, Ill — A 10-year-old boy was in critical condition Sunday after three pit bulls (search) escaped from a home and went on a rampage, attacking six people before police shot and killed dogs, authorities said.

No charges had been filed Sunday, but McHenry County (search) Sheriff Keith Nygren said it was being investigated as a crime scene.

Neighbors said the attacks started late Saturday afternoon when children going door-to-door for a fund-raiser arrived at the home of Scott Sword, 41, who owned the dogs.

"We had music playing, and I heard this bizarre sound," said Debby Rivera, who lives three houses away. "I looked out the window, and I saw a young boy. The dogs were just jumping on him."

"The screams were horrible," she said. The dogs were "relentless, like they were possessed."

The pit bulls attacked the two children, and when the dogs' owner tried to stop them, the dogs turned on him and bit off his thumb, Nygren said. The boy's father also tried to protect his son and was attacked. The dogs went after another neighbor as well.

"The scene sprawled over a couple blocks, it was a very chaotic scene," said Lt. Michael Douglas of the Cary Fire Protection District .
Residents threw rocks at the dogs and honked car horns to try to distract them from attacking before police arrived and shot the animals.

Jim Malone said he and a neighbor tried to beat the dogs back with baseball bats. "He'd hit them, they'd run, and they'd come back," Malone said. "This went on for 15 minutes."

The boy who was attacked, Nick Foley, was hospitalized in critical condition Sunday. His friend Jordan Lamarre, also 10, was in serious condition. Nick's father was listed in good condition. Sword and two others were treated for injuries and released.

Last week, another 10-year-old boy in Colorado was mauled by a pack of pit bulls that attacked him in his own back yard. The boy was in critical condition after the attack, and the hospital said Sunday his family had requested no further information about his condition be released.

The attack in the Denver suburb of Aurora came two days after the City Council banned pit bulls and other "fighting dogs." Owners who already had the dogs could keep them if they paid a $200 annual license fee




Another fine example of bad ownership - the owner basically had an entire pack of dogs without adequate confinement for them. And as so often happens, it's kids who pay for their stupidity.
When are they going to start sending these idiots to prison for long periods of time for stupidity like this? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Fixed Link so you don't have to copy/paste

I never cease to be amazed at the stupidity of these people! I'm with Will - lock them up. They shot the dogs but they didn't solve the real problem - the irresponsible idiot that owned the dogs. All he is going to do is get more dogs and probably keep them in the same conditions, etc., because no one is going to tell him " you caused this problem." You will see tons of articles, news clips, etc. on how dangerous pit bulls are, but I doubt anyone will see articles in the general media that address pack drive in dogs, proper ways to house dogs, etc. It will all be blamed on the breed. In the article, it stated that the owner's thumb was bitten off during the attack - it's a shame it wasn't his head, he obviously wasn't using it.

Yeah, as details come out this just gets better and better <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-dogs07.html

All the classic warning signs of stupid dog ownership:

The owner had *no* fencing whatsoever.
Dogs were noted to be out without a leash previously.
The dog owner was a backyard breeder.

This has effected an entire neighborhood. They're actually offering counseling to the kids classmates school. Many children are now going to have a life long fear of dogs over this incidence. Along with all the kids being badly injured, several adults were bitten trying to save the kids ( and might I add that *one* person skilled with a firearm would have stopped this tragedy in a short time. But you can't get a concealed weapons permit in the state of Illinois. Another sterling example of people being stopped from defending themselves by politicians....yet another reason I live in a gun friendly state ). The long term fall out from this will affect many lives for a long time to come.

And the BSL folks get another round of ammunition to use.
*sigh* Pit bull lovers....if you don't police your own, it's going to be the end of your breed,sooner or later. And instead of pissing and moaning about BSL, ya'll need to stop selling your breed to morons or the irresponsible.

A lot of the breeders of pit bulls have one thing on there mind…. Breeding aggressive man killers and I say this due to a recent experience of my own in which I took two dogs to a trainer (who I have since found out specializes in APBT rescue and the breeding APBT)

The first dog was to be evaluated for issues of aggression in which this dog has bit two of my children as well as myself. The trainer loved and praised this dog even as the dog tried on 3 occasions to bite him during the session. He said he could title this dog in 6 months and the dog would be of no danger to my children.

The second dog and Schh3 GSD who is not aggressive at all, I brought to him for advice on training strategies and to learn how to properly work with a dog who has advanced training beyond my own experience level. The trainer tried to provoke my dog to bite him with no schutzhund gear on and when she wouldn’t bite him… he said she was a piece of shit and should be euthanized and never breed since she was a coward and would pass this trait on to her pups. Two days later I received a much different evaluation of my GSD from Raino Fluegge, GSSCC/SV after the Maine Schultzhund trial.

It just proved to me that this trainer was looking for pure untamed aggression and nothing less. It is sick. It is reckless and I understand more and more why these dog have the rap that they have… it is the breeders that are breeding monsters.

In the trainers own words…“if that were my dog I would take her out back and shoot her” just because she did not bite him. That is insane.

Good bless the children and the neighborhood who had to deal with that horrific attack. It is unbelievable.

Scott Sword, 41, was cited for three counts of having a dog at large, a petty fine punishable by up to $600, McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren said after a meeting with McHenry County State's Attorney Louis A. Bianchi.

Officials so far have decided against criminal charges because Sword's dogs did not have a history of violence, although an investigation into the incident was ongoing, Nygren said.

full story
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Well, Will, it's just too bad nobody had a danged shotgun at least. But, I just had to comment, these were not just pitbulls, they were a PACK of pitbulls. A pack of dogs is scary, no matter what the breed. When I walk my dogs (0n leash, outside the fence) on my own farm, I carry my sidearm. I don't know how good of a shot I would be with two little dogs on leash, but I bet I'd find out, if a stray or whatever attempted to attack me or my little guys on our own land. I've run off dogs twice that way (most country dogs seem to know when you are shooting in their direction)that were only trying to approach, but would not leave when I yelled at them to "Get out of here".
The owner should be dangled as bait for his own dogs, IMHO.

And the BSL folks get another round of ammunition to use.
*sigh* Pit bull lovers....if you don't police your own, it's going to be the end of your breed,sooner or later. And instead of pissing and moaning about BSL, ya'll need to stop selling your breed to morons or the irresponsible.


Will, you have a point, but I will argue that reputable APBT breeders interested in maintaing the breed standard and people passive temperment will not be the folks selling dogs (some won't sell at all) to these MORONs. I will maintain that the dogs responsible for these actions are not APBTs at all, but some Pit hybrid cooked up by a BYB. So yes kill them all, arrest the idiot that owns them or shoot him too...don't much care, but don't mix these people up with the keeper of the true APBTs, you just won't see that quality of dog in these situations. I say exterminate all these APBT knock offs and leave the breeding to those who know what they are doing, and that is how the true APBT is being policed by our own. But first know what the dog is, don't assume because somebody called it a Pit it is an APBT, any dog that would do this is either not a well bred APBT or a Pit hybrid bred for color, conformation or size in any regard the proper thing to do with any of the animals mentioned is to cull them IMHO.

Valerie,
You're absolutely right, I know that the reputable breeders are not the problem here.

 Quote:

Valerie,
You're absolutely right, I know that the reputable breeders are not the problem here.

I know you understand Will, it is just a tad frustrating to see folks believe that these kind of dogs are American Pit Bull Terriers…,they ARE NOT, they are a terrible mutation of a wonderful breed. I know you know a good Pit almost needs to be protected by a guardian breed because someone can simply walk away with it…that being the proper Pit temperment. So I say along with many other champions of this breed, lets get rid of the garbage and keep a tight reign on who owns them and who breeds them!!! The only thing I could say to those of you that love GSDs is it would be like wolf hybrids becoming a fad and the general public labeling them GSDs and blaming GSDs for their abuses.