Bad Apples

from a reader —

We are taught that you do not throw out the whole basket for one bad apple. However, when you start to find more and more bad apples, you need to start looking at the tree they came from as the possible source of the problem.

In Halifax, Brindi has again been seized by city authorities for “alleged” misdeeds. In Halifax parlance, Brindi has been sentenced before her trial has even started. She is being kept in a secret location where neither the dog’s owner, Francesca Rogier, nor the dog’s vet are allowed access to her. I cannot see one good reason for this logic and, as I have learned, the city has not responded with an explanation for this.

In Ontario, a new death sentence has been handed down against a Pit Bull MIX who defended herself when she was attacked by another dog. Ginger was muzzled and leashed at the time of the attack. The other dog was not. This new sentence comes from an appeal of an appeal. In other words, the city was not happy with the success of the dog owner’s appeal, so they appealed the appeal.

Last weekend in Des Moines, Washington, four police officers gunned down a lost dog they cornered in the fenced-in back yard of a city resident after telling the owner to close the curtains and move the children away from the windows. Within minutes, a shot rang out and Rosie could be heard crying in pain. This was followed by three more shots. One officer carried a sniper rifle.

In September, a police officer in Washington, DC pinned down a dog on a public sidewalk that had been attacked by a smaller dog and had snapped back. After subduing Parrot, the officer picked the dog up and threw her down a flight of steps near him. As she staggered to regain her stance and began to make her way up the steps to her caretaker, the officer drew his pistol and killed her — right there on a public street at a festival attended by adults and children.

Need I go on with these stories before you see the pattern I am seeing? The people we have elected to represent us have taken their own high road and no longer represent the values I feel are accurate and important. They are riding ramrod and making elitist decisions about life and death as though it is their right to decide whose life is worth sparing and whose should be taken from them.

At it’s essence, life is all that we share in common. Everything else is a conscious give-and-take, a negotiation.

Brindi is protective of her property. She sees this as her job, so she occasionally scuffles with dogs that she feels are intruding on her space. She is taking care of her family as she instinctively feels is appropriate. We just need to negotiate our interpretation of appropriate behavior with her. Simply put, this is a training issue. One the judge realized in April and one that she has been in training for since.

Send her back home and let her get on with her work.

Ginger did nothing wrong — other than she looks a bit like a Pit Bull. There are so many studies that have been done over the course of a decade that show that Breed Specific Legislation — discrimination against a breed that few seem qualified to even identify — has not changed the statistics of dog bites in communities ACROSS THE WORLD and that the costs to enforce such legislation have been high. An online search of newspaper articles by Dr. Malathi Raghavan, DVM, PhD, found that pit bull terriers were responsible for 1 of 28 (3.6%) dog bite-related fatalities reported in Canada from 1990 through 2007.

For legislation to exist that with great error states that Pit Bulls are inherently dangerous when there are so many studies to the contrary is an embarrassment upon the people of Canada… or a reflection of a complacency that is equally disturbing.

A possible solution has been offered by the city of Calgary where Ginger would be released to a rescue group there. Calgary does not have breed specific discrimination. While this is wonderful news, it is still a slap in the face of Philip Huggins. This is his dog and she has done nothing wrong. He has fought to save her and won his case. He has lost his job and amassed great debt in the name of justice. And in the end, he could be without her. Either way, the injustice of the city prevails.

Same for Halifax. The city originally sought to kill Brindi. It did not work, so they tried another avenue. And that did not work. Through a mishap, an accident, the city again has Brindi in their possession and I bet justice and fairness are not motivating them.

What a sorry lot the authorities in all these cases are. Bad apples. The tree they all have in common is an overzealous desire to be hot shots in control. Of Brindi, people will say, “but what if it’s a child next time.” What if the officers with the guns miss the dog next time and hit a child or what if they aim for the child because he was running from them? Of Ginger people will say she looks like a Pit Bull. Did you know that Chihuahuas are actually considered more dangerous and have a higher bite rate, but because they are small and cute, that fact does not seem to count. Of the dogs simply murdered by the police, it has already begun that people we entrust with our safety are spinning out of control.

So kick the dog? Kill them for not being like us? I say we need to look at the tree from which these calls come and prune out the bad sections.

Send Brindi and Ginger home to their families. And hold the officers responsible for killing innocent dogs accountable for their [mis]actions.

I, too, stand with Brindi and Francesca.

J. Battaglia