Woman mauled by her pit bulls; friends don't believe story

[Small Town Guy]

An awful story that I read over the weekend, but I hadn't been unaware it'd turned into a, probably predictable, social media controversy.

A woman in rural Virginia was killed by her own pit bulls on a walk. Gruesome scene. Friends and people on social media don't buy the official story and are convinced she was killed by someone. The police are investigating that, but say there are no signs of foul play.

In response, the police offer up particularly gruesome details, including the fact the dogs were eating her rib cage.

My co-worker has pit bulls (and two little kids) and swears by them and I nod my head and say, sure, sure, and yet...how is this surprising to anyone? One of the woman's friends said the dogs would "kill you with kisses."

The Post also shut down the comments on their story, so who the hell knows what that had devolved into. (it was open for comments when I first saw story, although there weren't any there at the time).

People couldn’t believe two dogs killed their owner. So the sheriff described the horror.

 

[RickStain]

Pit bull nut jobs are the blurst

 

[Slacker]

Even right after friends expressed their disbelief that the woman was killed by her own dogs, the sheriff, according to the reports I read, showed restraint but said it was abundantly clear that this was the case. Be careful what you push for.

 

[User 149557]

They are their own cult. I covered a city council that had pitbull owners who for weeks and weeks kept disrupting meetings by filling the chambers with fellow pitbull owners until the city took away the requirement for special insurance.

 

[Pilot]

The Facebook comments this story draws ... it's incredible how people approach this issue. 9 of every 10 are convinced the cops just pointed at the dogs because they're lazy and it was easy. I don't fall all over myself defending cops very often, but that's an absurd claim. People think it was a bear or a mountain line, with no evidence other than that their pit bulls haven't eaten them yet. Pitbull people are on another planet.

My brother in law has two. They've never been aggressive toward me, at least not aggressively mean. They are in your face, in your lap, all over you all of the time. I don't like being around them.

 

[Slacker]

Authorities said the 22-year-old had been gone for about a day since leaving to walk her dogs, so her father went out to look for her in the area she frequented.

Also, why did the father wait a day? Wasn't she living elsewhere but keeping her dogs at his house?

 

[Chef2]

Good friend of mine has a pit bull mix.
Very nice dog.
Every time I pet the dog, I think to myself, "Is this the moment this thing snaps and eats my face off?"

 

[LongTimeListener]

I’m guessing a lot of overlap with anti-vaxxers. Same denial of reality, anyway.

 

[User 149557]

Being near a pitbull is like interacting with a serial killer who found Jesus. They're probably okay. But I don't want to be there when they snap.

 

[QYFW]

It really is a terrible and strange story. A monkey rips your face off or a python swallows your dumb ass, OK, I get that. But two dogs eating their owner is just ****ing weird.

ANIMALS IN THE AGE OF TRUMP!

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I used to work with a reporter who was a pit bull truther. Every time there was a pit bull attack she started squawking that cocker spaniels bite more people than pit bulls.

I told her to let me know the next time she covered a deadly cocker spaniel mauling.

 

[SpeedTchr]

One of the few sane and rational things Britain has done of late is ban pit bull ownership (for the most part).

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

I had a bullmastiff as a young man.
They are intensely loyal - this cannot be overestimated - and don't like being closed out in any form.
If they don't get enough companionship or personal attention, they're going to find a way to let you know about it.
You can't just park a breed like this at mom and dad's house and go drinking with the boys for the weekend. It's not going to fly.

Sensible with strangers, they have well-established territorial instincts.
They must be socialized at an early age to learn to distinguish friend from foe.
I had a friend whom I had to order to take his ballcap off when he came in because it raised the dog's hackles - every time.

Overall, a superb and capable companion for assertive owners, but without ongoing effort, socialization and supervision, he is too much to handle.

 

[Double Down]

"They kill you with kisses!" said one friend.

Game of Thrones

Spoiler

"Yes, that is true." –Ramsey Bolton

 

[Stoney]

The Facebook comments this story draws ... it's incredible how people approach this issue. 9 of every 10 are convinced the cops just pointed at the dogs because they're lazy and it was easy. I don't fall all over myself defending cops very often, but that's an absurd claim. People think it was a bear or a mountain line, with no evidence other than that their pit bulls haven't eaten them yet. Pitbull people are on another planet.

On youtube there's a vast number of vids by these pitbull people having their babies and toddlers climb all over and sit on pit bulls to show the world their harmlessness. Which is just so inviting disaster, regardless of how lovable yours seems, the breed's history clearly shows it can snap and kill children. And a fatal bite can happen before the dumb**** filming parent even has a chance to react (the breed's bite force is astonishingly powerful).

Or, as another example, you might check out this vid of a four-year-old bossing her SIX male pit bulls. Seems mom doesn't comprehend that it only takes one of those six snapping just once for that girl to be killed. I'm a huge dog fan--love em, side with the canines in nearly all dog-related discussions--but pit bull people are nuts, they cannot grasp that their breed is different from other dogs.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

I think there is this almost this psychological push to know you can 'tame' the beast. There is power in doing so, to whatever extent you can.
But these animals are descended from apex predators - they are governed by motorized instinct.
Some of the breeds are not subservient to us in the least.

 

[Stoney]

But these animals are descended from apex predators - they are governed by motorized instinct.

Agreed in concept. However, in the case of pit bulls, it goes beyond that.

All dogs were theoretically "descended" from apex predators if you track descent far back enough to their common ancestor, the wolf, but other breeds were generally bred down to make their current lovable version unrecognizably different from their distant ancestors.

But, with the pit bull, it's a more complicated history. When other breeds were bred away from their ancestors' dangerous propensities, pit bulls--because of their primary use as a pit fighting dog--were largely bred in an opposite direction--to make them even more combative, strong, with more bite force, and capable of unleashing unholy damage when in attack mode. It's what makes the breed inherently different from other dogs.

But here's the catch: a pit bull that's been treated well will seem an exceedingly loving, loyal, sweet-tempered creature that would never hurt a fly (which is what deludes pit bull people into thinking there's this unfair conspiracy against the breed). But lurking beneath that kind exterior may be the aggressive fighting instincts, incredible strength, and bite force other dogs don't possess--and you never know for sure if or when that other side might one day unexpectedly reveal itself.

 

[KJIM]

I used to work with a reporter who was a pit bull truther. Every time there was a pit bull attack she started squawking that cocker spaniels bite more people than pit bulls.

I told her to let me know the next time she covered a deadly cocker spaniel mauling.

I've been bit by a cocker spaniel. My uncle's pet. It was quite random - just jumped into my face and bit me.

 

[Smash Williams]

Stoney - that's true, but it's also most of the true working dogs, who were bred for protection of either people or livestock and continue this path, at least in their purebred circles. These dogs at least are still bred for temperament that tends toward specific loyalty and potentially dangerous reactions when put into certain situations. German Shepherds are still bred as guard and police dogs, after all. So your working group dogs (mostly mastiff line, including the mastiffs themselves as well as the rottweilers, boxers, cane corso, etc.) are at risk for this, especially if they're not given good training or specific tasks. Hell, before pit bulls were the evil dog de jour, everyone was trying to ban rottweilers, after all.

I'd advance that pit bulls don't "snap" more than any other breed of dogs but are much more powerful/potentially dangerous than the most common biters (those damn little yappy dogs where people treat aggression as cute since bites are a nuisance and not a danger) and much more common than the other powerful/potentially dangerous breeds (especially because there are four individual breeds that carry the label and many mutts are considered pit bull by virtue of being 20 percent bull terrier or 40 percent AmStaff, etc.). Any dog with a big forehead, short neck and big mouth often gets called a pit bull whether they are or not, and that ubiquitous nature contributes to their notoriety as much as anything else.

For the record, the dogs I worried the most about biting me were a pair of boxers with grumpy dispositions (my father's and my aunt's) and a really damn overzealous, 85-pound shepherd mix puppy that my stepmother absolutely refuses to train. When you choose to own a big powerful dog, you choose to take on the responsibility to training it to be safe around people. That goes for pit bulls or this damn puppy that is growing up to be a snapping terror.

 

[WriteThinking]

On youtube there's a vast number of vids by these pitbull people having their babies and toddlers climb all over and sit on pit bulls to show the world their harmlessness. Which is just so inviting disaster, regardless of how lovable yours seems, the breed's history clearly shows it can snap and kill children. And a fatal bite can happen before the dumb**** filming parent even has a chance to react (the breed's bite force is astonishingly powerful).

Or, as another example, you might check out this vid of a four-year-old bossing her SIX male pit bulls. Seems mom doesn't comprehend that it only takes one of those six snapping just once for that girl to be killed. I'm a huge dog fan--love em, side with the canines in nearly all dog-related discussions--but pit bull people are nuts, they cannot grasp that their breed is different from other dogs.

This is largely how I feel. I like dogs. I think pit bulls are great-looking, athletic dogs, and can be great pets. I wish they didn't have the reputation they have, and realize that in many cases, it amounts to unfair characterization. Still, in some significantly deadly instances, that rep/bad rap is well deserved reality, and so, I would never own one. I just wouldn't want the responsibility, and that policy would go double if I had small children around.

This story brought to mind another about pet pit bulls that I read years ago. A young man left his two beloved pit bulls with his beloved grandmother for a weekend. The dogs knew her, and they had all spent time together previously, with no indications of what was to come.

The guy came home and went to pick up his dogs. They had attacked and killed his grandmother. Destroyed by what he saw and what his dogs had done, the owner had the dogs put down as soon as the investigation of the case was completed.