For the first time in a while, an animal issue is getting front page press around the country. As you probably already know, football player Michael Vick has been indicted for possible involvement in a dogfighting ring operating out of a home he owned in Virgina. (Please note I am not tagging Vick as "guilty" - he has not been put through a trial yet, and no official court ruling has been made. Nonetheless, the operation which caught Vick and his accessories will hopefully be a hit to this terrible industry.)
As fate would have it, in my class tonight, we are scheduled to talk about dogfighting and the issues that come with it. This is something I know very little about at this point, and I am looking forward to learning more about it. Just in the small amount of reading I have done up to this point, I have been surprised at all the issues that have come up around the issue. Beyond the animal cruelty - which is highly obvious, we are presented with issues of race and class; questions of breed tendencies (i.e. are there "bad" breeds of dogs?); breed specific legislation, underground crime; drugs; gangs; media portrayal - and there are all sorts of branches of each of those issues to consider as well.
CNN has a video posted at the moment which starts to discuss some of these issues. I warn you now, the video is has some rather disturbing images. But it is a good, short video beginning to explain how prevalent dogfighting has become and how it is being portrayed in the media.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/07/18/griffin.dog.fighting.cnn
After I have class tonight, I may be able to discern with you a bit more on these issues. But I just wanted to drop the idea now to get you thinking about it.
Do YOU think there are certain types of dogs that are just "bad"?
If you do, would you support BSL (Breed Specific Legislation)? (I have linked the term to Wikipedia, but in a few short words, a few countries and several states are starting to ban certain breeds - which also very often means that families who have dogs in the breed list - and the dogs have had no issues - are forced to give up their pets. For example, in Royal City, Washington of January this year, a ban on Rotweilers and Pit Bulls was put into effect. Owners of these types of dogs had a short time to "re-home" their dogs outside of the city. No dogs were allowed to remain - whether they were 6 months old or 16 years old. )
I'm curious as to what my readers thoughts may be!!!!
1 comment:
I think there is no such thing as a bad dog, just bad owners. "Love me, love my dog"... "I hate you, my dog hates you."
Additionally, people's lack of canine understanding often causes "bad dogs." For example, if you have a neurotic, nervous dog, you shouldn't sympathize with it and coddle it (which only exacerbates the nervousness... leads to separation anxiety, peeing on the floor, excessive licking...). Many times the owner's sympathy is the greatest hindrance to proper training, for a dog needs a leader. If you aren't it, the dog will run you.
This theory covers not only "mean" dogs, but also "over-pampered" dogs (over-pampered: assuming human emotions in dogs, over-petting, feeding wrong foods, etc. - these bad owner behaviors lead to very aggressive, anxious, and unhealthy responses in the any type of dog).
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