Anything for a buck

When I was 17 years old I joined the local fire company. Over the years I fought many a fire, responded to countless accident scenes and even did my share of public relation programs.

Many times the local newspaper would report on what ever had been going on. Sometimes it was spectacular. Like the time a lumber warehouse burned. The wood and paneling stacked inside burned for days. When we arrived on scene flames were 30 feet in the air. It made good news with great pictures. No need to embellish with that one. As you would expect not every call made for such good copy.

I read the newspaper every day. I don't watch TV news, I'm not interested in traffic accidents, shootings and other mayhem. There are so many things going on that are important, but that doesn't make ratings. Fear mongering does though and TV and newspapers thrive on it. But that's another post. Cable news is worse than Congress when it comes to predilection.

The newspaper isn't much better. There were so many times that I would be at a scene with the fire department, or even later as a 911 dispatcher and I'd read about it in the paper the next day and wonder if we were talking about the same incident. The outline was the same but the devil is in the details and apparently when they couldn't get the facts they'd construct their own version of what may or may not have happened. They also don't have a problem leaving out details that make the story less exciting. Apparently, embellishing details doesn't keep anyone up at night either.

As a pit bull owner I'm affected by this bias more than most. Pit Bulls don't get to make an ass of themselves in public the way other breeds can. They aren't alone in this, German Shepard Dogs, Rottweilers, Doberman Pinchers, Chow Chows and Akitas also have to be twice as good as their brothers the Lab's and Poodles. Pit Bulls are a lot of dog. They are intelligent, strong, tenacious and have a mind of their own. The key to training one is to make it think it wants to do something then reward it for doing it. They are not for everybody. But they are a wonderful, loving, faithful dog. As a general rule they make lousy guard dogs, other than the intimidation factor. Most dogs will protect their owner if the need arises even without protection training, it's instinctual to protect a pack member. So when I read a story of a middle aged woman who was killed by a pit bull recently and how the police had to shoot it to get it to stop I wondered what details were left out of that one. It took a little research but this is what I found. The woman killed was a drug addict who had gone to her mothers house to get money. The mother had previously cut off contact with her daughter and when she showed up at her house an altercation occurred. The dog came to the defense of it's owner and attacked the daughter. Police, who had already been called, arrived on scene and shot and killed the dog. They then shot another dog who came to the defense of the first dog. I can't say that the same thing wouldn't of occurred if it was a different breed. The police aren't going to take statements while a dog is attacking someone. There is a percentage of people who own these types of dogs for the macho factor. Contrary to popular belief the majority of Pit Bull owners do not fit the stereotype. I also have no way of knowing what this family was like and the news doesn't want to go there because that might shine a different light on a breed they love to vilify. They also quoted as "fact" that the dog had the woman by the throat when the police arrived. This is exactly the type of "fact" that I used to find scattered throughout calls I was involved in. Of course this is exactly the type of "fact" that is picked up (or made up) listening to spectators comment on what they think happened.

So a tragedy happened. A woman is dead. Another woman has lost her daughter, first to drugs then when her dogs were protecting her and she lost two of her dogs. And The American Pit Bull Terrier suffers another blow to it's already ravaged reputation. There were no winners, except the media who had another story to sensationalize to boost ratings and sell papers.