Ignorance is not bliss

A few weeks ago, I was walking from my office in Pacific Palisades, CA to get lunch in town with a co-worker. As we went through town, stopping in a couple of places, we saw several copies of the same flier posted on streetlight poles, "community bulletin boards" inside business establishments, and the like. These fliers warned the community of allegedly vicious dogs on the loose in the neighborhood, and detailed a story regarding the attack of the writer's dog by one of them.

Now I don't know anything other than what I read in this flier regarding the details of that occurrence, and certainly I did not witness it. I know that if Mumble was attacked while I was out for a walk by an aggressive dog running around off leash, I'd be pretty pissed too.

But there are some concerns raised with this flier and how it portrayed what happened.

Most glaringly, the fliers' warning made a point of stating, in larger letters, bolded and underlined, that the dogs were pit bulls. It seemed to imply that it was a given that these dogs were of course vicious because they were pit bulls.

The ignorance about pit bull dogs is a much discussed, heated topic. Images like those of the fighting dogs of Michael Vic, children who were attacked or bitten, other dogs that were brutally attacked, all lead our collective conscience to buy into the idea that pit bulls are by nature harmful, dangerous, prone-to-aggression creatures. Much as they try images of pit bulls as loving members of families, or even stories about rehabilitated Michael Vic dogs now housed at the rescue group Best Friends Animal Society's facility called Dogtown, do little in most people's minds to counteract this prejudice.

From my point of view, the harm done by such ignorance goes deeper than the affect on the dogs themselves, it actually endangers the public more to be so ignorant and to base understanding of dog behavior on such generalizations.

For example, a friend of mine could post a very similar flier to the one we saw. She could detail the circumstance in which her dog, while on a walk in her own neighborhood and on leash, was attacked and bitten to the point of drawing blood by an off-leash, uncontrolled, aggressive dog. It would paint the same picture, and the same warning. But this dog that attacked Chopper was not a pit bull, it was a Labrador; a breed assumed to be a "family dog," good-natured and friendly. People reading the pit bull flier will not only be duly "warned" against these specific dogs who have shown aggression, the fact that the emphasis was placed on their breed will also ensure that this will "warn" people against pit bulls in general. Whereas people reading a flier about Chopper's attack would assume that this must be a fluke, and go on believing that no other Labrador would be likely to attack a person or dog.

The fact of the matter is, generalizations about dogs are as prejudicial as generalizations about people. Think about it from that perspective. We are learning as a society not to make assumptions about people based on broad generalizations due to their gender, race, where they are from, etc. A logical, educated person realizes that if you assume "all people" that fall within a certain group are likely to act a certain way, you are likely to be mistaken in the individual. So many other factors go into who we are as a person.

Likewise with dogs. If you assume a dog is going to bite you just because of its breed, likely you will be wrong on an individual basis. On the contrary, if you assume a dog is not going to bite you simply because it is not of a certain breed, you may also be wrong (and therefore may put yourself unwittingly into danger).

And therein lies the danger. Think of what parents are teaching their kids by passing on such ignorance and prejudice rather than teaching them how to actually approach or interact with a dog. If we as a society assume that all pit bulls are dangerous, and on the contrary assume that other dog breeds, like Labradors and poodles, are not, where will that assumption take us?

A child once ran towards me and Mumble at the outdoor shopping mall near our house, and as it approached, the dad yelled "don't go near that dog its a pit bull." (I have no idea if Mumble is part pit bull or not). What does this teach the child? It doesn't teach the child not to run up to strange dogs in general, but rather simply not to run up to ones that look a certain way. So then this child may run up to the next dog it sees that doesn't look like a pit bull, and if that dog doesn't like kids, the child may be in danger. On the other hand, a child running up to Mumble, no matter what he looks like, would never be in danger because he is well-trained on how to approach kids, likes kids in general, and is never running around off leash and out of my control.

Isn't it better to teach kids how to properly approach a dog? Things like - ask before you pet a dog, don't run at a dog you don't know, etc. Isn't it better for dog owners to communicate with other dog owners rather than taking one look and making an assumption?

Of course, I'm not discounting whatever happened to this poor person's dog that was attacked, and if it was me, I'd be pretty upset too. I guess I just have a problem with the way in which this flier talks about the problem. Ultimately, to me the point that should have been highlighted is not the breed of the dog, but the fact that it was off leash. That is a big problem here in the Palisades where people seem to feel that they are entitled to let their dogs run loose in the parks, neighborhoods, bluffs, etc, without regard to other people or dogs around. It would seem to me that the better way to deal with these issues would be to promote awareness about leash laws and the problems with having dogs off leash and out of their owners' control, rather than playing into the existing societal fear of pit bulls.