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PeTA Supports the EXTERMINATION of "PIT
BULL" BREEDS!
| This bit of animal-hating
drivel should give you an idea of how PeTA, the so-called People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, feels about certain types
of animals, though those animals are beloved by millions of "ethical"
people worldwide. Breed genocide certainly isn't an "ethical"
concept!! (Remember, PeTA is against keeping ANY dogs as "pets",
even guide dogs for disabled people!) This is a good example of
why every "pit bull" breed owner should join
the UHDAoA today, if we want to maintain the right to own the
breed of our choice! |
Ingrid Newkirk: Even ardent animal lovers embrace this euthanasia policy
Thursday, January 27, 2000
By INGRID NEWKIRK
MOST PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA that at many animal shelters across the country,
any "pit bull" who comes through the front door goes out the
back door -- in a body bag. From San Jose to Schenectady, many shelters
have enacted policies requiring the automatic destruction of the huge
and ever-growing number of "pits" they encounter. This news
shocks and outrages the compassionate dog-lover.
Here's another shocker: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the
very people who are trying to get you to denounce the killing of chickens
for the table, foxes for fur, or frogs for dissection, supports the pit
bull policy, albeit with reluctance.
The pit bull's ancestor, the Staffordshire terrier, is a human concoction,
bred in my native England, I'm ashamed to say, as a weapon. These dogs
were designed specifically to fight other animals and kill them, for human
sport. Hence the barrel chest, the thick hammer-like head, the strong
jaws, the perseverance, and the stamina. Pits can take down a bull weighing
in at over a thousand pounds, so a human being a tenth of that weight
is small potatoes to them.
Pit bulls are perhaps the most abused dogs on the planet. These days,
they are kept for protection by almost every drug dealer and pimp in every
major city and beyond. You can drive into any depressed area and see them
being used as cheap burglar alarms, wearing heavy logging chains around
their necks (they easily break regular collars and harnesses), attached
to a stake or metal drum or rundown doghouse without a floor and with
holes in the roof.
Bored juveniles "sic" them on cats, neighbors' small dogs, and
even children. In the PETA office we have a file drawer chock-full of
accounts of attacks in which these ill-treated dogs have torn the faces
and fingers off infants and even police officers trying to serve warrants.
Today, organizing dog fights is a federal offense in this country, yet
pits are still king of the ring. Humane officers and other law enforcement
agents routinely break up rings in New Mexico, Massachusetts, Michigan,
and Florida. They confiscate dog-fighting paraphernalia, including treadmills
used to build doggie endurance and drugs used to numb pain from injuries
inflicted by opponents and to "jazz up" the dogs.
They find mesh bags in which kittens, rabbits, puppies, and other small
prey are suspended over the dogs to encourage fighting spirit. Not uncommonly
they find what's left of dogs who have lost their battles.
They are not always dead.
Those who argue against the euthanasia policy for pit bull dogs are naive.
One dog that had just been adopted by a family suddenly clamped his jaw
onto the thigh of a 7-year-old boy. Two grown men had a hard time getting
the dog off and the child suffered permanent nerve damage.
Tales like thisabound. I have scars on my leg and arm from my own encounter
with a pit. Many are loving and will kiss on sight, but many are unpredictable.
An unpredictable chihuahua is one thing, an unpredictable pit another.
People who genuinely care about dogs won't be affected by a ban on pits.
They can go to the shelter and save one of the countless other breeds
and lovable mutts sitting on death row through no fault of their own.
We can only stop killing pits if we stop creating new ones. Legislators,
please take note.
Ingrid Newkirk is president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
She may be contacted at PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, Va. 23501, or on-line
at www.PETA-online.org. © 2000 Bergen Record Corp.
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