HanktheDog Blog

Before I embark on what is basically a dog's op-ed piece, I just wanted to say thanks very much for all those birthday and post-attack well wishes. As so many of you know, we dogs love attention. More to the point, though, we're also deeply grateful and loyal beasts. And so I am very grateful to all of you.

As for what I think about the attack, well, I've been chewing it over for a while now. It's tough as rawhide. The trouble, of course, is that dogs just aren't very political. While I've naturally been called a Yellow-Dog Democrat, the truth is that I, like most dogs, have a strong libertarian streak. I jealously guard my own backyard and family but otherwise take a laissez faire attitude to things. If I were the Alpha of whole human world, I'd probably compose a bit of doggerel called "The Tao of Hank" and just try to encourage folks to live by it.

So, it's just not in my nature to propose any grand bans on the pit-bull breeds. Remember that French woman who was mauled so badly that she had to get a face transplant? Well, I'm sorry to say that was a Labrador retriever that hurt her. I don't want to be held responsible for that particular Lab's actions, and I'm sure there are pits who feel the same way when their fellow pits attack.

That’s not to say that I don’t hold individual dogs responsible for their actions. Contrary to what many humans think, we dogs have wills and spirits of our own. The pit that attacked me is a damnably dangerous animal. It should, frankly, be either trained to act differently or destroyed…else it will hurt others in the future.

But I tend to put most of the blame on people. Humans have shaped our natures with their constant interference in our mating habits. And they have bred pits to be quite undoggish in many ways. As Malcolm Gladwell said in a New Yorker piece, “Pit bulls…have been bred for ‘gameness,’ and thus a lowered inhibition to aggression. Most dogs fight as a last resort, when staring and growling fail. A pit bull is willing to fight with little or no provocation.” I will personally attest to this.

Most of the writers about pit bulls – both the defenders and detractors – dwell on pit attacks on humans. Well, humans are my favorite subject, but we dogs should count for something as well, and I wish the writers on both sides would deal a little more with the dog’s perspective. Gladwell almost seems to discount the well-being of other dogs when he notes, “The supposedly troublesome characteristics of the pit-bull type – its gameness, its determination, its insensitivity to pain – are chiefly directed toward other dogs.” Um, could I ask why this is only “supposedly” troublesome?

According to Gladwell, a scientific review notes “that dogs not bred for fighting usually display defeat in combat by rolling over and exposing a light underside” whereas “on several occasions, pit bulls have been reported to disembowel dogs offering this signal of submission.” In other words, pits have literally had part of their dog nature bred out of them. From a human point of view, it’s as if Hitler had succeeded in his eugenics ambitions and was able to create some terrible form of human, mighty warriors without an ounce of natural human compassion. Pit bulls are the super soldiers of the dog world.

This is, of course, not the fault of the dogs. They are what they are – what they’re bred to be and what they’re trained to be. In many ways, they are the victims, especially those raised to engage in the despicable dog-fighting business. Those dog-fighting animals are essentially the blood-thirsty flesh-and-blood avatars of blood-thirsty humans, who don’t have the good excuse of having had their genes manipulated by some purportedly “master species.” In my opinion, humanity should be should be more concerned with this unholy side of itself than with the canine representatives of that unholiness.

We dogs are not angels, but we do tend to be innocents. I’m sure there are many fine pits in the world. Among dogs on the Web, Storm seems like a lovely pit bull. I even, you’ll notice, have a link to Defend-a-Bull on my blog because I think it’s important for pit bull defenders to have a voice. My own view is that unless human society carefully tracks dog attacks and diligently deals with the owners of dangerous dogs of all breeds, these problems won’t go away. And, for the sake of us all, dog and human alike, I think any person who pits dogs against one another – or breeds them for fighting – should be locked away in a human pound. After all, they’re giving the homo sapien breed a very bad reputation.