From: rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.dogs
Subject: Re: Pet Population Legislation
Date: 6 Oct 92 16:19:21 GMT
Article-I.D.: alice.23818
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ



Jon Krieger writes:
>> I believe the pit bull crisis was their [humane societies'] work
>> not to mention proposed guidelines for vicious dog legislation.

>And you're welcome to believe it!

>Of course, the fact is otherwise.  But believe whatever you like!
>Don't let the facts get in your way!

  Understanding what goes on when people watch television became important
  to me for a while, because it was important to know who is slandering
  our dogs.  A lot of beleaguered dog owners thought it was the media
  and those reporters, and there was a joke that went the rounds of the
  country for a while.  Q: What's worse than a pit bull with AIDS?  A: The
  reporter who gave it to him.  But it wasn't the media feeding out solemn
  remarks about savage fighting dogs with double jaws who learn to kill
  human beings by practicing on dolls and declawed kittens; it wasn't
  and isn't the media lobbying for laws that would take away a dog
  owner's right to a hearing.  So I made my own version of the joke:
  Q:  How did the pit bull get AIDS?  A:  The humane society fucked him over.
  
  Which humane society?  There are thousands.  It was persons whose name
  appear on the letterhead of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)
  who produced most of the expert testimony at first, especially one
  Dr. Randall Lockwook, Ph.D., though there were odd things coming from
  Drs. Clifford Wright, Fox, and others.  It took me a while to tumble to
  this, months of poring over clippings, wondering how Pete the Pup
  got replaced virtually overnight by a short-haired Cojo.  As I said,
  there are thousands of humane societies and humane officials, and their
  very ubiquity makes them anonymous, and even though they fight with each
  other as much as they do with you and me, they seem to be everywhere
  and nowhere, like locusts.  In time, however, certain proper names
  began to emerge, and even I, who have no training in political
  epidemiology, noticed one name in particular, that of the HSUS,
  popping up in literally hundreds of clippings from all over the country
  intoning solemnly about the viciousness of pit bills.  I also have some
  of their literature, including a letter of August 14, 1987, from HSUS
  president John Hoyt, saying that the vicious dog situation created an
  urgent need for new felony and manslaughter prosecutions of owners.
  He asked for the reader's help ``in funding this unexpected crisis.
  We have spent thousands of staff hours and thousands of dollars in
  extra expenses on this project.''

small piece from Bandit, Vicki Hearne.

Good job, HSUS.

  They produced ``Guidelines for Regulating Dangerous or Vicious Dogs''
  in 1987, and there proposed various sorts of laws.  Of course, laws
  don't control dogs, because dogs cannot read, but they proposed laws
  anyway, instead of training...
  
  Education is not among the ideas proposed by the HSUS as a response
  to the unruliness among dogs; the idea that the dog is a citizen is
  not yet available to official kindliness, because when kindliness in
  its most energetic modes is not announcing that your animal is vicious
  and needs to be destroyed, it is announcing that training is sadistic
  and brutal and needs to be destroyed.  The two images that are the
  cornerstones of humane PR about domestic animals are: Vicious Animal,
  Sadistic Trainer.
  
  So, instead of trying to learn something of what trainers know about
  teaching dogs the manners that enable them to have a place as
  citizens of their households and neighborhoods, the HSUS proposed laws.

ibid.