MuttHeads episodes 0 through 12! (well, 1-12 coming!)
MuttHeads 0:
Pitbulls. Pitbulls, everywhere! The other day, my ring cam chimes. I go to the door (should have checked the video first), and what do I see? An at-large pitbull, what else would it have been? He charges when I open the door, so I slam the door in his face. Fido may have only been selling girl-scout cookies, maybe not. Best to err on the side of caution.
The proliferation of pit bulls is just astounding. It seems that, everywhere I go I see
pitbulls. Many of my neighbors now have
them. Its very common to see someone
walking one or more pitbulls whenever driving in or out of here. The other day I saw a woman walking her 2
pitbulls: She is totally detached, focus
entirely on her smartphone, holding the leashes loosely. I was hiking a state park yesterday and saw
multiple pitbulls, one of them off leash (who growled at me).
I have a hypothesis that may explain this mass proliferation of pitbulls. I now hold the belief that pitbulls reproduce similar to
single celled organisms, not mammals. Each pitbull undergoes a mitosis every 24 hours or so. By that I mean that each pitbull divides in half, creating 2 pitbulls in its place. The exponential growth of the pitbull population can't be explained in any other way.
The below meme sums up what I am contemplating here:
Have a great Sunday!
When hiking, I am often dismayed (but not surprised) at finding poop bags* along the trail. Apparently, people pick up after their pets, bag the poo.... only to leave it behind.
(*I am sure these bags contain anteater poop as no dog owner would ever do anything like this!)
Dog lovers always deflect. When a dog mauls or kills, they say "don't blame the dog" because the dog is a not a moral agent (moral agency requires a certain level of intelligence that dogs lack). They say this because they do NOT want the dog put down under any circumstances. Should dogs that maul and kill be summarily put down? Unqualified YES!
But, didn't I just say the dog can't really be held accountable for what it did? Indeed, it isn't: Summary destruction of all dogs that maul and kill is strictly an exercise in risk mitigation. It has nothing to do with accountability.
As an allegory, lets consider an event that occurred outside of the Animal Uncontrol universe.
June, 2021: The Champlain Condo tower in Surfside Florida partially collapsed. The building was roughly "L" shaped, and the arm of the "L" perpendicular to the beach went down. The incident is still being investigated, and the apparent cause is a variety of factors.
Champlain Towers immediately after the collapse:
What is interesting to us in the above case is, soon after the initial collapse, authorities ordered the demolition (destruction) of the still-standing portion of the building. Why would they do that? Similar to a dog, a building is not a moral agent - it doesn't know what its doing. Were these authorities thinking "We will hold that building responsible! We will show it a thing or two!!! Let this set an example for the rest of those buildings!" No, that is not why they brought it down.
The remaining portion of the Champlain Towers structure was demolished strictly as a risk mitigation measure. The remaining structure was clearly unstable and unsafe and was brought down before it could cause any more problems. What problems? Well, while not 100% sure it would collapse on its own, there would be no way to be sure when it would collapse or in what way: It could collapse into a neighboring building or into the street, for example. Furthermore, such things create an "attractive nuisance" whereby homeless people would try to squat in it and teenagers would force entry in search of a good place to party.
So, the remaining portion of the Champlain Towers was brought down in an orderly and controlled manner to mitigate the risk it posed.
So, with that said, any dog that fails its real-world temperament test (the only test that means squat) must be summarily put down as a risk mitigation measure. It has nothing to do with holding the dog accountable (though you can believe that if you want to, whatever).
Lets stop enabling "dangerous dog laundering". No more get out of jail free cards, Fido.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
The PitBull Laureate:
Every Fourth of July and New Years Eve, social media sites explode with the following entreaties: PLEASE NO FIREWORKS! THEY UPSET MY DOG!
Here is an article on the matter.
It takes one hell of a lot of CHUTZPAH for a bunch of dog owners to tell the rest of us to KEEP IT DOWN. What, NOW noise pollution is a problem? I thought everybody had to "Just get used to it"? Look, you keep telling me your poodle is smarter than my honor student, shouldn't Fido understand this is strictly celebratory and not a war?
Look, if they (dog owners) get to tone me up 24/7/365, why can't I tone it up a couple days a year? Oh, wait.... DOGGY DOUBLE STANDARD! Their entitlement status empowers them to do to us what we would NEVER be allowed to do to them. Listen up good you proles! Put your earplugs back in and get your asses back to the salt mines! Dog owners tell you what to do, not the other way around!
I think its time to give the barking dog bingo game a bump. Enjoy!
