{"id":208,"date":"2004-10-15T07:26:05","date_gmt":"2004-10-15T12:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/wp\/?p=208"},"modified":"2004-10-15T07:26:05","modified_gmt":"2004-10-15T12:26:05","slug":"dog-story-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/?p=208","title":{"rendered":"Dog Story, Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I posted an entry about an English Mastiff <\/a>which attacked and maimed a 9 year old boy last weekend during, ironically, a fund-raiser for animals on our fair peninsula.<\/p>


\nAfterwards, I had an interesting conversation about this with a friend of mine who in a former life was an insurance adjuster and a loss management consultant.
\nHer job included visiting the victims of dog attacks, some of them children who were hospitalized with severe, life-altering injuries, including one whose “face had been ripped off”.
\nMy friend informed me that in Massachusetts, there is no criminal penalty if a dog injures a person as the result of harassment or trespassing.
\nShe also said that it’s entirely likely that the owner of this particular dog would be hit with a civil suit. In her experience, such suits have resulted in loss of homes and other catastrophic financial consequences.
\nMy sympathies are completely with the victims of dog attacks, but my friend has another perspective which surprised me. In the cases she’s worked with, the plaintiffs – as well as their families – often suffer as well. As a result, she has a different point of view.
\nAt that point, I lost my cell phone connection so couldn’t continue the conversation.
\nMy problem with this and similar incidents is that no one buys a 200 pound dog which was bred for fighting because it’s a good family pet. Such an animal is an attack weapon, and the penalties for its misuse should be the same, in my view, as firing a WMD in a crowd.
\nThis particular dog has a history of biting kids. The owner had no business bringing it to a public event, especially since he admitted that he couldn’t control it.
\nIf this guy gets dragged through the courts or loses his house, then I feel sorry for his wife and kids. Maybe she’ll get smart and divorce him and his miserable mutt before that eventuality.
\nIn the past, I’ve had friends who defend their dogs for attacking people, and I’ve never understood it. Their rationales are eerily the same as the ones you hear from enablers of human sociopathic behavior: “he” had a hard life, he’s a good dog\/person but was provoked, etc.
\nBecause of the influence of defense lawyer lobbyists on our legislature, Massachusetts tends to be a lot more tolerant of perps than many other states. It’s one reason why being called a Senator (or Governor) from Massachusetts is an insult in national political discourse.
\nYou’d kind of think we who live here would do something about that, but sometimes it feel like you can’t fight city hall.
\nIn any event, I hope the law enforcement officials in the town of Dennis do the right thing by the public in this case. As of last night, over 68% of the 694 people in the Cape Cod Times poll on this subject voted for euthanization. We’ll see if anyone is paying attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I posted an entry about an English Mastiff which attacked and maimed a 9 year old boy last weekend during, ironically, a fund-raiser for animals on our fair peninsula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}