From:
http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/2004_02_01_archive.html
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Feral Dog Packs & High Capacity Magazines
Here's an interesting item from the Los Angeles Times about feral and wild dog packs:
Steve Jenkins was jogging on the outskirts of Palm Springs on New Year's Day in 2002 when he was surrounded by a gang of 20 dogs. The hounds tore chunks of flesh from his arms and legs, pulling him down each time he tried to stagger to his feet.
Predatory dog packs like the one that attacked Jenkins, a Pasadena drummer, are emerging as a threat to wildlife and humans nationwide. In Montana and Colorado, dog mobs routinely kill deer, antelope, moose and elk. In a Colorado Division of Wildlife report, one department says they field reports of dogs chasing big game almost daily.
In January 2003, in a forest preserve in Chicago, a 48-year-old woman was killed by a dog pack. And in Daly City, Calif., last October, 20 wild dogs killed 13 sheep at a 4-H club and stalked students at a neighboring elementary school.
In Southern California, more and more wildlife workers are reporting run-ins with dogs.
"It's a significant and very important threat in the urban fringe areas," says Jill Heaton, principal investigator for the University of Redlands Desert Tortoise Project.
Heaton herself was recently charged by six dogs while doing fieldwork on the Twentynine Palms Marine base.
There is no central clearinghouse to track assaults by dog packs on either humans or wildlife, so the scope of the problem is not known. But because of the unpredictable nature of the attacks, some outdoor workers now fear dogs even more than classic predators such as cougars.
Now, in other parts of America, they have these sort of problems, but not being in California, they are allowed to defend themselves. This story appeared in one of the Tampa Bay, Florida papers February 1, 2003, on the tbo.com site (it's not there now):
TAMPA - Teresa Castellano knows that some folks saved her life. She just doesn't know who they are.
Castellano, 25, her daughter, Alysa McBride, 6, and her daughter's friend, Kaitlyn Green, 8, survived a recent attack from two Rottweilers and a pit bull.
It is an amazing story of horror and heroism.
Castellano said it began while she was watching the girls at Kaitlyn's home on Jan. 18. Kaitlyn's father, Sean Green, had stepped out for 10 minutes to run an errand.
...
The dogs attacked.
"When [the Rottweilers] saw the fear, one of them started biting Kaitlyn,'' Castellano said. "I told them to stop screaming because they were making the dogs upset.''
Castellano said she laid on the girls to try and protect them from the dogs. She then tried to block the dogs to give the girls a chance to escape to a bedroom.
Nothing was working. The Rottweilers were going wild.
So Castellano and the girls bolted outside the house at 8126 Bay Drive. The girls ran to safety in a neighbor's house while Castellano distracted the dogs. The pit bull, Petey, joined in the attack.
The commotion outside attracted the attention of neighbors and a motorist passing by.
...
Anderson, 22, was about to get out of his car when he looked over his shoulder and saw a man toting a pistol. He kept honking his horn and sped away to get his friend, Justin Turner, who lived nearby.
The man with gun was Winston H. Harr, a next-door neighbor. He had heard screaming outside and grabbed his Kimber .45-caliber pistol. His wife, Deborah, came, too.
Harr said he saw Anderson's car moving back and forth in the driveway, and three dogs attacking a woman. Harr fired three shots into the ground to try and scare the dogs. They screamed at the dogs, but it didn't seem to matter.
Deborah Harr called the dogs by name, and they stopped momentarily.
Then, without warning, the dogs charged at Harr. The pit bull bit him on the leg before Harr trained his pistol and fired, hitting the dog in the head. He also fired at one of the Rottweilers, and it fell to the ground.
Harr, a librarian's assistant at Jimmie B. Keel Regional Library near Carrollwood, said he fired the rest of his bullets at the third dog, and it seemed to back away. He bolted for his house for more ammunition and a flashlight.
Let's see, and the reason that we passed a ban on high capacity magazines was because there was no legitimate use for them?
At the close of the 19th century, handguns were often advertised for dealing with dogs. I used to wonder if this was some sort of coy way of avoiding a more direct reference to self-defense, but in an age when dogs often ran loose, and rabies was more common than today, this makes a lot of sense. Having been bit badly by a dog once (and not even a very big dog at that), and feeling the air as another dog's teeth went through my pants leg, I find dogs a strong argument for carrying a pistol. Packs of feral or wild dogs are an argument for something with 13 to 15 round magazines.
