The demonising of dogs

BY NICK BARNETT

A five-year-old girl lies in a hospital bed after plastic surgeons worked to restore her torn-up face. A Wellington man waits for his injuries to heal after helping a man break up a dogfight. Does it matter which breed the attacking dogs were?

In one sense, no. Two people were hurt, and their interests trump those of any dogs involved.

But in another sense, yes it does matter. Not for the dogs, but for the amount of understanding all of us have of the dogs around us, how much danger we're in, and where we should usefully direct our fear and outrage.

I've touched on these issues before on this blog: asking whether rottweilers are born to be bad, and wondering how much understanding there is of American pitbull terriers. The issue that links those blog posts to today's is that of careless, under-informed demonisation of certain dog breeds.

Last Friday, Wellington man Stu Jacobs jumped in to stop a fight between a Labrador and what the first news story called a bullmastiff. Later, the online news story was amended to "bullmastiff-cross". In a reference today, the dog is again a "bullmastiff".

I talked to Dominion Bullmastiff Club committee member Sharron Mischefski about the reporting, and she was annoyed and frustrated. To her, bullmastiffs are "big soppy couch potatoes" and having a bullmastiff around is like being host to a "60kg cat". Her own two bullmastiffs have never shown any aggression, she says.

How could the dog that mauled Stu Jacobs be one of that gentle breed? The club sought an identification from Wellington's dog control team leader, who gave this assessment:

"The dog that was identified as a 'bullmastiff' is a large male brindle Xbreed probably in the weight range of 60kgs. His body, colour and height is typical of a bullmastiff, however his head is definitely a mixture of breeds; we can see mastiff traits but can see other traits too. His mouth is mostly free of jowl and his face area is not typical of the brachycephalic look. We can certainly see a cross of breeds in his face. It is in my opinion as a Dog Control Officer that this dog is not a purebred bullmastiff."

(Brachycephalic refers to the broad, flat head shape of some dog breeds.)

So a dog with various breed traits, and to an expert clearly not a bullmastiff, was nevertheless described as such.

I can understand how this happens. Someone who's not an expert misjudged the breed, or got a name wrong, or jumped to a conclusion - almost certainly in good faith. Because the dog was described as a bullmastiff, one of the breeds that many people think are scary and violent (more on that later), that description will tend to stick because it jibes with a common prejudgement.

But it wasn't a bullmastiff.

Now to the attack that's being reported on today. A five-year-old girl at a house in Taneatua was set upon by two dogs that had just been freed to meet her. The dogs injured her severely, and also injured the girl's mother as she tried to save her daughter.

It's the kind of attack that makes us gasp. We imagine how helpless a small child is against two dogs, perhaps 50kg each, intent on killing her. We wouldn't want our own children to go near such a creature. We're relieved to hear that the dogs have been put down.

The first report I saw of this attack didn't state the dogs' breed. The second, from the NZ Herald, quoted Whakatane District Council as saying the two were a pitbull and a pitbull-mastiff cross. The third said they were a pitbull and a Staffordshire bull terrier. I don't know what the fourth report will say, but I'll update this blog if I see it. [UPDATE: at 4pm Whakatane District Council describes both dogs as "pitbull-bulldog cross-breeds". That's four distinct breeds implicated so far. Does anyone know what they're talking about?]

Now how could the breed of the attacking dogs possibly change in the course of a morning? Easy. It's really, really hard to tell what the exact breed heritage is of a mixed-breed dog. It's really, really easy to get it wrong. Even experts such as dog control officers can only offer the kind of informed physiological best-guess that I quoted above.

And even between pure breeds, there's a lot of resemblance. Can you look at this lineup of dog breeds and pick the American pitbull terrier first time? Would you know the difference between an English bull terrier, a pitbull, a bulldog, a bullmastiff and any other kind of mastiff? Or do all the "bulls" flummox you?

But then there's another factor, the journalistic gravitational pull of certain breed names. Pitbull. Bullmastiff. Rottweiler. Say the name on a TV report or in a newspaper story and it's like hearing a great menacing minor-key chord heralding the entrance of the villain. "Everyone know they're violent." "They're a brutal breed." "You can tell by looking at them."

And then it turns out, as in the two recent stories, that the truth is a bit more complex. Namely, that the culprit may not have been of the taboo breed after all. Will that get a headline? No it won't.

Does any of this matter? Some of you will say no, the defaming of a dog breed is not a big crime, if it'll tend to make people safer.

But I don't think it will. It just makes us misread dogs even more.

When Sharron Mischefski takes her bullmastiffs Daisy and Nelson for a walk, she'll sometimes see people cross the road, pick up their own dogs, or shepherd children away. Owners of Neapolitan mastiffs and Staffordshire terriers have told me of similar reactions to their dogs - which are all, they say, loving and non-violent creatures.

I suppose you're safer, the more dogs you avoid. But this is a safety borne of ignorance and misplaced fear. It's no favour to a child to instil a lifelong fear of big or "ugly" or powerful dogs, or all dogs.

And there's a more perversely dangerous outcome of this demonization. Here's my hypothesis. Some people want a violent dog, or at least a dog that looks scary. Maybe to guard them against attacks that, for some reason, they think might happen. Maybe to fight other dogs, for fun, profit and plaudits. Maybe to make themselves feel bigger and stronger, or to match the aggression they feel in themselves.

Now what are the breeds or mixes of dogs that would be favoured by such potential owners? The ones with a reputation for power and aggression. Maybe the ones that look "mean".

Those people won't raise gentle dogs. They won't love the gentleness of a mastiff or a Staffy. Whatever breed or mix of dog they get hold of, it'll be trained to the maximum of the aggression in its nature. Perhaps it'll be bred with others. It won't go to puppy preschool, it won't go to obedience classes, it won't be carefully socialised, it probably won't be neutered.

The fact that, in a few cases, powerful dogs are used "as weapons to intimidate people", as the injured girl's plastic surgeon said, has its intended effect. We are intimidated. We believe the dogs are brutal and we impute a violent nature to whole breeds of dog, even the entire species - when it's the owners who by negligence or design make those individual dogs unpredictable.

To me, the real danger, the real pathology, is the admiration among some people of dog aggression and their inability or unwillingness to encourage their dog to be peaceful.

I sincerely hope that little girl and Stu Jacobs recover well. And I hope that all of us, especially my fellow journalists, will see the dangers of being too hasty, careless and prejudiced in thinking about and describing these awful events.

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