Are Pit Bull (Dogs) Legal in Fairfax County? (apartment complex, townhouse)
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I know some of them are sweet-tempered, but on the rare occasion I encounter one while walking our dog, I steer clear just in case.
I do that with all dogs. Our walks are SO much nicer when I don't have to stress over two dogs meeting on leash. Leash reactivity is ridiculously prevalent in dogs (mine included), and when I don't know the person at the end of the leash, it makes the situation worse. Whenever we come upon another dog, I'll cross the street and wave to them as we walk past. Much much much better walks now!!!
The worst was in the neighborhood park one day. I stepped to the side of the path (into the leaves and brush) to let the other dog pass, and started stuffing my dog full of string cheese to keep her focus on me so she didn't spaz out when the other dog went past. The man walked up to us (OFF THE PATH), and said,
"My dog wants to say hello to yours."
"Thanks, but she's not really a fan of other dogs"
"Oh, mine is nice."
"Please don't."
AND THEN HIS DOG BIT MINE IN THE BACK LEG. Which in turn caused mine to whip around and snarl and I was cornered in the bushes and it sucked.
GAHHHH. I was so upset. We went like 3 years backwards in our leash training that day, and it sucked.
Bottom line: YAY FOR OWNERS WHO DON'T LET DOGS INTERACT ON WALKS!
Skapov ~ What do you mean "people like you?" You don't know me! First of all my American Pitt is 6 mo. old, in obedience school and preparing to go into therapy dog training. Not only am I an avid animal lover, I am also a mother, grandmother and teach children from 2 years old to 17. "People like me" are very capable of caring about both. Of course I believe that it is a tragedy when someone is bitten or mauled or worse. My comment did not warrant "disgust". My point and apparently that of many others on this site, is that singling out ONE specific breed is ludicrous. In our obedience class, there are 3 german shepards, 1 rottweiler, 1 mutt and 1poodle. My pitts biggest problem in class is that he wants to play and lick everyone. 2 of the shepards are on their 3rd time around and are still scary aggressive. The rottie is out of control and unpredictable. Guess who the most visious dog is? That's right, the standard poodle. I don't "not" care about people that get hurt, that would make me an ass (also), what I care about are adults that let 4 year olds put a dog in a crate, adults that train dogs to fight, adults that let their dogs run free, adults that don't bother to teach big breeds good manners. THEY are the problem, not the dog! So don't get on a soap box with me and certainly don't pass judgement on people you don't know. While your at it, don't pass judgement on a breed that is sensationalized by the media!
Audery....you nail it !!!!
Thank You, Thank You....I love my two 10 year old pit bull boys ( they came from the same litter). I would haven't it any other way....I will always have pit bulls !!!
I do that with all dogs. Our walks are SO much nicer when I don't have to stress over two dogs meeting on leash. Leash reactivity is ridiculously prevalent in dogs (mine included), and when I don't know the person at the end of the leash, it makes the situation worse. Whenever we come upon another dog, I'll cross the street and wave to them as we walk past. Much much much better walks now!!!
The worst was in the neighborhood park one day. I stepped to the side of the path (into the leaves and brush) to let the other dog pass, and started stuffing my dog full of string cheese to keep her focus on me so she didn't spaz out when the other dog went past. The man walked up to us (OFF THE PATH), and said,
"My dog wants to say hello to yours."
"Thanks, but she's not really a fan of other dogs"
"Oh, mine is nice."
"Please don't."
AND THEN HIS DOG BIT MINE IN THE BACK LEG. Which in turn caused mine to whip around and snarl and I was cornered in the bushes and it sucked.
GAHHHH. I was so upset. We went like 3 years backwards in our leash training that day, and it sucked.
Bottom line: YAY FOR OWNERS WHO DON'T LET DOGS INTERACT ON WALKS!
I completely understand your position, but socialization and interaction is key to happy, well-mannered dogs. What we should be saying "YAY" to are owners who ask ahead of time if something is acceptable. This goes both ways, and each person should respect the answer.
"Do you mind if I pet your dog?"
"Do you mind if our two dogs met and sniff"?
"Do you mind if I let your dog jump all over me?" (This is a big one for me. I train my dogs to NOT jump up on people. As puppies, they still have a tendancy to do so. When meeting someone who has expressed an interest to pet, sometimes the pup will jump, and I will immediately disipline them. Often times the other person says "oh, it's ok". Well, no, it isn't.)
I completely understand your position, but socialization and interaction is key to happy, well-mannered dogs.
Yes yes yes yes! But I make sure that my dog only interacts with dogs who I know and trust, or owners whose discretion I trust. When I first brought my dog home, I followed what you suggest ("Do you mind if our dogs say hi?") and found that more often than should happen the other dog would react inappropriately and increase my dog's leash reactivity. It built and built subtly through these interactions because people are not good at reading their dogs' signals. It was 1 step forward, 2 steps back. We are at a MUCH better, more tolerant place now that I limit her exposure to strange dogs.
I do that with all dogs. Our walks are SO much nicer when I don't have to stress over two dogs meeting on leash. Leash reactivity is ridiculously prevalent in dogs (mine included), and when I don't know the person at the end of the leash, it makes the situation worse. Whenever we come upon another dog, I'll cross the street and wave to them as we walk past. Much much much better walks now!!!
The worst was in the neighborhood park one day. I stepped to the side of the path (into the leaves and brush) to let the other dog pass, and started stuffing my dog full of string cheese to keep her focus on me so she didn't spaz out when the other dog went past. The man walked up to us (OFF THE PATH), and said,
"My dog wants to say hello to yours."
"Thanks, but she's not really a fan of other dogs"
"Oh, mine is nice."
"Please don't."
AND THEN HIS DOG BIT MINE IN THE BACK LEG. Which in turn caused mine to whip around and snarl and I was cornered in the bushes and it sucked.
GAHHHH. I was so upset. We went like 3 years backwards in our leash training that day, and it sucked.
Bottom line: YAY FOR OWNERS WHO DON'T LET DOGS INTERACT ON WALKS!
I'm sorry your dog got bit, but thanks for making me feel better about crossing and walking my dog on the other side of the street whenever an unfamiliar person with an unfamiliar dog are heading in our direction. Our dog loves people, and plays very nicely with other dogs he knows in our or their yard, but he has some, ahem, "leash reactivity" on neighborhood walks (I always think this is what it must feel like to catch a really big fish). Your post made me feel a bit less anti-social.
Come on people, every set of data out there (I won't bother pasting them all in), indicates pit bull-like breeds (large molassers) as being very significantly high in dog bites including maimings and deaths on people.
And yet many of you claim this is a myth, it's just about bad dog owners. Well how about hundreds of generations of bad owners, breeding and training these fellas for fighting or protection. This doesn't disappear overnight because your boy gives you and your kids nice kisses.
You also need to remember these dogs are loving to beings inside the family, and want to protect you from beings outside the family (this is not good/not safe).
And I haven't even gotten to their aggression towards other dogs. You can see the fear and discomfort on most pit bull-like dogs, tails down, head lowered, low growl.
But I don't think they should be illegal, but their owners should be aware and especially careful.
BTW, to the OP, yes they are legal and very popular in Fairfax County.
"My dog wants to say hello to yours."
"Thanks, but she's not really a fan of other dogs"
"Oh, mine is nice."
"Please don't."
AND THEN HIS DOG BIT MINE IN THE BACK LEG. Which in turn caused mine to whip around and snarl and I was cornered in the bushes and it sucked.
GAHHHH. I was so upset. We went like 3 years backwards in our leash training that day, and it sucked.
One of my hobbies used to be to adopt abandoned dogs and re-train them (and annoyingly for my wife, keep them). Most had dog aggression issues and I went through your exact description numerous times during their training. For reasons I could not understand, some dog owners had a bizzarre fixation with having their dogs run into (and I mean physicially run into) every single dog on the street, including mine. At one point, I put muzzles on my dogs on the street, not because they were aggresive, but only to keep such owners/handlers and their dogs away from my dogs. They would avoid us as soon as they saw the muzzles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Back to NE
Come on people, every set of data out there (I won't bother pasting them all in), indicates pit bull-like breeds (large molassers) as being very significantly high in dog bites including maimings and deaths on people.
I believe there is a book on fatal dog attacks (that is to say fatal to people) in the United States available on Amazon. You might want to take a look.
It IS true that a plurality of fatalities in dog attacks in recent years has come from "pitbull-type" dogs (note that there is no defined breed as a "pit bull" -- most are some combination of American Pit Bull Terrier or a American Staffordshire Terriers; often the ID is sketchy at best). There is a couple of problems with this statistic. More on that below.
Quote:
And yet many of you claim this is a myth, it's just about bad dog owners. Well how about hundreds of generations of bad owners, breeding and training these fellas for fighting or protection. This doesn't disappear overnight because your boy gives you and your kids nice kisses.
The two issues with using this recent statistic to enact policy are these. First, there is a problem of identification. In many instances, follow-ups of press reports of "pit bull" attacks have yielded inconclusive results on determining the type of breed. The press and people involved tend to get sensationalistic and often term any large breed attacks as "pit bull attacks." Second, the plurality of pit bull-type dogs in fatal attacks in recent years is likely based on the popularity of such dogs in the current time frame. In the past, when other large breeds such as German Shepherds were more popular (after WWII), they were responsible for a majority or plurality of fatal dog attacks, not "pit bulls."
I shudder every time I see a movie about an "exotic" large breed -- the resulting popularity is a death knell for the breed's quality in the United States. I've had a few highly exotic, powerful hunting dogs over the years -- all abandoned by previous owners -- and often all sorts of people would come up to me on the street and inquire about my dogs ("That's a great looking dog! What kind of a dog is that? Is it really tough?" ). I would usually just say, "these dogs take a lot of energy and effort to train properly and I would recommend against getting one if you were not willing to put in hours and hours each week."
Quote:
You also need to remember these dogs are loving to beings inside the family, and want to protect you from beings outside the family (this is not good/not safe).
And I haven't even gotten to their aggression towards other dogs. You can see the fear and discomfort on most pit bull-like dogs, tails down, head lowered, low growl.
But I don't think they should be illegal, but their owners should be aware and especially careful.
BTW, to the OP, yes they are legal and very popular in Fairfax County.
I agree that there should not be breed-specific bans in Fairfax. Such bans are arbitrary and ineffective. What is needed instead is a dangerous dog ordinance that quarantines individual dogs that are dangerous and sanctions owners.
Dog ownership is a big responsibility. Dogs are domesticated wolves and can be unpredictable unless trained and handled well. Most dogs, large or small, whatever the breeds, have a primitive sense of protecting one's pack/family and being wary of strangers as well as the usual inter-dog aggression for dominance in the pack hierarchy. Pit bulls are NOT unique in this regard (yes, it's true that there is a history of them being used for dog fighting, but many breeds have that in their history as dog fighting has been a popular pastime in many cultures, including ours, throughout human history).
Most dog attack fatalities could have been prevented if the owners/handlers exercised the most rudimentary of cautions like confining one's dog to one's property well or leashed off-property and never leaving the dogs alone with strangers, especially small children.
The other option is revert back to the older way of keeping dogs, which I would NOT recommend in this day and age and especially not in an area such as NoVA. In other countries that are less urbanized, it is still common to see "village" (semi-feral) dogs roaming about the town. The dogs do get into occasional scuffles and an odd child who was not careful does get bitten. But dogs work out their hierarchy and turfs and generally stay away from people/kids. Children are more careful of dogs and do not have cartoon views of them as cuddly creatures. Life goes on. It used to be more like that in this country too, particularly in the rural areas (my wife's grandfather had a farm in the Midwest and, being a dog lover, he'd routinely leave food and water for the "neighborhood" pack, a dozen or so dogs that would come by and eat the food and move on everyday; he "adopted" two of the dogs in the pack as his and one day they weren't in the pack -- he later found one poisoned and the other shot).
I have read the very troubling news, about the 4-year-old little boy viciously mauled yesterday (he lost an eye) over in District Heights, Maryland, and now I'm concerned because unlike PG County, it appears Fairfax County does not have a breed ban in effect to protect residents from the dangerous Pit Bull dog!
I cannot confirm on www.fairfaxcounty.gov whether or not there is a ban, so please somebody let me know, because if there's no ban then maybe I'm gonna have to do something about it and LOBBY my local government to install a BREED BAN.
Does anyone know of any dog-attacks/maulings that have happened now or in the past around Burke/West Springfield area?
Pit bulls are illegal in Prince George's county - unless you own a business. They are allowed in the other jurisdictions, but good luck finding a landlord which will accept the dog.
Does anyone else find it hilarious that the OP put "(Dogs)" in the title?
Not picking on you, OP; I commend your specificity.
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). I would usually just say, "these dogs take a lot of energy and effort to train properly and I would recommend against getting one if you were not willing to put in hours and hours each week."
