Pit Bull Owners Vs. The Media

Kristen Bergum with HugABull Allumni Koda at the

Vancouver Art Gallery on Sunday April 12, 2009

Read the Vancouver Metro Newspaper

This past Easter weekend was a busy one for us, with the tragic yet completely preventable attack on young Justice Paradis. This incident made headlines on every major news cast and was on the front page of all the local papers.

Once again the media jumped on the story and focused on the portrayal of a "Family Pet "Pit Bull" Gone Bad" and neglected to focus on the real issue, the life that dog had as a neglected yard dog, missing out on a great opportunity to educate the public on WHY dog attacks rather than focusing on what breed it was.

The misquoting and misinformation was right there front and centre for all us to see as Global News was quoted on Saturday night claiming that “the City of Vancouver currently has dangerous dog legislation in place requiring all Pit Bulls to be muzzled in public”, which was an extreme error as the City of Vancouver repelled it’s breed specific legislation in 2005 .

The shizzle had hit the fan for the final time as responsible owners stood up to say enough is enough. It's time for FAIR and accurate reporting, we demand it! The message for this weekend was "This is not a BREED issue, this is an OWNER issue" How we care and control our pets, is how we prevent dog attacks and now we create them.

This young Pit Bull involved had been reported by the media as the "family pet", yet was a dog that was kept chained in the backyard of the mother’s home days on end without any thought or care The grandfather was quoted saying "the dog was not good with children" yet was let off its chain by the boy’s father and brought into the home and left with the baby. This story is not of a family pet gone bad, this is a story of a chained animal, an unsocialized, under stimulated, unloved dog who was never given the chance to learn how to behave in a social environment. This was a neglected, abused dog that was doomed by his irresponsible owners.

Animal Advocates has been fighting hard to stop the chaining and tethering of dogs in and around our community for years, but were they ever asked to speak for the cameras about the damage this can cause to a dog? No! and when CTV sought out Shelagh Begg from HugABull with the pitch that they wanted to cover the affects of chaining dogs, for their Saturday night spot, they choose to omit the facts and the truth completely choosing to rather interview and air a woman who's dog was attacked by a Pit Bull a year earlier, leaving its audience to believe that dog aggression and human aggression are one in the same.


Our most important message went out to the media:

Your inaccurate, sensationalized reporting is affecting law abiding citizens and families from all municipalities in British Columbia and around Canada. Your desire to scare the public into believing that this breed is a danger not only to the public but to anyone that owns it, is completely false and ridicules.

We ask that you start reporting fair and accurate information regarding ALL dog attacks and not just the ones that involve Pit Bulls. We owners are tired of fearing for our dogs lives and for our right as Canadians to own and love this breed. We responsible owners are not few, we are not many, we are millions and we are the majority of Pit Bull owners in your communities today.

We will not allow you to damage this breeds reputation further, we have had enough and we will start voicing our concerns more openly and with more power.