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From Toby

Steve, I'm sickend by your insane bleeding hearted agenda of saving vicious dogs. Any dog that mauls a human being should be destroyed. PERIOD. NO EXCEPTIONS. You save dogs that have bitten children?? You are f----d up in the head big time. Big time.

Several years ago, two dogs mauled a San Francisco woman to death. They tore out her windpipe. You love dogs like this, don't you. You want to rescue them. Well tough, because those dangerous s----y dogs were destroyed. HA HA. But their owners wanted to save them. They wanted theses beasts to live. The community despised these owners. Why? Because they showed NO remorse over what their vicious dogs had done. They blamed the victim for her own death! You must not give a rat's --s about the victims of dog attacks either, otherwise you'd want such dogs put down, out of respect for the victims. So you're just as f----d up as the owners of those killer dogs, since you want such beasts to remain alive.

You are a loser.

Toby
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Toby;

No one cares what you think. Enjoy being ignorant and angry for the rest of your life, and I'll take a little extra pride in knowing how much what I do bothers you.

Steve
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Now, for anyone who might think Toby has a point, I'll reiterate some of the things I've said before. Number one: animals aren't morally culpable for their actions and cannot be held responsible or be justly punished for what they do, and number two, animals aren't property to be disposed of when they become inconvenient, expensive, or even dangerous. I believe people have a responsibility to provide for companion animals. I'm against the killing of animals for reasons pertaining to their behavior or incident histories. I've never taken in a dog that's killed a person, because such dogs are almost always killed, the only exceptions being rare cases where the person was a criminal intruder. That said, if I was asked to take in a dog that had killed a person and I had the space, I would. That probably bothers some of you. But if I believe the statements I made above, I have to be willing to do that, not that it's likely to ever come up.

Yes, I rescue dogs that bite children. Most recently I took in Jack, a dog who mauled a boy in Port Angeles. I think it's awful that the boy was hurt, and often I take dogs specifically so that children will be safer. Often people with dangerous dogs continue to put their children at risk day after day, and they are unwilling to do what Toby thinks is the right thing to do. I provide them with another option, and hopefully my organization has saved a lot of children from being badly injured or even killed.

I had nothing to do with the woman's death in San Francisco, the people whose dogs killed her, or the dogs themselves. I'm not sure why that case is being brought up -- around fifteen to thirty people are killed by dogs in the US every year. That's really not very many in the big scheme of things, which I realize isn't much consolation to those people's families, but more people are killed by bees than dogs. I wonder if Toby has ever sent an email like this to a beekeeper.

Believe it or not, I care about the victims, I just don't think it's appropriate to kill a dog "out of respect" for someone. I don't know how killing something is ever a sign of respect, at least not in my culture. I do think it's appropriate to hold the dog's negligent caregiver responsible, even if that means that person goes to prison for manslaughter. I'm for higher accountability when it comes to the people who keep dogs as pets, and there's no excuse for allowing a dog to injure someone when you know your animal is likely to do so. But killing the dog doesn't bring victims back to life, or make wounds heal. It doesn't decrease the number of bite incidents or deaths from dog bites. It might make a few people feel better -- the kind of people that would take revenge on an animal, I suppose.

Now, I know Toby's probably been drinking, and I think if he were honest he'd admit that he loathes himself, and who would blame him? I'm not the first animal rescuer he's feebly attacked; he's left comments on websites and I'm sure he's sent emails to other people who understand that animal rescuers, social workers, relief workers, human rights activists, and others are all attempting to address the same, broad, problem -- a lack of compassion and responsibility in the world. I do my part, the piece that I do best, and others do their parts. Some give their money, some give their time. Others do neither, and complain a lot and point fingers. Maybe I have Toby all wrong; maybe he's a great humanitarian. Or maybe he just spends a lot of time online talking about it.

Posted on March 31, 2010 | Link