Media and bully type dogs

In last weeks paper there was a small article about a 'pitbull type monster' attacking a child. Now firstly before i carry on I would just like to say that when a dog attacks anything its horrible and if my dog did this I would be mortified and disgusted that he could do this but Ad a responsible dog owner I always make sure (as much as i love my dog and trust him to an extent) we always make sure that he is not put into a situation were this could happen.

But......

My problem I have is the media who portray our breed of dogs and the bully breed as a menace to society and half the time i think they automatically presume its a staff or bully breed. Now i wrote to this particular paper explaining my problem with regards to the media and other papers and low and behold I did not even get a sniff of a reply. Now if i had reported a an attack it would have got a slot! the long and the short of it is that because of the media and irresponsible owners and parents we get the 'ooooo you have a child and a staff' or people thinking i have a monster on a harnice and lead.

I know its a rant but how could i get the media to help us out a little?!? My dream is for less staffs in the pounds and more educated people!!

i think we all feel that way, may be a while before that actually comes reality though

My mother and sister believe all they have read in the press, so Cassie is not allowed near their houses , needless to say i don't visit often now but we got onto the subject of dog attacks and of course the size of Cassie's mouth came up and the damage she could do. So i pointed out the jrt baby killer which the press quickly turned around towards the mother because jrt's don't sell papers do they? and the dog that bit my sister when she was younger wasn't an sbt, but stories of the sbt's are what sell and people like my family who are not willing to look at the other end of the lead keep buying the papers so nothing will change

To some the media is the truth sad to say, people have lost the ability to question and reason and are quite happy to be fed gutter press stories and treat them as gospal. Welcome to the minority...its been like it for ages, remember the devil dogs that were rotties and the gsd before that? Papers say something and the general public dig out there pitch forks and stand around chanting kill the witch kill the witch... Im never amazed at the levels of stupidity people can lower themselves too...id love to slap some scence into em but fear it would be a long hard slog. My small part is to support dda watch and hope we can make some changes. On a personal level, i couldnt do without my two staffy cross nutballs who show me nothing but love and affection. But thats not news worthey is it...

this is what we got when we got tyke whilst i was still pregnant, that we was wrong, had not thought about it and that they were dangerous dogs. we got a lot of the lock jaw etc so we explained everything and it took a while for family to accept tyke but now it turned out a good thing and my mother in law treats him like we do (and she had the biggest say in that we were wrong) and when she comes round not only does ryan have sweets but tyke always gets treats, but we had to 'fight our corner' with tyke and yes it ended up all well but theres still the stigma and my biggest belief is that its our children who should be educated now for the future! I know this wont happen over night but it really got to me that i had no reply as i as i said before a high percent of the stigma is due to the press!! and yes nathan we are the same tyke is a huge part of the family and the extended we could not be without him and he is one of the reasons we havent had a holiday in 4 years!!! haha

Yeah the old wives tales are fantastic arnt they...had a lass at work telling me about lock jaw today and i told her they aint lizard dogs ffs but she proceeded to google it to prove me wrong...no appology just a "oh yeah your right, cant remember who told me that" no dumb * you beleive everything your told by anyone if its sensational enough.

Nathan wrote:Yeah the old wives tales are fantastic arnt they...had a lass at work telling me about lock jaw today and i told her they aint lizard dogs ffs but she proceeded to google it to prove me wrong...no appology just a "oh yeah your right, cant remember who told me that" no dumb * you beleive everything your told by anyone if its sensational enough.

My sister "doesn't trust any dog that has to run into a wall to fracture it's head" she believes people that don't own sbt's and are just prejudiced and don't believe us people that researched the breed and joined knowledgable forums before picking them

Totally agree with u dave, we looked into the breed before we decided. Again its our children now that should be educated (i sound like a earthy person who should have a sign saying save our breed haha) but i stand by it. We have loyal dogs but its also a trait that is exployted beyond belief whick alot of prople dont understand!!

dave742 wrote:

Nathan wrote:Yeah the old wives tales are fantastic arnt they...had a lass at work telling me about lock jaw today and i told her they aint lizard dogs ffs but she proceeded to google it to prove me wrong...no appology just a "oh yeah your right, cant remember who told me that" no dumb * you beleive everything your told by anyone if its sensational enough.

My sister "doesn't trust any dog that has to run into a wall to fracture it's head" she believes people that don't own sbt's and are just prejudiced and don't believe us people that researched the breed and joined knowledgable forums before picking them

Lol thats a new one on me. Have heard of head splitting but never that. Seems they never want to hear that they have normal genetics but are just muscley by nature. Just for fun...we have head splitting dogs that run into walls and have lizard like jaw locks...what next? They have barbed tails with venomouse stings that can kill 100 adult men...reality...your all sitting there with loving furbabies either snuggled into you or lazing next to the radiator

I stayed in the background as a guest in the forum just learning all i could, following links all over the net from this forum , so if i get on all your nerves with questions it's your own doing lol. I just wish the negative nellies would do the same, but it's far easier to listen to the gospel of idiots

I’m sure there are better ways of describing this phenomenon, but I’ve tried to make sense of it for a while now.

Fear sells newspapers. The more appearances the bogeymen make, the more likely we are to keep buying their bs.

Once the terror figure has been defined, it takes little effort to keep us believing and scared. One factor here, is ‘confirmation bias’ in the reader. We all want to have affirmation that the world is as we see it. It’s one of the reasons why voters of one persuasion or the other, even intelligent people, often read an openly biased newspaper which corresponds with their own leanings. The papers are reporting what they want to read, not raw, critically appraised facts.

Bertrand Russell put this nicely: “If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.”

We are up against a human failing and though I don’t know if there is a quick solution, it does help to know what we’re facing.

Snuggled Nathan snuggled? do you mean the furbaby that thinks she paid for this couch is currently squashing me into the corner of ?lol

dave742 wrote:I stayed in the background as a guest in the forum just learning all i could, following links all over the net from this forum , so if i get on all your nerves with questions it's your own doing lol. I just wish the negative nellies would do the same, but it's far easier to listen to the gospel of idiots

Exactly what i did mate, and still do to be honest i learn somsthing new each day either from the dogs or the net. I suspect your like md and enjoy the information gathering. I find it fasinating and love learning about dogs.

dave742 wrote:Snuggled Nathan snuggled? do you mean the furbaby that thinks she paid for this couch is currently squashing me into the corner of ?lol

Lol....okay they do seem to think they own it by proxy. Its yours so its more theres. Now tell me you aint loving it ;9)

I would love another but it wouldn't be fair at all because i am still asking questions all the time, there are some lovely intelligent people on this forum and i love it. And also if we had another i really wouldn't get a look in on the couch because the oh would prefer Cassie's heat and snuggles to mine lol

Nathan wrote:To some the media is the truth sad to say, people have lost the ability to question and reason and are quite happy to be fed gutter press stories and treat them as gospal...................... Papers say something and the general public dig out there pitch forks and stand around chanting kill the witch kill the witch...

Yes, it takes very little effort to stimulate the primitive parts of our brains and make us become tribal again.

Nathan wrote:My small part is to support dda watch and hope we can make some changes.

Thanks for mentioning this. I hadn't heard of this organisation before I'll check out their website.

Nathan wrote:...my two staffy cross nutballs who show me nothing but love and affection. But thats not news worthey is it...

No. If they licked you so much that you bled to death or lay on your lap long enough that your legs exploded, then you may get some coverage

Tyke is currently that close to the radiator am nit suprised he hasnt melted! Just stopped him sneaking up stairs 10mins ago. I love the selective hearing he has at times! But i wouldnt change it for the world and will carry on fighting the nig bully fight! This will never go away now and will never be a quixk fix god loves a tryer!!

The internet is brill and the forum, my partener use to be on hear aswell and we thats how we find out alot about the breed, tips and truth! The next staff i get will be a rescue due to the over population of them!!

Just had a look at the DDA Watch, very good site and worth a read!

The funny thing is it that most people are fully aware that you should take anything in a tabloid with a large pinch of salt. They just choose what to believe what they believe to support their own misconceptions. My local paper thrives on the 'staffy type dog' expression. They allow comments on some stories and to be honest you probably get more people defending Staffies then the ban them all brigade.

I know how you feel, the thing that bothers my is the fact that they put the breed name in the title "Staffordshire bull terrier attack". However, if it was any other breed it would just read "Dog attack" A high percentage of the time the dog isn't even a Stafford and is more like the dreaded term "type".

When I was wee I always remember being told Rottweilers/Doberman were devil dogs and to stay away! I'd never even heard of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier until I was in my early teens. Now they are the hot topic.

I have a real strong feeling that in a few years Husky's are going to be the new status dog for troublemakers. Around the estate I live there are so many Huskys being marched around by young lads. They are also advertised everywhere and I see a lot more in the pounds.

Again, at a time a Husky was a VERY rare thing to see where I live.