" Samantha Frost sleeps with her pit bull terrier Rex. She is eight years old and the five-month-old pup has already bitten her once. The little girl raises the heel of her hand to show the small scar that marks the day when the dog was a "bit giggly" and attacked her. She had shouted at him to get down off the sofa and he had responded with his incisors. Luckily, he let go - pit bulls usually lock on to their victims and try to rip, a trait that has led them to be labelled "devil dogs".
Ellie Lawrenson was killed by a pit bull, and hers is not the only family with an illegal dog. Audrey Gillan and Eric Allison ask how animals bred to fight have become fashionable pets
Samantha and Rex have become inseparable since he moved into her terraced home in Salford. This week, Samantha's mother, Claire, 24, became all too aware of how Rex could be a time-bomb waiting to go off, after five-year-old Ellie Lawrenson was savaged to death on New Year's Day by her uncle's "pit bull-type" dog. Ellie had been staying with her grandmother, Jackie Simpson, when she was attacked at 4.30am. The dog, Reuben, which also hospitalised Simpson, was shot by police officers.
The RSPCA says Claire should seriously consider having Rex put down. Martin Marsh, the charity's chief inspector for the Merseyside region, said: "We could not, in all conscience, rehouse a known biter. Anybody who has a dog that's bitten a child should not leave the child alone with the dog. I would say it's bordering on criminal letting that child sleep with the dog. You may as well leave that child with a loaded shotgun. It's a no-win situation. The only way forward there is that the mother should be seriously considering whether the poor sod should be euthanased."
"When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer...Superstition ain't the way, no no no..."
Stevie Wonder.
Saturday January 6, 2007
The Guardian
" Samantha Frost sleeps with her pit bull terrier Rex. She is eight years old and the five-month-old pup has already bitten her once. The little girl raises the heel of her hand to show the small scar that marks the day when the dog was a "bit giggly" and attacked her. She had shouted at him to get down off the sofa and he had responded with his incisors. Luckily, he let go - pit bulls usually lock on to their victims and try to rip, a trait that has led them to be labelled "devil dogs".
Ellie Lawrenson was killed by a pit bull, and hers is not the only family with an illegal dog. Audrey Gillan and Eric Allison ask how animals bred to fight have become fashionable pets
Samantha and Rex have become inseparable since he moved into her terraced home in Salford. This week, Samantha's mother, Claire, 24, became all too aware of how Rex could be a time-bomb waiting to go off, after five-year-old Ellie Lawrenson was savaged to death on New Year's Day by her uncle's "pit bull-type" dog. Ellie had been staying with her grandmother, Jackie Simpson, when she was attacked at 4.30am. The dog, Reuben, which also hospitalised Simpson, was shot by police officers.
The RSPCA says Claire should seriously consider having Rex put down. Martin Marsh, the charity's chief inspector for the Merseyside region, said: "We could not, in all conscience, rehouse a known biter. Anybody who has a dog that's bitten a child should not leave the child alone with the dog. I would say it's bordering on criminal letting that child sleep with the dog. You may as well leave that child with a loaded shotgun. It's a no-win situation. The only way forward there is that the mother should be seriously considering whether the poor sod should be euthanased."
"When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer...Superstition ain't the way, no no no..."
Stevie Wonder.