"They Seemed Friendly" but One Killed his Owner

[Joe Guy]

Is there anyone here who would like to give an explanation as to why Pit Bulls make good pets and everyone should be allowed to own one?......

Pregnant Pacifica woman killed by family pit bull

Peter Fimrite,John King, Chronicle Staff Writers

Friday, August 12, 2011

PACIFICA -- A pregnant Pacifica woman was mauled and killed by a family pit bull Thursday inside her home and discovered by her husband when he returned from work.

Darla Napora, 32, was found by her husband, Greg, at their house at 588 Reina del Mar around noon.

Greg Napora told police that he arrived home to find one of the couple's two pit bulls standing over his wife's body. He was able to get the dog into the backyard before police arrived a few moments later, according to Capt. Dave Bertini, a Pacifica police spokesman.

Attempts to revive Darla Napora were unsuccessful, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

While the investigation was under way, Bertini said, the 2-year-old male dog got loose from the yard. Police fired three shots at the pit bull, killing it.

The family's second pit bull was not believed to have been involved in the attack, but was removed as a precaution by the Peninsula Humane Society, which provides animal control services for San Mateo County.

By late afternoon, police had left the scene and the house sat quiet, the front door slightly open. The only visible evidence of the horrific episode was a pool of drying blood on the gravel driveway near the front door.

Neighbor Kathy Carlson, 63, saw the distraught husband outside the house before the police arrived.

"He was in the driveway all frantic, yelling," said Carlson, who lives across from the white single-story home that the Naporas began renting last winter. "He had blood on his hands, blood on his shirt and blood down his pants."

Residents and visitors to the quiet block struggled to make sense of what had occurred.

"They are not barking dogs. They seemed friendly," Carlson said of the two pit bulls owned by the Naporas. "I have a pit also, and he's an absolute angel. It's just really sad."

A former neighborhood resident on the scene wasn't nearly so sympathetic to the presence of pit bulls.

"I'm scared to death of them," said Jeni Viny, 59, in Pacifica for a high school reunion. Viny of Nashville recalled being at a dog obedience class where a 4-month-old pit bull began attacking other dogs in the room. "I hate them."

The death of Darla Napora was not the first case in the Bay Area where pit bulls have killed members of the families that owned them.

In 2010, 2-year-old Jacob Bisbee was attacked by three dogs in his step-grandfather's Concord garage. The owner, Steven Hayashi, has since been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Five years earlier saw the death of Nicholas Faibish, 12, who was mauled by his family's pit bulls in San Francisco after his mother left them alone in the house with her son, who had a learning disability.

The most notorious mauling case locally involved Diane Whipple, a 33-year-old lacrosse coach at St. Mary's College who was killed in her Pacific Heights apartment building by a 120-pound Presa Canario. The dog was being kept by attorneys Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel, each of whom served prison time as a result of the death. Knoller is still in prison.

San Francisco passed a law in 2005 that pit bulls owned by city residents must be spayed or neutered. Pacifica has no such law. The dog found with Darla Napora had not been neutered, police said.

source

[The Hen]

Pit Bulls are banned from importation into Australia.

Unfortunately, cross-breds are not.

[dales]

Pomeranian Kills 6-Week-Old Girl
September 21, 2001

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A small Pomeranian dog killed a 6-week-old baby while the infant's caretaker briefly left the child unattended to warm a bottle of milk, authorities said.

The relative, who was caring for the infant girl, found her head buried in the dog's mouth Saturday night, sheriff's Deputy Cruz Solis said. The girl died of head trauma at an area hospital, he said.

The baby's name was withheld because her parents were out of the country and had not been notified, Solis said.

The relative has not been charged. Animal control officers took the dog.

Pomeranians are a breed of miniature canines that have a foxlike face, pointy ears and long, fluffy hair. The deputy said Pomeranian attacks are rare.

``Obviously it doesn't take much to kill a 6-week old baby but it's not something that happens with that breed,'' Solis said.

Copyright 2000 Associated Press.

[The Hen]

Yup. smaller dogs are just as dangerous and usually have more biting incidents.

However, their targets, usually, will not be severely injured as the jaw is too small to latch round anything ... unless you are a six week baby. I never left the Hatch unattended with any animal in the room with her.

[Rick]

Sometimes I wonder if little dogs know they're little...

[The Hen]

Heh. after living with Milly, our Shitzu / Maltese cross I can assure you SHE doesn't know she's little .... unless she is off-lead when the strange dog comes over.

However, if she is on the lead, or better yet if she is off and the other dog is behind a fence, she has all the bravado of a Rottweiller.

As for our 'thick as two sort ones' Red Heeler / Kelpie cross, I am sure he only believes he exists to the top of his eyes, and just behind his ears because he is constantly head butting furniture and getting in the way.

Heart the size of a planet, brain the size of a pea.

[Sean]

As for our 'thick as two sort ones' Red Heeler / Kelpie cross, I am sure he only believes he exists to the top of his eyes, and just behind his ears because he is constantly head butting furniture and getting in the way.

Heart the size of a planet, brain the size of a pea.

Sounds just like our cocker. Dogs aren't exactly the most graceful of creatures to start with but when they get a dose of spackeritis...

[Gob]

Brigitte Bardot has been criticised for trying to save the life of a bull terrier that left a girl of four disfigured.

The dog’s owners demanded it be put down after it mauled their little girl last month, leaving her with horrific injuries to her face and body. But Miss Bardot, 76, has asked the local mayor to spare six-year-old Prince after the attack in Boulogne.

Prince is considered one of the most dangerous dogs in France. He is currently being held in a secure kennel prior to lethal injection following the horrific attack on the little girl in July. Prince attacked the child in her sleep, leaving her with facial injuries which required maxillofacial surgery.

When his owners contacted the pet shop where they had bought him three weeks earlier they learned that he had started eating his previous owner – a pensioner who had died of old age. But Bardot, the 76-year-old who shot to fame as a sex symbol in the 1956 classic movie And God Created Woman, said: ‘We have abolished the death penalty for humans, so why should it continue for animals?

'The dog should be held in prison for life rather than be put down.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1V37XBUPt

[Sean]

I'd go with the 'prison for life' idea if she was smeared in Winalot and locked up with the dog.

[The Hen]

What is the point of incarcerating a dangerous dog for life.

Euthanasia is an appropriate end outcome.

[Joe Guy]

What is the point of incarcerating a dangerous dog for life.

Because counseling a dangerous dog during his life sentence might help him to get wise and then he would hopefully speak to other incarcerated & depraved mutts that don't have life sentences and that might help guide those other lost & misguided dogs on their road to recovery.

We would all benefit from this.

[The Hen]

Fnaaar.

[loCAtek]

Yup. smaller dogs are just as dangerous and usually have more biting incidents.

However, their targets, usually, will not be severely injured as the jaw is too small to latch round anything ...

That's the point- I believe Labradors are the No. # 1 biters, but their slim jaws and skulls make their grip less powerful. (I still bare teeth marks from a Labrador attack)
Pitbulls have some of the largest jaws, with the 'bite' muscles extending to the top of the head; increasing their crushing strength.
They are responding to the same 'attack' stimuli as any other dog would; they're just better equipped to do harm.

That said, I meet a lot of pitbulls and mixes (they're the trendy 'tough dog' breed these days) ...and I never hesitate to contribute in socializing these pets. I scratch their big nugget heads and tell them how handsome they are; and hopefully get one of their signature, big-mouthed grins. I've met some pitbulls, who were down-right, whiny, little babies when separated from their owners. They didn't know how bad, they could be. A well socialized dog, is a well behaved,dog, who is less likely to insecurely bite.




Lesson learned: Hormonal woman should not be left with hormonal dog.
Bad juju will ensue.

[oldr_n_wsr]

being around 53 years I have seen this scenario many times with many different breeds. Growing up it was the German shepard that was the "bad breed". After that is was the doberman pincher, then the rotweiller then the mastif. Now it's hte pit bull. It's not any of those breeds, it's the owners.

[BoSoxGal]

I agree in large part, although; when a breed becomes really popular and thus is puppy milled or otherwise poorly bred to keep up with market demand, often breed temperament is a casualty of that poor breeding. Puppy mills don't breed for best physical and mental characteristics, they just breed rampantly and often the bitches aren't healthy and the puppies aren't properly socialized and/or are weaned short of optimal time. These factors can all contribute to dogs that are bad even with good owners.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Agreed. We adopted a lab mix (mixed with what I don't know). Took it to puppy kindergarten, and training classes. Still he bit me then my wife then went for my son. Nighty night after that. He just had this psycho streak in him. When we saw him in the shelter, he was cowering in the back of his cage and didn't really "warm up" to anyone like many of hte other dogs.

[BoSoxGal]

Dogs with an innate fearful aggressiveness like that are very, very difficult to rehabilitate.

I adopted one at 4 months of age and kept him until he was 7 years old.

For some reason he simply could not relax around people younger than 10ish, and had nipped at several children over the years and finally bitten one in the last year or so of his life.

The problem was exacerbated by the fact that he was a sweet-looking dog (looked like Snoopy) and was in fact, very sweet with grown, calm people. Despite my clear warnings, adults would allow their children to run up to him and poke at him, which was how he ultimately bit a child - the child of a friend, who had come into my home unannounced and thus I wasn't able to take measures to secure the dog elsewhere. The child ran at the dog and grabbed his ear and he bit her in the face - a very tiny bite, like a nip he misjudged and thus broke the skin - but terrifying nonetheless. My friend took responsiblity for the incident, noting that I had warned her repeatedly NOT to let her child near my dog - but I still felt awful, for her child AND my dog.

Anyway, sadly, I finally had to euthanize that dog. I loved him dearly, but having utilized every behavioral modification techinique my very learned veterinarian suggested, to no avail, in attempting to rectify his fearful aggressiveness - we finally decided that euthanasia was a better alternative to his living the remainder of his life in a kennel at a no-kill shelter, or worse, being abused after biting someone. At that time my life circumstances became such that I wasn't able to keep him in the manner required, which was basically secured from interaction with all children.

I still miss him, because in most ways he was a very good dog.