Word: dogs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...canine terror is the American pit bull, a dog with a squat, muscular body and thick, steel-trap jaws that is descended from the fighting bulldogs of 19th century England. In 2 1/2 years it has been responsible for 16 deaths across the country, six of them in the past year, leading many municipalities to pass laws to restrict ownership. It is estimated that there are now 500,000 unregistered, often poorly bred pit bullterriers in the U.S. So fearsome is the dog's reputation that it has become imbued with much the same malevolent aura as the beast...
Officials of animal-protection societies tell of pit bulls being given live kittens or small dogs, such as poodles, to tear apart. Often they are fed gunpowder or hot sauce in the mistaken belief that this will increase the animals' pain threshold. Jean Sullivan, director of the Memphis-based Humane Society, charges that some owners have tried to increase their dogs' natural aggressiveness by keeping them tied up with collars of baling wire or running them on treadmills until they are exhausted. The pit bull's jaws -- which can exert as much force...
...many Americans indulging in this orgy of pain and violence? "The dogs are almost like an extension of the owners' egos," says Orville Walls, a Philadelphia veterinarian. "The owners think, 'I may be low man on the economic totem pole, but I have the meanest, toughest dog on the street.' " Owning a pit bull, says Robert Armstrong, Houston's chief animal controller, "is a warning to others to stay off the sidewalk." Randall Lockwood of the Humane Society notes that the animals have become increasingly popular as dog fighting has moved from rural areas into cities. They appeal...
Despite the dogs' bloody reputation, owners such as Laue insist that purebred pit bulls have a "steady temperament and intense loyalty." Indeed, breeders believe that in time the animal will regain its gentler image of the 1930s, when a pit bull played Pete in the Our Gang films. Only 30 years ago, notes Ed Almeida, a dog trainer in El Monte, Calif., the Doberman was the most vicious of dogs. Now, he says, after years of careful breeding, Dobermans are "big boobs" compared with the pit bulls...
...important matters, say, on whether the presidential finding authorizing the Israeli second arms shipment was in compliance with the Hughes-Ryan amendment. Such matters, often referred to as the "facts," are overlooked while the nation takes in Ollie's hair, his uniform, his smile, his glint, his hound-dog eyes and his patriotic speeches. Millions swoon. The sophisticates despair...