This concerns a troubling matter that Im putting on public record lest it in any way be misrepresented. By way of introduction, Bronwen Dickey is the daughter of the late Deliverance author James Dickey, with whom I clashed a couple of times over his enthusiasm for bowhunting, & is a prolific author of pit bull advocacy articles. She sent me the following inquiry this morning: Hi, Merritt, I sent this to your Animal People email, but Im not sure if it went through, so I am re-sending. Im currently working on a piece about pit bulls and the media for the NYT. I know that youd rather not talk to me in a formal interview (which is completely fine), but I noticed that you were quoted extensively in Charlotte Alters article for Time and you mentioned to her that you had been bitten by a pit bull. Would you be willing to give me some more details about that via email? When/where it occurred, and the severity of the bite? What became of the dog? My deadline is 7/6. Many thanks for your help, Bronwen Bronwen Dickey | journalist BronwenDickey My policy is always to be as open as practicably possible in responding to readers, helping fellow journalists, etc., notwithstanding that I wouldnt trust Bronwen Dickey any father than Id trust a pit bull off leash. So I responded: >I sent this to your Animal People email, but Im not sure if it went through, so I am re-sending. I have not been associated with Animal People since ANIMALS 24-7 launched in April. >Would you be willing to give me some more details about that via email? When/where it occurred, and the severity of the bite? What became of the dog? I had already been logging fatal & disfiguring dog attacks for nearly four years (1979-1982), as control/comparison to an ongoing log of attacks by exotic pets (mostly big cats, venomous snakes, and constricting snakes.) In mid-1982, in Quebec, I was witness to an incident involving a German shepherd which ended in a mans death by heart attack, but was too far away to intervene in time. I picked up the German shepherd, while others attended to the heart attack victim, and returned the GSD to the owner. The following day the German shepherd escaped again, confronted me, then tore my left wrist open. It was a very serious injury, but I managed to fend the dog off & wrap a t-shirt around my wrist tightly to slow the bleeding while I was driven to the nearest hospital. The German shepherd had given every possible warning signal, on both occasions, but neither the first victim nor I had anywhere safe to go. The German shepherd also retreated after injuring me. Two months later, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on a busy street full of fellow runners, at the early evening hour when people there customarily go for exercise, I was attacked from behind by a pit bull whose existence I knew nothing of until he tried to kill me, utterly without warning. I was a random victim. Any of perhaps 50 other runners, joggers, & walkers could have been the target. My injuries required surgical repair. I was rushed to the nearest hospital by ambulance. I have no idea what became of the dog -- probably impounded, quarantined, and killed at the end of the quarantine, as that would have been the normal procedure. The contrasting dog behaviors involved told me that merely logging dog attacks was not providing an accurate yardstick for comparison with big cat and snake attacks: some dogs attack in the manner of the German shepherd, some in the manner of the pit bull, and as I had already been covering Native American affairs for some time, I was already aware of the frequency with which Native American children were attacked by half-feral huskies on Far North reservations. That involved yet another modus operandi, which I initially expected to be the most common. It wasnt. I began logging the attacks by breed, not just by species, & waited eight years to amass statistically significant numbers before beginning to publish the data. Dickey came back with more questions: Thanks so much for the quick reply. This incident must have been absolutely terrifying; I hope the dog was immediately euthanized. Was the dogs owner ever located and fined, cited, or prosecuted? Which part(s) of your body did the dog bite? And when you say surgical repair do you mean sutures, or do you mean nerve repair or reconstruction? Were multiple surgeries required? Just trying to get a clearer picture of what happened. Again, I appreciate your help. --Bronwen Bronwen Dickey | journalist And again I responded, with misgivings, because Dickey is asking things which, first of all, she could look up if she really gave a @#$%, & second, are really none of her beeswax: >This incident must have been absolutely terrifying I have an analytical mind. I study animal behavior. I was evaluating the behavior even as the attack was occurring, because it was completely unlike any dog behavior I had ever seen before -- although similar to the behavior of wild predators. As soon as I was able to write notes about it, I wrote notes. >I hope the dog was immediately euthanized. Was the dogs owner ever located and fined, cited, or prosecuted? I have no knowledge of what happened after the attack. I know police apprehended the dogs owner and the dog at the scene, whom I believe were detained first by witnesses, because I saw the owner and the dog being led away while I was put into the ambulance, but I never heard what happened after that, probably because I flew back to Quebec the next day, where my post-emergency treatment was covered by the Quebec health insurance plan. >Just trying to get a clearer picture of what happened. I have written about the details myself several times. As I type, I can still see the scar on my left hand that was the least serious of my multiple injuries. I dont feel like discussing my injuries with you. Your history is of minimizing everything that pit bulls do to any other animal or human, and defending the dogs under all circumstances. I have no interest in contributing to this. -------------------------------------- And that is where the matter stands at the moment. If I am misrepresented, at least this small portion of the world will know it.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 00:39:43 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015