Donald Brewer, the owner of a pit bull that killed 2-year-old Arianna Fleeman in 2005, will this week start serving a 12-month jail sentence for involuntary manslaughter.

The crime of involuntary manslaughter means the killing of a human being as a result of negligence. The facts of this case suggest, however, that there was far more than negligence on the part of this dog owner -- and that responsibility for this attack also rests upon the animal control department.

Brewer's dog had bitten another person one week before. Animal control authorities had allowed Brewer to keep his dog in "home quarantine." Without a muzzle, however, this dog was a clear and present danger to everyone in his house and all of his neighbors.

It was dangerous and reckless to permit a toddler to get near Brewer's dog, or to allow the dog to be unmuzzled. But Brewer is not paying the price for reckless homicide, which commonly is called second degree murder. He was allowed to plead guilty to the lesser crime, involuntary manslaughter.

And what about animal control? I have not heard that anyone from that department was disciplined over this. Yet their awful decision to release this dog back to its owner, during the period of quarantine, was also a cause of Arianna's death.

On January 12, 2007, a dog killed a man by firing a shotgun at him.

Thomas Ayer St. Charles III was standing in the water next to a small boat in Tennessee. Inside the boat was a loaded shotgun which pointed in his direction. A hunting dog jumped into the boat, hit the trigger of the shotgun, and caused it to fire. Shot ripped through the side of the boat and struck the victim's abdomen.

I suppose that this goes somewhere in the statistics pertaining to canine inflicted homicides. The breed of the dog was not given -- not that it would matter. (Click here to read the news article.)

San Antonio, TX - 10-year-old Amber Jones was fatally attacked by a neighbor's pit bull on January 12, 2007. She previously had played with the dog. It jumped a fence and mauled her to death on the street.

This is the first canine homicide in the USA in 2007. There were no death cases in this country in December 2006, after six deaths in November 2006.

Because Amber Jones was killed by a neighbor's pit bull, the issue arises once more as to whether these dogs are too dangerous to be kept by just anyone -- or perhaps to exist at all. Experts generally agree that banning one or two breeds will not eliminate the dog bite problem, but a case can be made that it will curtail the deaths and most extreme injuries.

For more information, read the arguments pro and con at Breed Specific Laws on the Dog Bite Law web site.

The above quote refers to the animal control department that covers the beach where Mariko Bereday let her Rottweiler run loose, allowing it to severely maul a 2-year-old boy and, just six days later, nearly kill a 4-year-old girl. The department cannot identify the city's dangerous dogs because citizens do not make the necessary reports.

The city is considering passing an ordinance that would require medical workers to report dog bites to the police, who would have a better chance of identifying the local "demon dogs." To read the article about the city's debate over this new law, click here.

Mandatory reporting of dog attacks is a very good idea. It will help keep our streets safe, and our beaches too. Furthermore, it will give us more information so that we can make informed decisions about things like breed specific laws.

The debate about pit bulls, for example, will never come to an end until we have accurate information about the dogs that bite, their owners, and the circumstances that were involved.

The following was sent to me by a dog bite victim from South Africa, who asked that I post it to the Dog Bite Victim Log:

I decided to take my German Shepherd for a long walk to Camps Bay and back and then to go and vote (needless to say the country managed without my vote). A friend joined me for the walk. My son Jacques adamantly decided not to join on that occasion, which in retrospect was a wise choice.

It was a magnificent Cape winter day. So peaceful, not a breath of wind, with the sun shining brightly and the temperature perfect.

Whilst walking home in the area of the old Clifton Hotel a young lady approached me and remarked on what a beautiful dog I had. The dog growled at her which was not his usual behaviour and she walked on.

It could have only been a few minutes later that the dog turned on me. [Click below to read the rest of the account of this attack.]

Two pit bulls bit a woman 62 times and ripped off part of a finger while she walked her own dog near her home in Florida on Tuesday afternoon.

Rose Ann Manzella, 42, said she heard the two pit bulls running up behind her and stepped between them when they started nipping at her dog. That's when they began to attack her "and all she could do was yell for help," an incident report stated.

She was bitten all over both hands and lost part of her right middle finger when one of them grabbed onto her hand, shaking, "and would not let go," the report stated.

An attack upon a dog that turns into an attack upon a person can be referred to as a "redirected attack." About a third of my cases involve redirected attacks. For that reason, I believe that a dog that has the tendency to attack other dogs should be classified as dangerous. Many "dangerous dog laws" are like that, but most are not.

Furthermore, in civil cases it is often repeated that a dog's propensity to attack other dogs and other animals is insufficient to inform its owner that it is a dangerous dog. There is nothing scientific about such judicial pronouncements. Indeed, there has never been a study of redirected attacks. In my view, knowing that a dog likes to attack other dogs is the same thing as knowing it will one day attack a person. Either the attack will be direct or, like this horrific pit bull attack this week, it will be a "redirected attack."