The State of New Mexico, through its failure to enact a dog bite statute of any kind, will have to answer to a little girl who today is in critical condition. Two dogs that were running at large pursued her into the street, where she was critically injured by a passing car.

This state, however, lacks a dog bite statute and therefore it is doubtful that the girl will be able to recover compensation for her medical treatment and her other damages.

This is unfair to her and the rest of the citizens of the state. She should be compensated, and they should not have to spend their tax dollars on her medical treatment if she is uninsured, as well as her loss of productivity if she is disabled.

So, who benefits when the state fails to enact a dog bite statute? Not the victims, not the communities, but the irresponsible dog owners and their insurance companies. Does that make any sense at all? No, it doesn't.

New Mexico and a host of other states need to pass dog bite statutes that cover not only bites but any injuries caused by a dog. There are other details and implications of this accident, which you can read about by clicking on the link to the full story, below.

On December 15th, 57-year-old Dino Cerda of Del City, Oklahoma, reacted quickly when he heard a woman crying and yelling, “They got him. They got him.”

Three pit bulls belonging to a neighbor, Antwon Moore, were mauling five-year-old Xavier Gomez in his grandparent's backyard. “They were feeding on him,” Cerda said. “If I had got there five minutes later, they would have ate him up. That guy (Antwon Moore) never did feed those dogs. That’s why they got out,” Cerda said. The Vietnam veteran jumped the fence, fended off the dogs with a shovel, and saved the boy.

The youngster had surgery on his head and received stitches under his left arm, right leg and both ears. Moore is in custody and will be charged with 27 city misdemeanors related to pit bull possession, dog at large, animal cruelty and failure to give the dogs rabies shots. Among other things, one of Moore's nine pit bulls was laying dead in Moore's back yard. Del City is one of only a handful of cities in that state that bans possession of pit bulls. (To read the article, click here.)

This horrific incident illustrates a pattern in the more sensational pit bull attacks. The victim was a young child, there were multiple dogs, the dogs were running at large or trespassing, and they were pit bulls. Additionally, their owner was obviously irresponsible, even criminally irresponsible toward the dogs let alone the neighbors.

When you hear about pit bull attacks, note the location of the attack and the details about the owner. There is a link between irresponsible people and dangerous dogs. The canine homicides almost always feature dogs that are owned by people who can be described as less than staunch citizens.

This underscores the fact that it is not wise to attempt to deal with the dangerous dog issue by banning selected breeds. Far more than that has to be done. When the dog lobby jumps in and devotes its energy to defending pit bulls or Rottweilers, instead of promoting a wide-ranging series of reforms such as found in Preventing Dog Bites, the argument can be made that the lobby is defending not the dogs but the horrible, irresponsible and even criminal element that has given these breeds their bad reputation. And that is a pure waste of time, and a dangerous miscalculation on the part of the lobby.

A dog owner on Oahu, one of the Hawaiian islands, allowed her Rottweiler to run loose on the beach twice in one week, and two little girls were mauled, six days apart.

You would think that after the first girl's mauling, the dog owner would have prevented her savage animal from returning to the beach. No. She let it out again, and another life was changed as a consequence.

The law of Hawaii certainly contributed to this situation. This is a state that tells dog owners they will be protected 100% when their dog bites someone the first time. In other words, Hawaii adheres to the ancient English "one-bite rule," which has been rejected by a majority of American states. (See "The One-Bite Rule" and compare it to the laws in the rest of the USA, at "Legal Rights of Dog Bite Victims in the USA.")

The dog owner was given just 5 days in jail, ordered to pay $4000 in fines, and will be on probation for six years. Her dog was put down. This was a light sentence, given the suffering of those innocent children.

If the citizens of this state are serious about protecting their kids from vicious animals and their vicious owners, Hawaii needs to pass a dog bite statute that makes every dog owner responsible all the time -- from the first mauling onward.

A one-month-old baby was mutilated for life by her parents' pit bull in Bossier City, Louisiana, yesterday. The dog chewed off four of the infant's toes while her parents were sleeping. The baby is going to a foster home and her parents hopefully will be going to jail. (For the news story, click here.)

The issue this raises is whether all pit bulls should be permitted to be everywhere, owned by just anyone, and put in any kind of situation -- or whether there are places, people and circumstances that are wrong for this kind of dog.

I believe that it has become obvious that pit bull type dogs need to be restricted to certain people, certain places, and certain situations. Furthermore, I favor neutering all pit bull type dogs so that their gene does not get into the bloodlines of gentler breeds and make the entire dog population unsafe for people.

"I think they should be as illegal as owning a lion and they belong in zoos," a Colorado judge said as he sentenced a pit bull owner on a criminal offense.

It stemmed from an unprovoked attack upon a woman who knocked at the defendant's door and was mauled by her pit bull.

The judge said that "[i]f I had a big red button right here that would kill all the pit bulls, I wouldn't hesitate to press it." (Read the article from UPI.)

This was in Colorado, a state whose dog bite laws are among the worst in the USA. The civil remedies for dog bite victims in that state are woefully inadequate. The law divides victims into five different groups and treats all of them differently. (See Dog Bite Law - Colorado.)

Unless this state and all others adopt a multi-focal approach to the dog bite epidemic, dogs will continue to evolve from "man's best friend" to something far less desireable. Dogs bite 4.7 million Americans every year, at an estimated cost of $1-2 billion. Our current strategies are, well, just not working. (For a comprehensive plan to reduce dog bites, see Preventing Dog Bites.)

A thing, activity, dog or person is considered to be "dangerous" if it or he presents an unacceptably high risk of serious injury, even before causing harm. It is this risk of serious injury that society wishes to avoid across the board.

For that reason, even though my car has never been in an accident, it is considered to be dangerous because it is a car. The same is true of the plastic bags from my dry cleaner, the electrical outlets in my house, and even my bottle of shampoo (at the airport, where all liquids currently are banned).

The definition given above refers to "serious" injury. Some people say, "Chihuahuas bite more people than pit bulls." Maybe it's true, although I don't know. But when a Chihuahua bites, serious injury does not result. Because there is very little risk of serioius injury, the Chihuahua is not considered dangerous as a breed, even if the number of bites might be high.

The issue is not whether any particular dog will ever bite, but whether it presents too great a risk of serious injury -- not because of what it has done, but because of what others of its class have done. Like they say, "one nuclear bomb can ruin your entire day." And yet, how long has it been since a nuclear bomb killed anyone, or a nuclear power plant released deadly radiation upon a population? Even though it has not happened for years, many do not want to take the risk that it might once again.

The discussion is about risk, intolerable risk, of serious injury. Until the dog lobby stops playing word games and starts endorsing serious measures aimed at reducing intolerable risk, people are going to continue talking about breed bans. Those who do not see breed bans as the answer to this problem should immediately and forcefully advocate sufficient preventative measures, such as those set forth in Preventing Dog Bites.