Highland Park Mulls Pitbull Ban: Girl Mauled

A Highland Park girl needed 100 stitches on her face
 and hands after an attack by a 9 mo. old pitbull

Mayor Michael Belsky of Highland Park today said that he wants the North suburban village to consider a ban on pitbulls.

At first I thought he was talking about the gaggle of Highland Park liberal Democrats who quadriennally vie for municipal office with such a level of ferocity as to rival the bloodiest South Side Friday night dogfights.

Or perhaps the lefty backers of Dan Seals who engaged in all manner of dirty tricks last year. Or perhaps State Sen. Jeff Schoenberg who unveils an 11th hour surprise, dirty trick every campaign accusing his Christian opponent of having ties to the Nazis.

But no, the mayor was talking about the actual pitbull, favored dog breed of drug dealers, junkyard owners and assorted other thugs and bullies.

This was prompted by an incident last Friday, where a 14 year old Highland Park girl was attacked on the face and arms by a neighbor's newly acquired 9 month old pitbull. She will live, but required more than 100 stitches.

My libertarian instincts make me take pause at agreement with inveterate do-gooders and nanny staters like Mayor Belsky, who made it a personal crusade to save Highland Park beachgoers from the horrors of 2nd hand cigarette smoke (as if that's a real problem given the gale-force winds usually howling at Chicago beaches.)

But reluctantly, I have to agree with him on this count.

Having been an owner of sporting-breed dogs for almost a quarter century, I've had numerous run-ins with pitbulls and pitbull owners. They can be real white knuckle experiences.

I have ended up in the emergency room with a gash on my hand acquired while trying to save my dog from a pitbull. It was a successful effort, but my hand required stitches, was swollen for a week due to the blunt force trauma of the pitbull's jawlock on my hand and I still sport a scar there.

I have not been a big fan of that breed ever since.

The kind of people who gravitate toward pitbulls usually leave something to be desired.

Once while walking along the Chicago lakeshore with my dog we happened across a young black guy with a pitbull pup. The guy boasted, " when he gets bigger, my dog's gonna be able to beat the shit out of any dog."

Something told me that this canine-human relationship was not going to work out well.

And indeed they haven't usually worked out all that well.

A few years back the Evanston Animal Shelter, which had boasted of its humane, no-kill policy, finally had to abandon it in light of the profusion of unadoptable fighting pitbulls that it was sheltering. It now euthanizes dogs.

Let's face it. The pit bull terrier was bred for one purpose and one purpose only. Fighting.

It's jaws have almost twice the psi pressure of the next closest breed, the German Shepherd. It has an instinctual drive to clamp its jaws and hold on. And so many druggie types have been backyard breeding them that even its naturally menacing characteristics have been further complicated by in-breeding, often resulting in very erratic and unpredictable behavioral traits.

The death and injury toll of pitbull victims, human, canine and feline -- rises almost monthly.

That's why Great Britain, the State of Ohio and a growing number of municipalities have banned ownership or possession of the breed in one form or another.

And Highland Park would be right in adopting a ban.