It's horrible that KFC kicked out that 3-year-old girl, but
let's focus on the real problem: pit bulls were bred to be violent
The social media universe became furious at KFC this week
after an employee reportedly asked a 3-year-old victim of a dog attack to leave
one of their restaurants because “her face is disrupting our customers.”
But it wasn’t KFC employees who broke down the door to
Victoria Wilcher’s grandfather’s house and mauled the toddler until half her
face was paralyzed and she lost the use of one of her eyes. Three pit bulls did
that.
Pit bulls make up only 6% of the dog population, but
they’re responsible for 68% of dog attacks and 52% of dog-related deaths since
1982, according to research compiled by Merritt Clifton, editor of Animals
24-7, an animal-news organization that focuses on humane work and
animal-cruelty prevention.
Clifton himself has been twice attacked by dogs (one pit
bull), and part of his work involves logging fatal and disfiguring attacks.
Clifton says that for the 32 years he’s been recording, there has never been a
year when pit bulls have accounted for less than half of all attacks. A CDC
report on dog-bite fatalities from 1978 to 1998 confirms that pit bulls are
responsible for more deaths than any other breed, but the CDC no longer
collects breed-specific information.
Another report published in the April 2011 issue of Annals
of Surgery found that one person is killed by a pit bull every 14 days, two
people are injured by a pit bull every day, and young children are especially
at risk. The report concludes that “these breeds should be regulated in the
same way in which other dangerous species, such as leopards, are regulated.”
That report was shared with TIME by PETA, the world’s largest animal-rights
organization.
To read more on this story, click here: The Problem With Pit Bulls
