A Tragedy that could have been avoided.

It's dog owners like this that give our dogs their bad name and I'm glad that is starting to get recognized by the press. It owners like Deanna Large that take no responsibility for her dogs, let alone their previous actions and can you even imagine her owning 13 of them at one time? Makes me wonder if she would also let them breed, after all, she seemed to think she was above the law and I doubt she took any responsibility at all regarding the dogs.

That's great that she got slapped with jail time, but I would have liked to see a restriction put on her not allowing her to have pets. Three years in jail (if she serves the full term) does not take away the fact that she will be irresponsible in the future. To prevent this from happening again, I would have liked to see that as part of her sentence too. This article is from the Richmond Times.

A pit bull tragedy that could have been avoided

RAY MCALLISTER
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Thursday, March 30, 2006
SPOTSYLVANIA

The first person to be convicted in Virginia of involuntary manslaughter after a dog killed someone was sentenced to three years in prison here yesterday.

Guess what type of dog?

Before pit bull owners go crazy, let us say that, no, not every pit bull is a killer, nor most, nor even more than a relative few. Owners say most pit bulls -- like most Rottweilers -- are terrific, gentle pets, and that's apparently the case.

But put a pit bull with a bad owner, and it can be seriously bad news.

Dorothy Sullivan, described by everyone as an active 82-year-old, was attacked and killed a year ago by three pit bulls while walking her own tiny Shih Tzu, "Buttons," on her property.

Not exactly an even fight.

Dorothy Sullivan and Buttons were buried together.

Sullivan's daughter, Doris Phelps, came upon the scene and couldn't even get to her mother's body because of the dogs.

Phelps breathed heavily and wept often yesterday as the dogs' owner, Deanna H. Large, was sentenced to three years in prison. Afterward, Phelps didn't want to appear before cameras and microphones. "Just been so emotional," she explained.

Someone asked what this meant. "Never give up if something goes wrong," said Phelps, apparently alluding to both the sentence and a change in state law prompted by her mother's death.

Large's relatives also sobbed.

The tragedy didn't need to happen. Testimony showed that Large was warned on several occasions by neighbors and an animal-control officer about her pit bulls, which numbered 13 at one time.

Some of her dogs had killed a kitten. The ones who killed Sullivan already had killed a German shepherd.

Yes, a German shepherd.

The evidence showed that Large did little to restrain the dogs. They often ran free.

"Miss Large has never shown remorse," Spotsylvania County Commonwealth's Attorney Wil- liam Neeley said into a battery of microphones outside the courthouse. Large had contended that the killings were the dogs' doing. "That's why she's in prison for three years." She deserved every minute, Neeley said.

Killings by pit bulls, like those by Rottweilers, are statistically huge.

The American Kennel Club says Rottweilers and three breeds often called pit bulls bull terriers, American Staffordshire terriers and Staffordshire bull terriers -- together account for less than one-half of 1 percent of AKC-registered dogs.

Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, "Rottweilers and pit bull-type dogs accounted for 67 percent of human [dog bite-related fatalities] in the United States between 1997 and 1998.

"It is extremely unlikely that they accounted for anywhere near 60 percent of dogs in the United States during that same period and, thus, there appears to be a breed-specific problem with fatalities."

The breed-specific problems have had legislators scrambling. Some localities -- and the entire province of Ontario, Canada have tried to ban pit bull and/or Rottweiler ownership. A number of states and localities have stepped up the pressure on all dog owners.

Under a new Virginia law scheduled to go into effect July 1, dog owners could face a felony conviction and up to five years in prison if their running-free dogs seriously attack someone. Under current law, only an actual death can lead to prison time.

Neeley credited Sullivan's family for fighting for the new law. "They did the right thing, and something good came out of it," he said.

Now it's also up to a few bad owners to recognize the potential dangers and do the right thing and keep their dogs under control.