1909: No Place for Bulldogs in a City – New York Times

Posted on May 21, 2012 by notforgotten

Topics of the Times
No Place for Bulldogs in a City
New York Times
December 14, 1909

Topics of The Times
No Place for Bulldogs in a City
Hardly a month passes that the papers do not have to record the infliction of death or serious injury upon somebody by a bulldog or a bull terrier. A particularly horrible illustration of what one of these animals can do when it’s usually well-controlled ferocity gets out of bounds and is misdirected was presented yesterday in our account of the killing by a big bulldog of Carl Limpert…
Precisely what followed will never be known, but presumably the dog fastened upon the man’s throat and held on after the manner of his kind till the end came. That no sounds were heard by the other people in the house is not very remarkable, since bulldogs do their work silently, and Limpert, seized as he was, would be able to make no outcry and would quickly be rendered too weak to struggle…

Now the bulldog … his intelligence, through no fault of his own, is somewhat below the canine average; he has been trained to fight for generations, not only to fight, but to kill, and he is armed for desperate encounters…

The bulldog is out of place in most conditions of modern life … in towns and cities he is a menace to the public safety and should be suppressed. Nobody with near neighbors has a right to keep such an animal. – New York Times

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1896 Breed-Specific ‘Pit’ Bulldog Ordinance, Sacramento, CA

Posted on May 13, 2012 by notforgotten

A Savage Dog
The Record-Union
April 12, 1896
Library of Congress

A Savage Dog
Attacks Domestic Animals and Causes the Arrest of His Master.
A savage bulldog yesterday attacked an inoffensive cat in the neighborhood of K street, between Fourth and Fifth. Officer Taylor attempted to persuade the brute to quit, and partly wore out his club in the effort.
But the dog was out for cats and refused to let go until he discovered a setter dog, which had stopped to see the sport. He then released poor Tab and fell upon the inquisitive setter, which he proceeded to chew up in approved style. In the meantime Officer Taylor had demolished the remainder of his club in beating the brute, which was finally driven off.
The sequel to the affray was that John Nathan, owner of the dog, was arrested and charged with having violated the ordinance recently passed forbidding the owners of bulldogs to allow them to run at large in the streets. Nathan will have to tell his story Justice Davis tomorrow. – The Record-Union

The bulldog of the late 1800s and early 1900s is the same dog as today’s pit bull terrier. The only thing that has changed about this dog breed in the last century are the different names it goes by: bulldog, pit dog, bull pit, bull terrier — pit bull terrier. Modern dogfighters still call their fighting pit bulls “100% bulldog.” (See: Disguise breed name)
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1892 Fatal Pit Bull Attack – Herman Kronkaw

Posted on April 22, 2012 by notforgotten

June 1892, Cook County, IL
Herman Kronkaw, 2
Fatal dog attack involving bulldog (pit bull-type)
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Terrible Attack by a Dog on an Infant
Little Herman Kronkaw the 2-year old son pf Charles Kronkaw, a car coupler on the Clybourne avenue line of the North Chicago Street Railway Company, and living at No. 233 East North avenue, was frightfully mangled Monday afternoon by a large English bull terrier. The child was accustomed to play with the dog … The frantic mother rushed to the child and as she did so the dog made another plunge at him fastening its teeth on the right side of the baby’s head. The mother was unable to release the boy… The Daily Inter Ocean, June 23, 1892

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1911 Fatal Pit Bull Attack – John Doe Yearwood

Posted on April 19, 2012 by notforgotten

May 1911, Jefferson County, IL
John Doe Yearwood, 4
Fatal dog attack involving bulldog (pit bull-type)
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BULLDOG INJURES BOY
Mount Vernon, Ill. May 8 — A savage bulldog attacked the 4-year old son of Robert Yearwood and so severely mangled the boy it is not believed he will recover. – The Daily Register-Gazette, May 8, 1911

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1896: Call to Ban ‘Murderous Bulldog’ Chicago

Posted on April 13, 2012 by notforgotten

The Murderous Bulldog
Daily Inter Ocean
June 6, 1896

The Murderous Bulldog.
Within the past two weeks three causes, additional to the multitude theretofore existing, have been assigned in favor of the passage of an act prohibitory of the keeping of bulldogs in any populous district.
In Chicago an engaging child of some three summers was mangled by one of these brutes. She was walking on the street, the animal was led in a leash by a young man, but in the unprovoked ferocity that is characteristic of its race it sprang forward and seized and mangled the infant …
A day or two ago, and in the civilization of Chicago, a fellow infinitely more brutal than the low-grade beasts that he owned, first knocked his wife down, and then set two bulldogs on her. The poor woman was nearly worried to death before strangers arrived and rescued here. It is just such fellow as this wife-beater that delight in the company of bulldogs …
In Racine a 7-year old boy, returning peacefully from school, was attacked and killed by two bulldogs. When the corpse was found, some hours after the murder, both ears were torn off, one arm devoured, the scalp frightfully lacerated, and an eye scratched out. The bulldogs were tracked to a neighborhood barn and found licking their bloody jaws.
There is no rational excuse for the maintenance of such canine monstrosities in any populous district. They are as dangerous as dynamite or smallpox or any other of the minatory things that the police power of municipalities is evoked to repress and eliminate. An ordinance prohibitive of such animals within the city limits is well worthy the consideration of the council.

The bulldog of the late 1800s and early 1900s is the same dog as today’s pit bull terrier. The only thing that has changed about this dog breed in the last century are the different names it goes by: bulldog, pit dog, bull pit, bull terrier — pit bull terrier. Modern dogfighters still call their fighting pit bulls “100% bulldog.” (See: Disguise breed name)
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1919 Fatal Pit Bull Attack – John Doe

Posted on February 11, 2012 by notforgotten

August 1919, Warren County, MS
John Doe, Adult
Fatal dog attack involving bulldog (pit bull-type)
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Cayton’s Weekly
August 02, 1919. Vol. IV No. 8
Library of Congress

The Passing Throng
Saw it in the Times: Damn Lie
…The Times shows its antipathy for justice being given the colored man by hoping the conditions that prevailed in Washington would not extend to the South, where the
colored man is in the majority. In heaven’s name why does the Times, or any Christian citizens, want to protect the South in its barbaric treatment of the colored man? It is unfortunate, if such scenes had to be, that they did not occur in Vicksburg,
Mississippi, where a few days ago thousands of white men and women dug a hole in the ground and buried a colored man, all but his head and then, after tantalizing a vicious bulldog to a frenzied state, put him in the iron cage that covered the head of the doomed man and then danced with delight while the maddened brute tore the man’s tongue and eyes out and likewise scalped him. It’s too bad, it is repeated, that the streets of Vicksburg were not flooded with human gore and her buildings consumed with flames. Oh, horrors of horrors, such a city should have been sunk by a frowning God and a second Dead Sea occupy its place. – Clayton’s Weekly

[First documented instance of a bulldog used to savage an African American man to death in a violent race clash]

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2012 Fatal Pit Bull Attack – Jace Valdez

Posted on January 15, 2012 by notforgotten

January 2012, Montgomery County, TX
Baby John Doe, 1
Fatal dog attack: pit bull
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Montgomery County, TX – On Saturday evening, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office responded to a fatal pit bull mauling in the 27000 block of Medina Circle. Lt. Dan Norris told reporter Scott Engle, “When deputies arrived, they found that a one-year old male child had been mauled to death inside the home by the family pit bull. When deputies tried to control the dog, the dog turned and lunged at one of the deputies. The deputies had to shoot and kill the dog inside the home.” – DogsBite.org

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1885 Fatal Pit Bull Attack – Baby Doe Beining

Posted on January 12, 2012 by notforgotten

July 1885, Lehigh County, PA
Baby Doe Beining (Last name also spelled Haening), < 1
Fatal dog attack: bulldog (pit bull-type)
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A ferocious bull-dog attacked the three-months-old child of Mrs. Beining, of Allentown, Pa., Tuesday last, biting off the right foot and otherwise mutilating the child. It will die. – The National Tribune. (Washington, D.C.) July 30, 1885

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