Parents for Dog Bite Awareness

Beth, a mom to three kids, believes a critical factor in the ongoing dog bite crisis involves the unspoken bond between kids and their dogs – and the parents’ reluctance to handle grief, loss, and betrayal.

“Hi, I wanted to ask you to have this conversation with your followers because over the years I have come to realize it is one of the driving forces for attacks but nobody is directly talking about how to handle it.

When you adopt a baby pitbull, they are small, cute, and sweet as all puppies are when little.

So if you are a mom or dad, you surprise your kids with this little furball of love. You bring them home to your kids. And the kids bond instantly. They love that dog completely with all their hearts. They sleep in the same bed. They cuddle all day. They go to the park with them.

You do that every single day for about a year or two. And that pitbull becomes the most important being to them in their lives. Some kids even become so attached, they can’t sleep at night without their dog. Everything in your child’s life is for the dog. They draw pictures of their dog. They ask to buy treats for their dog when at the store. They rush home from school and go right to their dog.

So when your pitbull, after a year or maybe two years, finally matures, it is too late. Your children have bonded for months and even years.

That’s what happened to us. My kids adored Nala. She was their entire world. Until one day when she was 18 months old, completely unprovoked and without any warning, she grabbed my toddler by the face off the couch.

Nothing was different that day. None of the kids were messing with her or even close to her. No loud noises. I didn’t see any signs like in your videos.

She simply walked over to my toddler and tried to kill her.

We are so lucky my toddler survived. It took 150 stitches but she’s alive.

And here’s the thing. Nobody was able to help us with what I think is the underlying trap. All of my kids loved her. Even the toddler who almost died asked for NaNa in the hospital. We had to put down our pet for almost killing our toddler while all of our kids still loved her. No vet, doctor at the hospital, the therapists we’ve used, people in the euthanasia groups, none of them warned us about this and none of them helped us.

I think when you see parents defending their pitbulls that in many cases, the parents are too weak or scared to do what needs to be done because they feel like they’re hurting their kids more. I really think this is behind a lot of the insane denial you see everyday. Or how parents will continue to keep an obviously unsafe pit. They’re scared to do it because then they are the ones hurting their kids. They have to then have that conversation about loss and grief. And they have to experience their child’s anger, even hatred towards them.

Obviously, I believe the right thing to do is protect your family. I’m not simping for them as you call it. But I think if we had this discussion it might help more parents find the courage to do what’s right for their kids.”

Beth A. ©