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Don’t blame dogs

The Spokesman-Review

“Once you decide to titillate instead of illuminate … you create a climate of expectation that requires a higher and higher level of intensity.” This Bill Moyers quote might be about the stories in Spokane on the shooting of a dog by a deputy. We rarely hear about the scores of big, muscular dogs who live in homes with owners who care for them and their families. Nearly all of those we read about involve allegations of owners who tie dogs out, don’t socialize them, don’t control, manage, or care for them, keep them in homes where alcohol, spousal abuse, and drugs foster fear and ignorance, who fight dogs against each other.

These people and their behavior are the issue and the cause and should be front and center in the headline. Not the dog.

Instead of “Drunken spouse abuses dog, threatens family and deputy’s life” we get “pit bull” (a slang term nearly always applied incorrectly to any big mixed-breed dog, partly bull/terrier, and many times not), which will likely cause the story to be repeated in media outlets across the nation far more than it deserves.

We may be “Near Perfect” but this so-called “reporting” isn’t.

Dan L. Storie

Spokane Valley



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