Sheriff identifies toddler killed by pit bull
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office has identified the toddler who was mauled to death by a pit bull Sunday evening.
Jasmine Deane, the daughter of Johnny Deane and Kristy Fincham, died Sunday after being attacked by her family’s pit bull. Deane and Fincham reside on Beech Tree Road in Orange County and previously lived in Culpeper County.
The 23-month-old was pronounced dead at the University of Virginia Medical Center on Sunday, several hours after she went outside her home and was mauled by the family dog, according to Sheriff Mark Amos. Officials were called at approximately 6:40 p.m. Sunday after Jasmine was found gravely injured. Reports said Fincham was preoccupied and did not notice the girl leave the house.
The pit bull, a family pet for 10 years, was euthanized Sunday night. The family could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
In Orange County, two dogs are listed on the Virginia Dangerous Dog Registry, a state database that keeps track of dangerous dogs as judged by the local court. Neither of those dogs was involved in Sunday’s incident.
The sheriff declined to comment Tuesday on whether any charges would be pressed in connection with the fatality.
There was another fatal mauling in Orange County in 2005, when 4-year-old Robert W. Shafer was attacked by his family’s Rottweiler-shepherdmix.
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Sioux City, Iowa, City Councilman Aaron Rochester was instrumental in a successful campaign last year to ban pit bulls within city limits. Among the most damning evidence he presented in support of the ban was animal control department reports showing that pit bulls were the breed most apt to bite people.
Rochester had a bit of egg on his face, then, when his own dog—a yellow Labrador retriever named Jake—bit a neighbor and was deemed vicious by the Sioux City animal control department. Rochester maintained that Jake, “a great watchdog,“ was only trying to protect his young daughter and a friend, who were playing nearby. But the bite required five stitches, and the victim maintained he’d done nothing to provoke the attack.
All living things are born with a set of genetic blueprints. These genes control physical appearance and general temperament. Temperament is not a guarantee of behavior. You could say that a person is “quick-tempered,“ but if they existed in a vacuum, would they still be short-fused? If nothing exists, what could possibly cause such a person to be angry? Similarly, you could call a dog “friendly,“ but that dog is friendly because it has people and dogs to act friendly towards; if it had a friendly temperament but was the only living creature on the planet, what “friendly” behaviors could it exhibit?
The “pit bull problem” seems to center around whether aggression is inherent or learned. Let’s cut to the chase. Aggression is a behavior. A complex behavior, to be sure, but a behavior nevertheless. And what do we know about behavior? It is influenced by environment and experience.
John Paul Scott is a scientific researcher who was interested in the interplay between genetics and behavior. He did experiments with mice to determine whether highly aggressive mice could be created through breeding.
“The experiments with mice show us that aggression has to be learned. Defensive fighting can be stimulated by the pain of an attack, but aggression, in the strict sense of an unprovoked attack, can only be produced by training… Heredity can enter into the picture only in such ways as lowering or raising the threshold of stimulation, or modifying the physical equipment for fighting… In considering hereditary effects, we must always remember that the environmental situation is also important…“ - John Paul Scott, Aggression
Mr. Scott has done all the hard work for us. Aggression is a learned behavior.
“But,“ shouts a voice in the crowd, “I knew someone who had a dog that was never trained to be aggressive, but it still attacked someone without provocation. Scott is full of it!“ This line of reasoning is fallacious because this person assumes that learning only occurs when a dog is formally trained by its owner. This idea is both naive and arrogant. Dogs learn life lessons from a variety of sources, including but not limited to the owner. For example, a dog’s play, in which two dogs pounce, growl, and tussle in a playful manner, is actually ritualized aggression. When dogs play, they are practicing aggression.
Regardless of whether or not a dog is temperamentally inclined toward aggression, it is the owner that ultimately determines whether the dog actually has the opportunity to react aggressively and rehearse aggressive behavior. Owners who are responsible and involved do not put their dog in such situations; they do not give their dog the opportunity to practice or escalate aggression.
I’ve heard all the arguments about what great pets pit bulls can be, and how it’s lack of training by the owner that causes them to be mean, etc. But every time I read another story like this one I wonder why anyone would have one as a pet—especially if they have small children in their home. Of course, they’re not the only breed that can suddenly turn vicious—Dobermans and Rottweilers are often the culprits, as well—but it does seem as if there is a disproportionate number of these attacks by pit bulls. It wasn’t too long ago that an elderly woman was killed by a neighbor’s pit bull.
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