I ranted a while ago when I saw a “funny photo” online of a dog that had been drawn all over by a child with markers.  Basically I don’t think it is a brilliant idea to keep any animals in the house when you have a small child.  Of course, I don’t understand people that kiss animals that eat their own vomit on the lips either, but that is a blog for another day.

So, I was cruisin’ through facebook and I saw this:

Am I sympathetic for the little girl?  Yes.  Her dad?  Not so much.  Congratulations, smart guy, you were right “lil’ binkie (or whatever its name was) wouldn’t hurt a fly, I’ve had her/him my whole life!”   More of these stories need to get out into the mainstream media as I think this is a serious problem with parents.  Sure, overall the percentage of maulings by family pets is probably really low.  But if that is your daughter with staples in her head – you won’t care.  If every millionth tickle me Elmo blew up nobody would buy a single Elmo.  Actually, in 1996 just over a million Tickle Me Elmo dolls were sold.  Two years before, almost 5 million Americans were bitten by dogs.  The 2007 statistics were that 1 in every 50 Americans will be bitten by a dog.

Keep in mind, this wasn’t even a visit from someone that the dog didn’t know, this was the owner’s daughter.  I have another friend that has facebook photos of his bulldogs “guarding” his newborn.  If I ever said anything I’m sure that would be seen as immensely offensive to the family, but my jaw dropped when I saw the photo.   Statistically over 50 percent of bites occur on the dog owner’s property and the vast majority of biting dogs (77%) belong to the victim’s family or a friend.  If everyone knew this I wonder if they’d still keep dogs around their children.  If one Honda Accord out of every 50 sold blew up killing everyone inside Honda would be out of business in a hurry…..unless Honda’s were cute and you knew them since they were puppies.

And yes, surely bite marks on a little girl’s head show us how great god is!  I don’t understand the logic here.  So god is going to heal your niece’s head… but he couldn’t just stop her from getting chomped on in the first place?  Ah, but this is a post about the danger of animals with children, not the dangers of religion with humans (although that can also frequently result in degrees of child abuse as well).

More information on the value of canine companionship for children here, here, here, here, and here.