Joshua Phillip Strother, 6, killed on July 7, 2015 by a pit bull who was rehomed by the Asheville Humane Society after passing the ASPCA’s SAFER test.
6-year-old killed three weeks after pit bull was rehomed
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina––Absent a lawsuit from the bereaved family, no person or agency will be held to account for the July 7, 2015 fatal mauling of six-year-old Joshua Phillip Strother by a pit bull adopted three weeks earlier from the Asheville Humane Society, after passing the American SPCA-developed SAFER test.
Instead, the Asheville Humane Society, which manages the Buncombe County Animal Shelter, has been given the green light by the county to resume rehoming pit bulls and transferring them to other agencies. Adoptions and transfers of impounded pit bulls had been suspended on July 16, 2015.
No criminal charges were filed, after Strother climbed over a neighbor’s fence that he had several times climbed over before under adult supervision, and was killed by a pit bull he had played with before, also under adult supervision.
“Best practice standards”
“Asheville Humane Society and Buncombe County have completed a comprehensive review of animal sheltering services at the Buncombe County Animal Shelter,” announced Buncombe County publicist Kathy Hughes on August 6, 2015.
“The County, in partnership with the Asheville Humane Society, reviewed the sheltering protocols in place as well as community best practices and industry standards nationwide,” Hughes said. “The analysis revealed that the sheltering practices of Asheville Humane Society meet or exceed industry best practice standards for an open admission shelter.”
Not mentioned was that current “industry best practice” has brought an exponential increase in both human and animal deaths and disfiguring injuries from adopted shelter dogs. Strother was the 38th human fatality from an adopted shelter dog in the U.S. since 2010, and the 30th from an adopted pit bull, after there were none from 1858 through 1987, and five from then through 2009.
“Community-wide education program”
“Both parties agreed to enhance current standards, Hughes continued, by “developing a structured process for the owner surrender of animals, assuring that all adoption agencies provide complete information gathered on the adoptive animal through the sheltering process to all adoptive owners,” and “Engaging in a community-wide education campaign to inform citizens about safe practices when dealing with animals.”
In addition, Hughes said, the Asheville Humane Society “will increase expenditures on spay/neuter services by 211% and safety net community programs by 556%.”
ASPCA president Matthew Bershadker (ASPCA photo)
ASPCA pumps money into the region
Meanwhile, reported Beth Walton of the Asheville Citizen Times, “The ASPCA,” an adoption promotion partner of the Asheville Humane Society since 2010, “took its newfound love affair with Western North Carolina to a new level, announcing its acquisition of the local nonprofit Humane Alliance.” The merger came after the ASPCA had granted the Humane Alliance more than $6 million since 2004. ASPCA president Matthew Bershadker had confirmed to ANIMALS 24-7 on February 18, 2015 that merger talks were underway.
(See also ASPCA and the Humane Alliance move toward merger.)
Asheville Humane Society pit bull promotion, Valentine’s Day 2015.
“The news follows a January announcement that the ASPCA will open a $9 million, 35,000-square-foot animal behavior rehabilitation center in Weaverville [just north of Asheville] in 2017,” continued Walton.
The ASPCA, with a current operating budget of $202 million, “has invested heavily in Buncombe County, supporting both the Asheville Humane Society and Brother Wolf Animal Rescue in the past,” Walton noted.
Trying to keep dangerous dogs out of shelter
Buncombe County “hired local animal welfare consultant Sarah Hess to help with the review” of Asheville Humane Society operations, Walton observed. “Hess,” whom Walton previously described more specifically as a consultant for the Humane Alliance, “served as the interim executive director of the Asheville Humane Society,” between December 2014 and May 2015, when the job was given to Tracy Elliott, 54.
Asheville Humane Society executive director Tracy Elliott (Asheville Humane Society photo)
Elliott “has no professional background in animal welfare,” Walton reported at the time, but Elliott had for five years been executive director of AID Atlanta, described by Walton as “the largest and most comprehensive AIDS service organization in the Southeast. Elliott also served as executive director of The Damien Center, a nonprofit HIV/AIDS clinic in Indiana,” Walton mentioned. “Most recently, he was the chief executive officer of College Mentors for Kids, an organization working at 26 colleges and universities across the U.S.”
Said Elliott, “The county and Asheville Humane Society both agree that the ultimate solution to these animal welfare problems are in the community itself. If we can keep animals from coming to the shelter, it’s a win-win for everyone,” a surreal assertion in view that “these animal welfare problems” under specific discussion are children being dismembered by pit bulls, and that the normal role of an animal control agency is to protect the public, and other animals kept by the public, by permanently removing dangerous dogs from the possibility of doing harm.
ASPCA SAFER food test. (ASPCA photo)
No changes in dog safety screening
The Buncombe County recommendations “did not include any changes to the Humane Society’s animal behavior screening process,” Walton noted. “The Humane Society uses the ASPCA SAFER Aggression Assessment,” Walton confirmed, as ANIMALS 24-7 had strongly suspected but the Asheville Humane Society, Buncombe County, and the ASPCA had not previously confirmed.
“SAFER is state of the art,” Elliott claimed. “We are always looking for what the national and industry standards are.”
Dogsbite.org founder Colleen Lynn.
“Circling the wagons”
Responded Dogsbite.org founder Colleen Lynn, “That is exactly the problem. Currently, there is no way to reliably test for unpredictable pit bull aggression. The ‘state-of-the-art’ temperament assessment test SAFER cannot measure unpredictable aggression, nor can any current test. This is the risk every person accepts, knowingly or not, when adopting a pit bull.”
The Buncombe County and Asheville Humane Society response to the Strother fatality, Lynn alleged, resembles “a ‘circle the wagons’ strategy to cover both parties against liability claims. Both parties also manage to passively blame the community, the dog’s owner’s and the victim himself,” Lynn wrote in her blog. “The newly rehomed pit bull executed the killing bite, attacking the boy’s face and throat, right out of the blue. The pit bull was still so aggressive afterward that deputies had to shoot him to death.
“Given the limitations of even the most ‘state-of-the-art’ temperament assessment tests, only one conclusion can be drawn,” Lynn added. “More innocent children will be brutally attacked and even killed by shelter dogs who passed these tests. In the wake of this boy’s tragic death, Buncombe County officials had a chance to reevaluate their pit bull adoption policy, hopefully by restricting it, but they did not. It’s all systems go again with their fingers crossed.
Anthropomorphizing
“What also needs to be addressed,” Lynn said, “is the ‘pot calling the kettle black’ statement by Tracy Elliot,” to Walton of the Asheville Citizen Times, that ‘Animals are animals. They are not people and attempts to compare them to people or anthropomorphize them are a mistake.’ On June 20,” Lynn recalled, “Asheville Humane launched an anthropomorphic adoption campaign for a pit bull named Pearl, bling included. ‘Classy girls wear pearls!’,” in an ad clearly likening the pit bull to a human person.
Lynn also recalled that Strother’s death was apparently not even the first such incident involving a pit bull adopted from the Asheville Humane Society in 2015. Posted a woman named Tera Brown beneath media accounts of the Strother attack, “They should have started all of this when a pit we adopted this March that had passed all of their tests attacked my son resulting in [an ambulance] ride and staples in his head. The dog wanted my son dead.”
The attack occurred, Brown said, after her son tried to give the newly adopted pit bull a treat.
Adopt out more pit bulls who pass the test
Assessed New Orleans attorney J. Thomas Beasley, author of the recently published critique of pit bull advocacy Misunderstood Nanny Dogs, “County officials say that the shelter did nothing wrong. They conducted the industry standard temperament tests and the dog passed. That dog then mauled a 6-year-old boy to death three weeks later. The solution? Let’s keep adopting out pit bulls who pass this same damned test, because obviously it works so well.”
(See also Buncombe County, NC orders moratorium on pit bull adoptions and Pit bull from Asheville Humane Society kills six-year-old.)
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Thanks for the update. I am rarely at a loss for words, but I have become so incensed at the current state of affairs of animal NONcontrols and so called “rescues” that it is difficult, if not impossible, to comment without extreme anger expressing itself in my comment. The nonsensical absurdity of placing fighting/gripping breed dogs in families, and especially families with young children, simply boggles the mind. We have not heard the last of this animal NONcontrol to my great and unceasing HORROR.
I guess since the poor little kid climbed over into another yard where the dog was, technically, he shouldn’t have done that, because the dog people would just say the dog was protecting them or whatever. It’s unimaginable the suffering that the victims must go through. More than that, I might as well not say.
If this pit bull had been a beagle, or I could name 200 other dog breeds, this child would be alive with or without supervision. This child had played with this dog before on several occasions. There was no reason for the families to think this pit bull would kill this child; that is why pit bulls are so dangerous. Both families trusted that the Asheville Humane Society would re home a safe pit bull for their neighborhood. The pit bull owner did not have a fool-proof fence and left the ‘safe’ ticking time bomb unsupervised in his backyard. Even if there was someone supervising, it is next to impossible to stop a pit bull mauling.
From 2005-2015, 218 people killed by pit bulls: http://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-fatalities-2014.php
The Asheville Humane Society, who partners with the ASPCA, re-homed a pit bull that savagely killed an innocent child. Either the Asheville Humane Society absolutely fails at assessing the dogs in their shelter, or they have to admit there is currently no accurate way to assess pit bull-type dogs. At any rate, they need to stop pushing pit bulls onto the naive public.
The Asheville Humane Society claims the pit bull passed their 7-point temperament test, yet the pit bull still was aggressive? Did they just admit that their temperament test is meaningless? Or are they lying about the results of the temperament test? They want to educate the public on how safe it is to adopt a pit bull from them, yet their “temperament tested” pit bull kills a child shortly after being adopted…..either their temperament test is meaningless, or they are misinterpreting/ignoring the results when dogs fail.
“Protecting” his owner’s property to point of killing a human being should not be part of the instinct or training of any truly safely domesticated dog. Nor should it be a point of pride or grounds for defense for other dog owners to stand on. If this dog could not communicate in a more effective/less lethal way, then he is NOT a ‘good dog’. Nobody wants to see a dog killed, but public safety should
come first.
The boy had been invited by the owner repeatedly to climb the fence and play with the dog.
Little wonder, since Asheville Humane Society lies to the public and tells them that fighting breeds are friendly and lovable.
“Industry best practice” is a joke. It’s only pit bull love at any cost, including killing and mauling at will.
YEP
Why are these agencies with a public safety mission abandoning their responsibilities? One just has to look at the radicalization of America’s humane and animal control communities that has been festering since the 1980s. The turning point took place in the summer of 1986, when Tufts University held the Animal Control and Humane Symposium “Dog Aggression and the Pit Bull Terrier” which produced the following meme: Pit bull bites are worse, but it would be unfair to penalize pit bull owners. This is tantamount to law enforcement lobbying for laws that don’t criminalize drunk driving until after the accident, due to unfairness issues for drunks who haven’t plowed into a family yet. The results of the unfairness meme is that according to this 2010 federal study, between 1993 and 2008, dog bite hospitalizations have skyrocketed a population-adjusted 86%, with the average stay costing four times that of other injuries. The taxpayer is also bitten since 37% of the costs are covered by Medicaid and Medicare.
http://occupymaulstreet.blogspot.com/2012/11/animal-un-controlhave-animal-control.html
It’s 2015. The “Woe to that poor child, but who are we to question the hand of our Creator?” went out over 100 years ago. Someone needs to be held accountable.
Every human involved in that “KISS A PIT BULL” adoption promotion should be held criminally liable for the mauling and death of Josh Strother. Is it possible that there is no state or national law that could be applied to this case ? ?
Ima really nice and friendly critter. And I really enjoyed those kissing parties while I was at the shelter.I really am a nice friendly dog. And I really enjoyed playing with Josh when he would climb over my fence. It was nice to have some company. Sometimes I would get kind of lonesome . I don’t really know what happened that day. I meant to just give him a big happy kiss and we’d play awhile. But the first kiss tasted so good that I felt compelled to try a little nibble. Josh was my only friend. I don’t know what happened after that. Somehow I just ” lost it”. And I Guess you already know what happened next. And now we are both here in heaven. Bless those good people at the shelter.. L Love, Ima Pitbull
A temperament test is only as good as the individual assessing the animal, and in many cases the tester sees what she wants to see, and may underplay certain red flags she thinks may reduce the dog’s chance for adoption.
Additionally, even if a dog displays some behavior that could indicate a potentially dangerous temperament, the ASPCA SAFER protocol still deems them adoptable. For instance, resource guarding is not a problem for the ASPCA, so a dog that shows aggression toward people who come near food or toys is considered adoptable. The temperament test may have revealed that the dog was potentially dangerous by indicating the dog was a resource guarder, but the ASPCA “best practice” doesn’t equate a dog showing aggression toward people who come near it’s food as being dangerous. Ignoring the results of the test render the test useless.
I believe that there is a very good chance that Assess-A-Pet, if used correctly, by someone knowledgeable about dog ethology, could have predicted that the dog that killed Joshua Strother was dangerous and unadoptable. If the dog had been screened correctly , they would have waited at least three or four days after the dog entered the shelter, to allow the dog’s cortisol levels to come down, to get a more accurate assessment. The number one predictor of a dog’s willingness to use aggression against a person who does something he doesn’t like is a lack of sociability….dogs that score high in a test for sociability LOVE people, and respect people, and are most likely to have a very long fuse, and in a worse case scenario where they feel biting is their only option, they will inhibit their bite. Sociability CAN be measured and quantified, and is an integral part of the Assess-A-Pet screening. With practice, it becomes easier and easier to spot dogs who are highly sociable, who use lots of gentle social gestures that indicate their true personality.
If the violent pit bull that killed this child were assessed using the right tool, by the right person, what would the real results have been? Did the dog show little (or no) sociability? Was the dog a resource guarder? Did he show aggression toward other dogs? Were there other red flag behaviors? Did the dog do a lot of scent marking in the form of anal swiping or shoulder rubs? Did the dog frequently position his body in a full frontal alignment toward the tester? Were the dog’s eyes wide and round? Was the dog’s tail positioned high up over his body when interacting with the tester? Did the dog stiffen when petted or touched? Did the dog do a head whip toward the tester when petted?
It appears that the ASPCA SAFER test, and the protocols developed around it, are totally ineffective. The ASPCA cannot have it both ways; you can’t tell adopters that you have a tool that will help them find a dog that won’t kill their children, then claim that the tool only works sometimes when a child is killed. Either it works or it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, only a morally bankrupt misanthrope could walk away with a shrug of the shoulders and declare a dead child is simply part of the cost of doing business.
“A temperament test is only as good as the individual assessing the animal”
There is no temperament test on earth that will ever properly screen fighting breeds, no matter who gives the test.
The only test required is to ask the breeders why they perpetuate the breeds. The answer is to attack and kill, unprovoked, and do the ultimate damage. No test needed.
If the breeders lie about why they are still selectively breeding these breeds and producing them, one only needs to look at the mountain of data that the fighting breed industry has produced over many years that explains exactly why they bred these breeds.
It’s going to be a long time until we see the pendulum swing the other way. Just about everyone has drank the kool-aid, from regional shelters and rescues so clueless that they still hold steak frys and pig roasts “for the animals” all the way to self-identified vegan AR activists who become incensed at those who do not follow Francione-style “abolitionism” to the letter. You have to hand it to the pit breeding lobby, very few other interests has such a large swath of political persuasions in their pocket.
There is nothing more horrible than losing a child to death except the circumstances of that innocent child hoping to play with a dog as children love dogs. The dog was probably basically a nice dog but something triggered the dog to become extremely aggressive and what it was is not known and never will be. The owner should not have had him in a fenced in area in which a 6 year old child come enter alone–just him and a dog that was essentially new to the home and humans. The dog was not adopted to a home with small children, was the dog neutered, was the dog in pain or hungry or fearful? The child should not have been allowed in anyone’s yard unattended and particularly a large dog of unknown origin (past life). It is the hope of people who work with animals that those who are friendly and nice get out of the shelter alive, it is their job. I have done it and it is a very difficult job. Many people dropped the ball in this tragedy, the original owner of the dog that did not fulfill his/her obligation or commitment and obviously just turned the dog loose giving no history and many others down the line. So incredibly sad to lose a wonderful child but the blame is not so easy to pinpoint.
Actually the blame for Joshua Phillip Strother’s death, and the deaths of 37 other people who have been killed by shelter dogs since 2010, 30 of those dogs having been pit bulls, is quite easy to place: it resides with shelter personnel and volunteers who recite the shibboleths above, in reckless disregard of the realities that pit bulls have been bred for centuries to “become extremely aggressive” in hair-trigger response to often unknown stimuli, and that there is no such thing as a home in which a dog will assuredly never encounter small children, other animals, or strangers. If a dog will not be safe among them, whether newly adopted or otherwise, the dog is not safe and should not be rehomed, regardless of how “friendly” the dog may superficially seem to be.
Connie, the dog was a fighting breed, intentionally bred to attack and kill unprovoked and with no hint of trouble to come. Fighting breeds are also specifically bred to physically be able to do the most massive damage possible.
It’s why these breeds were selectively bred for hundreds of years, and it’s why they need to stop being bred.
People are getting manipulated into the falsehood of “all dogs bite” and the falsehood that it is some kind of task to then find someone to falsely blame.
It’s a shame, Connie, to see you led down that road. All that accomplishes is enabling the breeders and dog fighters to keep breeding fighting breeds and keep on killing.
For they are the ones that fed you what you printed here.
Matthew Bershadker and ASPCA along with the Asheville Humane Society board of directors really need to explain why they are in the fighting breed business.
Promoting and marketing pit bulls merely enables the dog fighters to expand their breeding and operations, and encourages the proliferation of pit bull breeders providing a ready and cheap supply of pit puppies to the “marketed and promoted” to public.
These dogs then start to act aggressively by their first birthday, and are thrown on the streets or in shelters while the owner gets another pit bull puppy to do it all over again.
When the shelters resell these dangerous and problem dogs, do they think the public doesn’t find out? Of course they do, and word gets around that an animal shelter is where the defective dogs are.
ASPCA is ultimately doing the worst possible damage to the pit bulls themselves.
Until 2013, I was a professional dog trainer who performed SAFER evaluations on shelter dogs, including pit bulls. I gave up the training business after more than ten years (and a total 30 years of shelter work) due to the increasing trend toward putting dogs’ lives above human safety (and lives). When I began training for shelters, around 2000, shelters still had their priorities in order; the behavior evaluations were geared toward preventing tragedy, not on the fairy-tale of “rehabilitating” aggressive and dangerous dogs. The fact that so many pit bulls “pass” SAFER and other evaluations and then go on to maul and kill people and other animals is all the proof I need that behavior assessments can’t predict what fighting breeds, bear hunters, slave catchers, and other large, powerful, violence-bred dogs will do in real life. These breeds have no place in society as pets because they are too unpredictable and, when they do decide to attack, it is frequently gruesome and deadly. They aren’t Chihuahuas or Dachshunds — when they attack, they mean business. Asheville exemplifies what is going wrong in the world of sheltering and the no-kill movement.