A one year old boy in Nevada was killed on Saturday, 28 April 2012, by his family’s pet dog, a Mastiff/Rhodesian mix. The dog had never shown aggression toward the baby, and had never bitten anyone before. No information is available on any charges being filed against the dog’s owners.
Here’s the story:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/apr/28/first-birthday-ends-tragedy-when-family-dog-attack/

This sad story did not get much press coverage.
Now take the same story and replace “dog” with “python” and visualize the hysteria. You would have days of press coverage, lengthy news stories, op-eds and editorials accompanied by calls for “tough new legislation” and endless political posturing.

Case in point:
In 2009 a two-year-old Florida girl was killed by her family’s pet python (a Burmese) .
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/07/01/us-usa-python-idUSTRE56067K20090701
To this day, HSUS continues to cite this tragedy as “proof” that snakes are not suitable as pets.
Further, the owners of the python were convicted (in 2011) of third degree murder, manslaughter and child neglect.

The fact is that there are politically correct pets, and politically incorrect pets. Man’s best friend has full “protected class” status, even when he grabs a toddler by the head and shakes him to death, as happened to the Nevada baby boy. Now my objective here is not to advocate for anti-dog laws. Quite the contrary. I don’t care for dogs much but I firmly believe in the right of the individual to lead his or her life as he or she sees fit: not as some meddling, self-righteous legislator see fit. But, just look at the facts that I present and hold them up next to the justification for all of these “exotic animal” regulations and prohibitions. It doesn’t add up! Throw some of this information at YOUR local, state or federal legislators when they try to chew away at YOUR rights to keep whatever captive animals you choose.

We’re going to look at information from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report regarding dogs.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/

A published CDC report estimates that in 1994, there were 4.7 million people bitten by dogs in the United States. Almost 800,000 required medical treatment, and 333,700 required emergency room treatment. In 2001, 368,245 people went to emergency rooms for dog bite injuries. The CDC cites statistics from 1992 - 1994 estimating 334,000 dog attacks (requiring hospital treatment) annually. Assuming that these numbers continue to be fairly consistent, we have between 330 and 370 thousand dog attacks, severe enough to require emergency medical treatment, annually. Close to half of these (about 42%) involved children younger than age 14.
And these numbers do not include fatalities!
Read the report here:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5226a1.htm

The fatalities are even more alarming. The study I cite examined data from 1979 – 1996. During this 20 year period, more than 300 people were documented being fatally attacked by dogs. That’s an average of 15 per year, an average of one approximately every four weeks. Available information indicates that this average is even higher for the years 1996 to present. Imagine the public outcry and legislative response if pet pythons and boas were directly responsible for a human death consistently every four weeks for twenty years. Wow.
You can read that report here:
http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/images/dogbreeds-a.pdf

And more dog attack resources can be found here:
http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Dog-Bites/dogbite-pubs.html

I did a search on the CDC website using “python”, “boa constrictor” and then just “constrictor” as search terms. No reports are available on attacks or hospitalizations, just salmonella, which is why we all wash our hands after handling reptiles. Clearly it’s not a big problem.

So we must logically ask why no state or federal lawmakers, looking out for our best interests of course, are banning dogs! The facts plainly prove that dogs are a menace to public safety. Numbers don’t lie. You can be sure that if pythons or iguanas or hedgehogs or lemurs or something were causing this much trouble, politicians would be in a frenzy to impose new laws to save us all.

And what of the financial burden on society? The media frequently reports on the “cost” of obesity, smoking, or whatever the “scourge du jour” may be. What is the cost that dogs impose on American society and the health care system from all of these injuries, hospitalizations, and deaths? I don’t have a dollar amount, but going in for repairs from a good mauling can’t be cheap.

So, what’s the conclusion here? We all know that there is inherent risk in keeping animals. We can pick up pathogens or parasites, and we can be bitten, kicked, mauled, or possibly worse. It’s a risk we take, knowingly, when we work with animals of any kind. In fairness, no one kind of animal deserves to be vilified, and it’s fanciers prohibited from working with it, because it is not in the “protected class”. Particularly this is true when the facts prove that our beloved dogs have a proven record of dishing out a great deal of mischief and mayhem. The CDC stresses the importance of education to prevent problems with dogs. For exotics in general and snakes in particular, however, legislators go directly to bans and prohibitions. It’s dramatically inconsistent, and it’s discriminatory toward us non-politically correct animal keepers.

As exotic animal keepers, you have a responsibility to stand up to local, state and federal lawmakers as they chip away at our hobbies and businesses! Find out who they are (just search for them on line - its easy) and then call them, write them, email them. Feel free to use any information contained herein in correspondence.