On Thursday, a, English Bull Terrier escaped from an apartment and started attacking people on the street in downtown Roanoke, Virginia. A man and a woman were bitten on their arms and legs and taken to a hospital. People attempted to use several items to stop the attacks, kicking the dog, using pepper spray and even a hammer.

Nothing worked until a man with a gun waited for the right moment and shot the dog. Twice.

From wsls.com:

Paul Burek saw it all unfold and rushed to help. He had a gun in his car and shot the dog after everything else failed to stop the attack.

10 News talked exclusively with him about firing two shots at the English bull terrier.

“They pepper sprayed the dog. They beat it with a hammer. Somebody was screaming to shoot it and I, fortunately, had a gun in the car and I went and got my gun and once it pulled away from the people and started walking across the road I shot it,” Burek said.

This wasn’t the first time the dog had attacked someone.

From roanoke.com:

The police have dealt with the same dog in the past. On Dec. 26, 2017 at 2:23 a.m., officers went to the same area because the dog had run off the back porch of the apartment and bit a man on his hand, Smith said. The man went to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital for treatment. Animals wardens followed up on the incident, but the man did not want to file charges.

Burek isn’t facing charges.

Animal attacks aren’t included in surveys of defensive gun uses. But people using a gun to stop dangerous animals is a common practice, especially in rural areas.

Attacks such as the one in Roanoke make the news while in rural areas, they’re seldom reported. People simply shoot the offending animal and dispose of it.

The lack of accounting for animal attacks in the gun control debate is deliberate. These situations aren’t mentioned by those working for a disarmed population because nearly everyone understands that using a firearm to stop a dangerous animal is prudent and positive.

 

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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67 COMMENTS

  1. Good shoot…
    people with bad dogs need to keep them confined…or suffer the consequences…as happened here
    those attacked need to sue the owner for pain and suffering…medical bills…whatever they can get

      • No person under the age of 21 should be allowed to purchase a dog! Let’s get those students involved and start a whole new march. Contact your congressman. We need dog control NOW!

        • Whereas you, Jason, need to be a good boy and go back to school for remedial English classes so you can communicate effectively. Most people don’t want to have to try to translate the garbage you find it necessary to post in.

        • Or maybe you, Steve, need to get a bit of sense of humor.
          “Dint do nuffing” is quite known joke on Ebonics speaking relatives of gang bangers killed by cops or their intended victims.

    • They say dogs resemble their owners, and I would say that applies to behavior more than looks. The kinds of people who own “vicious” dogs are usually not good people, and if they are, their dogs are probably well-behaved instead of being actually vicious, despite the laws calling them a “vicious breed.”

  2. The owner needs to be held accountable. I’m a firm believer that there are no bad pets, just bad owners.

    • As an animal rescue volunteer I absolutely agree with you. Just like firearms , in the wrong hands they can be deadly. Animals are the same. The owner is to blame. The dog did not learn to attack people all by itself. It was taught to, or mistreated to the point it went after people. If you can’t be a responsible pet owner , don’t own one. Same goes for guns. Be responsible, or don’t own one.

      • pooches have personalities, bad days and mental illness. i often say that there is no such thing as a bad dog, just their punk ass owners.
        but sometimes you can just get a bad egg. my brother has raised alot of champions of several different breeds, some hunting, some working. the giant schnauzer that performed so well at shutzhund was a jagoff plain and simple. and almost certainly a worse one in less capable hands.

        • Dogs can be dicks (and don’t get me started about my cat), but a good owner has to know their pet’s limits and plan accordingly. Got a climber? Make sure he can’t get out. Got a barker? Train them appropriately or keep them inside. As an owner, they are *YOUR* responsibility, no one else’s.

        • And keep those nasty songbird killing machines called cats inside too…those things go feral and breed like nobodies business. Dogs should not be allowed out unattended to get into trouble, nor should cats.

      • I would say that unlike guns, dogs actually DO have a mind of their own…a very inconvenient truth to all the pit bull defenders out there who thump for gun control but recoil in horror when someone mentions maybe restricting certain breeds when they seem to kill more than their share of humans. Toddlers dragged out of baby strollers and eaten, adult women killed by their own dog after leaving it with her father for a time. Recent stories that repeat over and over. If you don’t want to restrict dangerous breeds fine, but then get off the gun control thing because you are being a hypocrite. Inanimate object capable of causing death when used by a bad human VS animate animal capable of causing death that actually has a mind of it’s own and does not need a human around to do it.

        • “do i contradict myself?’ etc.
          your choice of “pitbull” as ~the~ problematic breed is erroneus; pretty far down on the humans attacked by dogs list. in the pits a game dog that snapped at folks might get put down.
          any breed trained to attack people is a semi controllable weapon that can revert to automatic on its own.
          hypocrisy gets a bad wrap. so to speak.

        • What ties the two together is not whether one has a brain and the other doesn’t,
          it is the concept of personal responsibility.
          The owner of a dog and the owner of a gun both have to be responsible for their property.
          The manner and tactics used in exercising that responsibility differ but the principle remains the same.

    • Yup. Meanest dog (psychopath 15-pound dog) I know is owned by a mean person. Most spoiled dog I know (malamute) is owned by a spoiled 55 year-old. Most active yet relaxed dog I know is owned by an ex-Marine who maintains a ranch.

      Attitude reflects leadership.

      • Dogs are pack animals and as such they need to see who is the leader, the alpha. Usually this is a male. Where they fail to see an effective alpha, the dog will experience anxiety, as it feels it has to assume responsibility for protecting the pack (the human family it belongs to). This is one reason dogs will attack, if they fear that its human family is incapable of protecting itself. The other main reason is that they are trained to attack by vicious humans, who use techniques that would be called torture if applied to a human. Such dogs can be rehabilitated but the process is long and slow. The humans who create these attack animals can only be cured by correcting their lead deficiency.

        • i am led to believe by my animal control friend that to control the feral (canine, although it may be applicable otherwise) populations one needs to address the dominant female. maybe alpha male don’t count for as much on the street. look at that hogg kid f’rinstance.

    • One of my ferrets bit my ankle as I was reading this – then he ran away chuckling with a silly grin on his face.

    • No. There are certainly bad pets completely independent of whether the owner is good, or not.

      • And, unfortunately, many many more bad owners…a “bad” dog can be properly and humanely cared for…bad owner? Not so easy

      • I disagree. I don’t blame a dog for being a dog. I blame the owner for not accounting for their pet properly and not controlling it.

  3. Good for him. I had a friend who walked from Florida to California, and if I remember right he didn’t even carry a stick. He just kept walking and kicked when necessary. I wonder what was up with this dog that it A) started randomly attacking people and B) wasn’t deterred by kicking, pepper spray, and a hammer.

  4. Well, the owner will probably protest “it was a loving dog, going to go to doggy obedience classes, trying to turn its life around, it was unarmed, why shoot it? They should have used bear spray, or fired a warning shot. Maybe tried shooting it in the leg.”

  5. if the old aluminum itron handheld to the dog’s snout didn’t send them whimpering you were in for a battle.
    we went from .1% to 1% capsicum, but the pooches that meant bidnis were immune. hell on yello jacket nests though.
    i remember a big furry bastard that had a semi- permanently orange stained face.

    • Fellow meter reader i see. That old Itron “Road Runner” unit was hard on a dogs head. Now we have these stupid umbrellas to keep dogs off. Well my coworkers do, I always have the tool for a final solution handy…

      • and the totes parasol was required ppe on body full time. useless, as was the spray.
        a three foot length of buckthorn however… something about the whistling it created made dogs very wary. hell on chipgophers too.

  6. Only time I’ve ever had to actually draw my gun in public was on a dog that broke a leash.

  8. Attacks such as the one in Roanoke make the news while in rural areas, they’re seldom reported. People simply shoot the offending animal and dispose of it.
    We actually had to shoot packs of wild dogs attacking our sheep and this farm was about 2 miles out of town. Never told anybody as the Liberals would cry about big bad farmers shooting their beloved pet dogs.

  10. Penalties for owner’s should be sky-high. I’ve never shot anyone but came damn close on a pit bull. And yes the owner’s were lowlife scum…

  11. as a general rule, there are two sure signs of low intelligence: facial tattoos, and owning pitbulls.

    stupid people own stupid dogs that do stupid things.

  12. I agree about the rural comment. I shot 10 dogs in one year after they had each killed one or two of my laying hens. I know they were stray because I know everyone in my valley and I know their dogs. I faced down two 80 lb dogs that looked like I was next on the menu. Thank god I had a Bushmaster.

    • Now it would have been interesting if the dog had ran onto a school playground and started attacking kids. The guy with the gun would have needed to stand 1000 feet away(or whatever the stupid limit is) and watch, legally. Would the students start marching and protesting about dogs then? I tend to think not…

  15. I just barely had a dog come charging at me. I ended up kicking the dog to keep it away and after a couple successful blocks the owner got control of it. I was waiting for the owner to bitch me out for kicking their dog. To which I would have laughed and told them they are lucky I just kicked it. Blocking is alright and works sometimes, pepper spray can be a good option if you plan to run away (like if you can run away and are alone. You know the two guys and the bear joke), but a gun isn’t a bad fall back plan.

  16. Assisted animal control in picking up an aggressive pit once. Had bitten twice and mauled. We expected the owner to resist. He released the dog on us. It took a 230 grain Speer Gold Dot from one of my 1911s to stop the attack. The owner ran from the house yelling, “Did you shoot my dog!?” I replied, “You turned him out on uniformed and armed deputy sheriff. You damn right I shot your dog!” State Attorney declined to bring charges. Dog was released from the back door. I couldn’t swear to have seen the owner do it.

    • Only time I ever shot a dog was a one shot, one kill. With a .22.

  18. I suggest you read my comments again. I said 230 grain, and 1911. If you can squeeze a 230 grain Gold Dot down a 9mm bore I want to see what’s left of your hand. The only time I carried anime on duty was when I first hit the road. It was a H&K P7M8. It was just while I was waiting for my first duty 1911 to come back from Robar. Oh, and it was only one shot. Tends to take the fight out of them when you bust the spine at the front shoulder, take out a lung, internal bleeding. You know, that kind of thing.

    • No. Owned them since I my ETS from the army in ’83. None were aggressive. Worked a couple of dog fighting rings. Seems to go hand in hand with cocaine dealing. My experience they can be trained to be aggressive, as can any breed. The last big coke bust I worked we confiscated over 20 dogs. I then worked with two vets from the University of Florida and a gentleman from B.A.D.R.A.P. out of Oakland, CA. Some could be rehabilitated. Some had to be put down. Blame the owner.

  21. I’m not complaining it was done, as this was clearly a dicey situation, however having dealt with medium-large dogs all my life, I’m confident in my ability to physically dominate any dog under 120 pounds at minimal risk to myself. Others aren’t as comfortable dealing with these animals.

    Now if there is more than one aggressive dog involved, all bets are off.

  22. Goddamn pit bulls should have been outlawed
    Years ago. The owner should have been shot along with the dog. This happens daily.

    • I’m sure most of the anti-gunners would say the same thing about people on this website but keep on keeping on with that intolerant attitude. You’re in good company with Bloomberg and co.

    • I’ve only had unwanted contact with pitbulls on two occasions. The first, two pitties flew across a six foot high fence (via a trampoline? I didn’t know dogs could fly) a couple of feet from my head, and I ducked back into my car before they could turn around a express their opinion with their teeth.

      The second, a pitty jumped into my car while I was exiting, and I had to wrestle with him for a long time (5 minutes?) before I could persuade him to leave. Lots of muscle in that dog. But the biggest danger was that I would be licked to death. Friendliest dog ever.

  23. I might have ended up shooting one yesterday if I weren’t at work. My wife was going out to get the mail with our 2 YO German Shep, when a pit bull ran across the street and into the yard. My GSD did a good job of protecting my wife, and luckily she was able to get him in the house before they could clash (would have been an ugly fight). If I were home, I’d have shot that dog, no question about it. Apparently, this dog has repeatedly escaped it’s yard, due to having dipsh*ts as owners who won’t fix their fence.

    Of course, on our neighborhood’s forum, where there is a running thread on this dog, you have people saying “don’t call animal control, let’s help these people take better care of their dog by fixing their fence, etc.” Sorry, but the best thing for these people is for them not to have a dog. Are we supposed to wait until this dog maims or kills someone before we do something? I didn’t see any of these busybodies on the forum out trying to round up this dog.

    I agree that dogs are only as good as their owner’s are, but if it’s between an aggressive dog and a human (or my dog), my choice is pretty easy.

  24. Analogy time:

    This dog was shot for running around and attacking people.

    Meanwhile, the Left has been running amok for decades and attacking / eroding people’s rights. Just how much treason and tyranny (which is costing lives) warrants a forceful response?

    Asking for a friend.

  25. I used to be a dog trainer, and for a very, very good company. People paid us at least $500, and sometimes $5,000, so they were pretty motivated. And I quit because Americans are so hopelessly STUPID.
    The most discouraging thing, to me, was seeing the results after all of the other dog trainers. Every one of them did a great job of working with people, over and over and over, and the majority of the customers were so stupid and so lazy, and so arrogant, they never could even do one lousy dog-training thing as well as a typical little kid could do in five minutes.
    And that’s the reason why there are so many of these horrible stories. You see, it isn’t just a dog-training issue. It’s a low-quality Americans issue. Spend some time in most European countries, or even observe their dog-triaining classes, and you’ll see a night-and-day difference in the results.
    Terrible problems are, in part, often our own fault. We live in America. And in America, American citizens make life what it is, good or bad. But we’ve become so lazy, and so selfish, and so convinced that responsibility is everyone else’s job,
    And we need to stop blaming everybody else. Want to know whose fault our problems are? Look in the mirror.
    And since you already asked….Yeah, I do that myself. Every day.

    P.S.: Kudus to the poor guy who had to shoot the dog. This is a man who had ALREADY thought about the responsible ways to use a firearm for defense. He was careful, so he didn’t injure any innocent people. He waited while on the trigger because it was unsafe to shoot, until it was safe. Damned good poise and damned good courage, and he really helped people.

  26. My son, wife, and I were attacked by two young Tibetan Mastifs last summer. One was a male and one was a female. Though young these were BIG dogs. I had severe hesitation about being around these dogs as I knew their fierce reputation as guard dogs and suspected the owners were not responsible pet owners ( in the sense that they did not treat the dogs like loaded guns, but were haphazard in keeping them away from people and ignoring signs of anxiety that the dogs clearly displayed when non family members were present. ) They seemed to take it personally that I did not care to be around these dogs and my wife thought she was going to lose a friend over it.

    Against my better judgement I went to a party at their house. Long story short they got drunk, got irresponsible, took the dogs out of their coral and let them in the house. During the insuing attack, which occurred in a 6×8 kitchen with an island in the center, 4 adults and a 14 year old struggled with 2 berserk 130 pound plus dogs. Even had I been armed (my wife had begged me to leave the gun in the car as it made the home owners uncomfortable) it would have been impossible to shoot the dogs, with bodies flying all over, bites occurring, limited mobility, guests all around the outside and beneath the kitchen in the basement. Someone would definitely been struck by an errant shot.

    I’m not sure any one really appreciates how hard it is to draw on and shoot multiple dogs in close quarters. I still don’t blame the dogs but rather the terrible owners who were incapable of preventing, let alone admitting to the terrible danger they were putting their guests in by allowing those dogs to roam free in a house where guests can and did walk in to use bathrooms and kitchen and such. Really terrible and unthinking people. My wife son and I bear the scars of those attacks. My daughter who thankfully was grabbed by a quick thinking guest before she entered the fray no doubt has some mental baggage from that outing.

    I did call the police and animal control the next day. We have not spoken with the owners since nor do we plan to again. I feel pretty certain that the only people to learn a lesson that day was us…

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