In a shocking, harrowing video of the incident, the kids run for cover while a man runs over to pull the dog off the woman. The dog began attacking the good Samaritan as he hurriedly backed up and then fell down out of the view of the camera.
According to NBC 5, the expectant mother, Reyna Gutierrez, was seven months pregnant at the time. She was taken to a nearby hospital and was treated for bite wounds to both of her hands and forearms. The report stated that by the time police arrived, the dog’s owner had come and taken the dog away.
Pit bull attacks have popped up so often in the news over the past many years that even headlines noting “a dog attack” likely bring to mind the image of a pit bull to the average reader. Such startling headlines appear with seeming regularity in North Texas.
A December headline from WFAA reads: “Dallas woman and her puppy recovering from brutal pit bull attack.” The woman in the story and her Aussie puppy required emergency medical treatment after a pit bull “jumped out of an alley and began attacking them both,” according to the report.
“Fort Worth toddler attacked by pit bull after CPS removed her from family,” read a particularly horrific Dallas Morning News headline from November 2023 when a 2-year-old girl reportedly suffered crushed facial bones and tissue under her skin detaching from her skull.
“A lot of these cases we’re seeing, the question has to be asked, what happened before the attack.” – Carlos de Leon, Love Pit Dog Rescue
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In each case, the violent incidents happened quickly and without warning. But one local pit bull advocate says that while he knows the attacks are traumatizing to the people involved and their families, he thinks the public and the media are often too willing to place the blanket of blame across every pit bull.
“A lot of these cases we’re seeing, the question has to be asked, what happened before the attack?” said Carlos de Leon, the public relations director for Love Pit Dog Rescue, a local organization specializing in pit bull dogs. “Because I think one of the great truisms around a dog’s behavior is that a confident dog is a calm dog. So when we see dogs acting aggressive, more than often it comes from a place of fear and anxiety, as opposed to a place of confidence.”
Pit Bulls Are not a Breed
According to de Leon, there are plenty of “myths and misunderstandings” about how the public perceives pit bulls as a whole. He added that it’s “such a complex, very difficult” topic to address because people on both sides of the debate are very passionate about where they’re coming from. But one of the main misconceptions, he says, is that there isn’t really “a whole” when it comes to what we typically call pit bulls.“An issue I have is with how specific we get because pit bull isn't a breed. ‘Pit bull’ is a catch-all phrase that we use for dogs that are hulky, we call them ‘block heads’ sometimes, with a square jaw, and visually identifying breeds is the worst way to identify the breed of a dog.”
The Animal Humane Society agrees with de Leon’s take on this point, at least. The organization says that the term “pit bull” usually doesn’t refer to a single dog breed.
“Pit bull is generally used as a broad description for a type of dog. Many dog breeds may be classified as pit bulls, including: American Staffordshire Terriers, American Bull Terriers, American Pit Bull Terriers, and American Bulldogs,” reads the group's website. “So when you hear about pit bull bans, pit bull bite statistics, and pit bull abandonment rates, they all refer to a much larger group of dogs than you’d imagine. And grouping so many dogs together under one label can skew statistics and lead to harmful stereotypes.”
In a 2018 interview with former Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze, former head of Dallas Animal Services Ed Jamison explained he wasn’t in favor of a breed ban for pit bulls, even though at the time, headlines involving pit bull attacks were also prevalent in North Texas. It wasn't the only time Schutze took to the Observer's pages to write about pit bull attacks. Jamison is now CEO of Operation Kindness in Carrollton, one of the state’s leading no-kill animal shelters.
“Part of the reason I am vehemently against breed bans is that you can’t even prove what they are. We all think we know what a dog is when we look at it, but that’s a visual identification," Jamison said. "People way smarter than me, like ridiculously smarter than me, have done studies on this. They are wrong over 50% of the time when they actually do the DNA testing.”
Statistics relating to dog bites and attacks are often unreliable, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped tracking bites by breed decades ago. Many others who gather statistics are inconsistent with how the numbers regarding the breeds categorized under the pit bull umbrella are compiled.
Texas Health and Human Services, however, offers some basic stats for dog attacks in the United States.
"According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, an estimated 4.7 million people are bitten by dogs each year, with an estimated 800,000 requiring medical attention. ... Almost half of all dog bites are provoked, regardless of whether the victim is a child or an adult. What constitutes provocation for a dog can be very different from what a human would consider provocation."
Texas law does allow for dogs to be euthanized for causing serious bodily harm, but the state does not allow cities and counties to establish breed-specific laws. Calls to take sweeping action against pit bull ownership often intensify when nightmare headlines appear more regularly but, de Leon says, whether you know the true breed of the dog or not, the animal deserves to be scrutinized on its own.
“My idea is that every dog is an individual, just like every human is an individual,” he said. “And we have to ensure that every dog, regardless of breed, is being treated as a unique, special creature. Each dog has its own unique traits, energy levels and psychology. Now biology does a play a role, and that’s where the rubber meets the road here, but there are limitations to that. Biology does not equal predetermination.”
Local shelters, including the animal services shelters in Dallas and Carrollton, for example, are over-capacity with larger breed dogs, many of which fit into the pit bull realm. De Leon said that’s likely the result of dogs that were adopted during the COVID shutdown days of 2020 being abandoned or given back to the shelter. Dogs living on the streets or being kept for long periods of time in a shelter are likely to become fearful and anything but confident.
“I don’t think dogs think in terms of good or bad,” de Leon said. “But as people, we often attribute human qualities to our pets, so it leads to unrealistic expectations and a misunderstanding of a dog’s behavior. Labeling dogs good or bad oversimplifies complex behaviors. Dogs think about their next meal. Where they can find warmth, and if they know that everything is going to be OK tomorrow, they get confidence and grow calmer from it.”
Just as de Leon suggests that dogs be regarded as unique individuals, he believes that attacks should be viewed in the same way.
