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Maryland Court of Appeals judges must be inherently stupid.

Well, maybe some of them aren’t, but for the sake of ease, and without regard to fact, let’s just lump them all together and proclaim them stupid.

That’s what they did, with pit bulls.

A troubling 4-3 decision by the state’s highest court last week deemed pit bulls and pit bull mixes inherently dangerous — a ruling that, on top of being ill-informed, could lead to trouble for pit bull owners everywhere.

One judge who went against the majority, Clayton Greene Jr., noted that how harmless a pit bull might be is no longer relevant when it comes to determining liability — a troublesome precedent, in his view.

“Now, it appears, the issue of whether a dog is harmless, or the owner or landlord has any reason to know that the dog is dangerous, is irrelevant to the standard of strict liability,”  Judge  Greene wrote.

The majority decision singles out pit bulls and declares them all dangerous. It implies that owners of them, and the landlords who rent to those owners, should ignorantly assume, as the judges did, that they are lethal and unpredictable beasts. And it makes suing their owners much easier.

Under previous case law, a victim intending to file a lawsuit after a dog attack had to prove that a dog’s owner, or landlord, knew it had a history of being dangerous. Now, under this new precedent, they can merely show that the owner knew their dog was all or part pit bull. That would be sufficient basis for a claim.

In other words, it’s no longer necessary to prove that a particular pit bull is dangerous, only that it’s a pit bull, or part of it is.

The ruling last Thursday came in the case of a 2007 attack on a child in Towson. According to the Baltimore Sun, 10-year-old Dominic Solesky was attacked by a neighbor’s pit bill and his family sued the dog owner’s landlord, Dorothy M. Tracey.

The Circuit Court judge threw out the claim, ruling there was no evidence that Tracey had been negligent. The Court of Special Appeals overturned the judge’s decision, and the Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling Thursday. The case will now head back to trial.

At a time when many jurisdictions are becoming more enlightened about pit bulls, the Maryland Court of Appeals decision assures that, in at least one area, they will be treated differently from all other dogs.

Those speaking out against the ruling included Pauline Houliaras, president of B-More Dog, which formed in 2007 to fight anti-pit bull legislation in Baltimore County. Read more »

The dog owner who left the scene after his pit bull killed a tiny Pomeranian mix at Chicago’s Montrose Beach dog park has turned himself in — and turns out to be a police officer.

The officer is a five-year veteran of the Chicago police department.

He has not been identified. But he has been ticketed and relieved of duty as the department investigates his actions,  CBS 2 in Chicago reports.

On St. Patrick’s Day, Audrey Fisher and her 12-year-old daughter took Willy, their 2-year-old, 8-pound Pomeranian-Papillon mix, to the dog beach so he could play with his favorite pink ball.

“A pit bull came out of nowhere and just attacked him, grabbed him by his belly and shook him violently,” Fisher said last month. Willy died three days later.

While park rules stipulate owners of dogs that attack other animals must pay the vet bills, the pit bull owner declined to identify himself and walked off with his dog. Fisher’s vet bills for Willy came to $5,700.

Fisher has spent the past month trying to track him down.

Witnesses were able to get a photo of the pit bull’s owner after the attack and Fisher has been handing out flyers with the man’s photo. The dog owner’s photo also was posted on MonDog.org, a website about the dog park.

Witnesses said the dog owner insisted the smaller dog started the fight and said he showed no remorse about the incident.

Upon learning he was a police officer, off duty at the time, Fisher said, “It scares me. That was my first reaction, was fear. … because I would not expect that kind of behavior from a Chicago police, or a cop of any kind.”

Prada, a pit bull mix who landed on death row after terrorizing an upscale Nashville neighborhood, has been spared — thanks to a Tennessee judge and a  woman who still believes both humans and dogs can be rehabilitated.

Prada was declared vicious and ordered to be euthanized after escaping from her home and attacking several dogs in January 2011.

In the latest development in the long running story, Tia Torres, director of the Villalobos Rescue Center, which recently relocated from California to New Orleans, offered to keep the dog for the rest of her life. A judge agreed with the terms.

The rescue center is featured in Animal Planet’s reality TV show “Pit Bulls and Parolees,” which puts ex-convicts and abused dogs together so both man and animal can be rehabilitated.

The compromise was a last-ditch effort to keep the four-year-old dog from being euthanized — a campaign that has led thousands to sign petitions, according to the Associated Press. It brings an end to Nicole Andree’s lengthy court battles to save her dog, who she rescued when the dog was 4-weeks-old.

It means, instead of lethal injection, Prada could now end up as a star on Animal Planet.

She was ordered put down by three different courts after attorneys for the city of Nashville said Prada posed a public safety threat and liability concerns.

In addition to launching a social media campaign to save Prada, Andree asked Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam to pardon her. The governor, through a spokesman, said it was a local matter and he couldn’t pardon a dog.

Davidson County Circuit Court Judge Joe Binkley Jr. signed the order sparing Prada. City attorneys said they had no objections, provided the rescue center would take ownership of the dog and keep her for the rest of her life.

Andree, who believes her dog was discriminated against because it is part pit bull, said she didn’t mind giving her dog up if it meant Prada would be spared.

“I just wanted her to live.”

(Photo: Nicole Andree’s “Free Prada” Facebook page)

No one is sure how she got there, but a legally blind 5-year-old girl’s therapy dog showed up on her family’s front porch in Kansas, two weeks after she was stolen.

According to KSN, Andrea Taylor, who has cerebral palsy, couldn’t stop smiling.

Millie, a pit bull trained to serve Andrea  as a therapy dog, was found outside the family’s home in Hutchinson by Andrea’s father around 3:30 a.m.

Andrea’s mother said her daughter woke up, came out to the living room and upon seeing her dog said, ’”There her is. It’s my Millie.”

Millie had been missing for two weeks. She was seen jumping into a white car in front of the family’s Hutchinson home.  A reward of $450 was being offered for her return. 

Andrea’s mother, Lana Taylor, believes pressure from the media and the Reno County Sheriff’s Department led whoever stole the dog to have a change of heart.

Millie had scrapes and scabs around her face, neck, and belly, leading Taylor to believe she might have been taken by dogfighters.

Hutchinson police say they are continuing to investigate the case.

Taylor said the first thing Millie did upon her return was to go to Andrea’s room: “She went right to Andrea’s bed, put her paw up on the bed, and sat there …”

A blind, five-year-old girl’s therapy dog was apparently stolen from her front yard in Hutchinson, Kansas.

Millie, a pit bull trained as a therapy dog, was given to Andrea Taylor, who also has cerebral palsy, in March.

Less than a month later, someone in a white car stopped in front of the home, called the dog, and drove away with Millie, KSN reports.

The sheriff’s department is investigating.

“She absolutely loves Millie,” said Lana Taylor, Andrea’s mother. “She has always been a good night’s sleeper. She’s not sleeping at night, she’s crying all night long.”

The dog enabled Andrea to have more independence, her mother said, but since she was taken, Andrea spends a lot of time staring out the front window.

Anyone with any information with any information about Millie’s whereabouts is asked to call the Reno County Sheriff’s Department at 620-694-2735.

The family is offering a cash reward for Millie’s return

Baltimore brothers Travers and Tremayne Johnson have been found not guilty in the burning death of Phoenix, a pit bull doused with accelerant and set on fire in 2009.

Closing arguments were made today and the jury deliberated for less than an hour before pronouncing the brothers not guilty of a crime that led the city to reexamine and strengthen its animal welfare laws and procedures.

Phoenix — the name the dog was given after her rescue — was euthanized days after she was found, on fire, by a Baltimore police officer.

The first trial for the Johnson brothers ended in a hung jury in February 2011.

Baltimore City State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein issued the following statement after the verdict:

“While I respect the jury’s decision, I am disappointed we didn’t achieve the outcome that we fought for during two challenging trials. Animal cruelty is a serious crime of violence, and those who commit it too frequently commit subsequent crimes of violence against humans. As we demonstrated in this case, we are dedicated to vigorously prosecuting individuals accused of this appalling offense.”

Defense attorneys for the Johnsons focused their defense on whether police mishandled the investigation and some of the evidence.

Craig Beyler, a fire protection engineer, called to the stand as an expert, testified that police mishandled clothing seized from the Johnsons’ South Baltimore home by mixing two pairs of jeans and a pair of sneakers in one bag. The clothing contained traces of an ignitable substance that could not be identified, but Beyler said it could have been a common chemical used in sneakers that might have transferred from the shoes to the jeans.

Prosecutors’ arguments linking the brothers to the burning centered mainly on a police surveillance video recorded from atop a pole near the crime scene.

No DNA, fingerprints or other forensic evidence connected the suspects to the crime.

A police sergeant identified the brothers in the video, in which two young men can be seen walking the dog minutes before the burning, and running away from the scene afterwards. A bystander, Tiera Goodman, told police soon after the incident she too saw the brothers run from the scene.

But Goodman refused to testify in the retrial. A video of her testimony from the first trial was played instead.

(Photo: WBAL)

Palm Beach County animal control officers seized a 10-year-old dog from a home in Belle Glade after her leg was reportedly cut off by her owner with a handsaw.

Luc Jean Baptiste, 48, was charged with felony animal cruelty after a witness said he duct-taped the dog’s mouth shut, hog-tied her, and sawed through her right front leg, the Palm Beach Post reports.

The witness told animal control officers that Baptiste removed the leg because the dog had injured it.

The dog also has a severe infection in her uterus, a sign that she has been used for frequent breeding, officials said.

Six other dogs and four puppies were also removed from the home, where sheriff’s deputies originally went to investigate a shooting.

Officials hope to repair the maimed dog’s leg and eventually put her up for adoption.

Animal control officials have named the pit bull mix Karma.

“I think that what goes around comes around,” said Animal Control Director Dianne Sauve. “I think whoever did this to this dog is going to be carrying a karmic debt for a long, long time.”

(Photos: Palm Beach County Animal Control)

More than four years after Little Red came to Best Friends from the dogfighting ring that operated on NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s property, she has been officially adopted.

Susan, a longtime Best Friends supporter from the Midwest, saw Little Red’s photo not long after she arrived at the Utah animal sanctuary — one of 22 former Vick dogs sent to Best Friends for rehabilitation.

“There was something about her eyes,” said Susan who became a sponsor of Little Red, contributing to her care at Best Friends.

A year after that, Susan visited Best Friends with her sister. She hoped to meet Little Red then, but wasn’t allowed to because all of the former Vick dogs were court-ordered to be kept apart from all non-staff at the sanctuary.

A year later, Susan was back again, and by this time, Little Red had moved to an area where Susan could at least see her from a distance.

Still another year later, in February 2011, Susan returned to volunteer again. This time, she was able to volunteer where Little Red lived, but still wasn’t allowed to interact with her directly.

But she did get to see her every day, for a week.

After that week, Susan began wondering about the possibility of bringing Little Red home with her, and she applied to adopt her.

Last September, Susan was cleared to take Little Red home as a foster dog. According to court orders, all former Vick dogs have to first be fostered for a period of six months before they can be adopted.

Last month, those six months came to an end, and Susan recently returned to Best Friends with Little Red to fill out the final adoption paperwork.

“She’s done fabulously well,” Susan says.

It took a little while for Little Red to feel confident in her new surroundings. She was leery of the wide-open spaces on Susan’s six-acre, fenced property. For weeks, she stayed next to the fence. Now though, Little Red makes full use of the space, and enjoys playing with Susan’s other four dogs.

“She runs like the wind!” Susan said.

(Photo and video courtesy of Best Friends)

A Chincoteague police officer used more force than necessary when he shot a pit bull, the dog’s owner says.

“My question is why did the police officer use a gun and not his Mace, his Taser or his stick, or call animal control,” said Amy McDonald.

McDonald, along with her dog, Bullet, was visiting her father on the Virginia island, when Bullet and his brother ventured off.

Chincoteague Police Chief Eddie Lewis said the dog, a pit bull just over a year old, was running off his leash and had cornered a nearby resident and his son in a barn when police arrived, according to DelmarvaNow.com

The chief said the dog growled at Cpl. Kenneth Reese who “just didn’t have a whole lot of time to react.”

The gunshot hit Bullet in the jaw and chest.

McDonald and her 8-year-old daughter were trying to find the dogs when they heard the shot.

McDonald took Bullet to a Maryland animal hospital. She said the dog’s injuries are expected to take as long as eight weeks to heal. She was issued two tickets for her dogs being unleashed. She said the dogs wouldn’t have hurt the officer. “They’re the biggest sissies you’ve ever seen in your life.”

Lewis said the officer was aware of other dog attacks in recent years, including the mauling of a prominent public official’s granddaughter. In 2009, the six-year-old great granddaughter of Accomack County Supervisor Wanda Thornton was attacked by a dog identified in news reports as a pit bull.

“He’s aware of what damage a pit bull will do if they get ahold of you,” Lewis said of the officer.