Pit Bullshit

Many Northern Californians were horrified to hear of the recent fatal mauling of 12-year-old Nick Faibish by his own pet pit bulls.

The horror continues as Nick's mother continues to dig her own hole.

Hours before being mauled to death by the family pit bull, 12-year- old Nicholas Faibish had been told to stay in the basement separated from the dogs, said his distraught mother, Maureen Faibish, who called The Chronicle on Saturday, trying to make sense of what she called a "freak accident.''

"I put him down there, with a shovel on the door,'' said Faibish, who had left the boy alone with the dogs on June 3 to run some errands. "He had a bunch of food. And I told him, 'Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me.''

This is sort of like that point in Dave Chappelle's infamous Rick James skit where the videotape gets rewound, as James first denies, then immediately admits, trashing Eddie Murphy's expensive suede couch in a cocaine-induced stupor. Let's rewind that paragraph and take a look at Maureen Faibish's operative logic: Clearly she knew these dogs were dangerous in the first place, or she wouldn't have taken the bizarre precautionary step of locking her son in the basement.

Worse yet, it's Nicholas' own fault for disobeying his mother. Like the late Rick James, it appears that Maureen Faibish simply does not understand just how self-contradictory she is, nor how the more she says, the more she incriminates herself.

But wait, there's more!

Faibish felt compelled to call The Chronicle, she said, because she was upset by comments in a Saturday column that disparaged family members who own pit bulls.

In the column an Oakland surgeon who often treats bites by pit bulls said, "when you have an animal like that in your house you are recklessly endangering your family.''

"They made it sound like we put our kids in a war zone,'' Faibish said in a phone conversation. "That's not true. My kids got along great with (the dogs). We were never seeing any kind of violent tendencies.''

Uh-huh. That's why she locked the kid in the basement, because they were just big ol' wuvvable puddytats.

Look, I'm the first guy to step up in defense of pit bulls. I've known several people who had them, and they all seemed like great animals, very loyal and friendly. The problem here is that pit bulls are too loyal; that is, they bond with one and only one human. They will fight and die for that human. This is not a secret; pit bull owners typically advertise this attribute in a positive light.

And the human whom these dogs had bonded to, Faibish's father, was out of town. When their alpha male is gone, this can be problematic for the temperament of a pit bull. They can be very unpredictable, and decide to contest whoever happens to be in the room, in the absence of the alpha male. Such was the fate of poor Nicholas Faibish.

It should also be kept in mind that almost all breeds of dog, when they do attack, do it in self-defense (or what they think is self-defense, such as a child messing with their food). And when they attack, they typically do it only as much as it takes to drive away the "offender".

Pit bulls are one of a handful of breeds (such as rottweilers and doberman pinschers) that can and frequently do attack for reasons other than self-defense (or even for no reason at all); and more dangerously, they attack with killing in mind -- they will not stop until either the opponent is dead or the alpha male calls them off (which is not always even successful). This is well known to most people whether or not they own such dogs; it should have been especially well known to the Faibishes.

She talked to The Chronicle by telephone and later at her father's home where, sitting on a couch and wrapped in a blanket, Faibish held back tears as she spoke about her son and the day he died.

"It's Nicky's time to go," she said. "When you're born you're destined to go and this was his time."

Unbelievable. Just un-fuckin'-believable. Does anybody really believe that part of God's divine plan was for Nicholas Faibish to have his face chewed off by his own dogs? I understand that grieving people can say some really stupid things, but this is incredible. This is unforgivably, monumentally, stupid and callous, and ultimately why I strongly believe that Maureen Faibish should be prosecuted for criminal negligence.

More deep thoughts from this moron:

Clearly struggling with her emotions, Faibish said the death of her son had become "a media frenzy.'' On one hand, she continued to defend pit bulls and her dogs.

"Even after the whole thing,'' she said, "I'm not mad at my dogs. I just love them to death.''

I'm not sure how such an utterly despicable person lives with themselves. I suppose saying stupid things like the quote above is part of the coping mechanism for such a person. She could say that they had been great pets and this was a freak accident and yada yada, but even after doing what they did to her son, she loves them, she's not even mad at them.

Ella and Rex II were "family dogs," Faibish said. They spent most of their time inside the house, slept in bed with the children every night and woke Maureen Faibish up every morning by licking her face. Ella was trained to lick her makeup off and kiss her ear.

Ewwwww. I like dogs and all, but I have never understood these weirdos that let their mutts lick their faces. Do you let them do it before or after they lick their own balls and eat their own (or another animal's) shit? I mean. That "dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's" bullshit is a nauseating bit of fiction. It's just fucking nasty.

Nor, she said, would she caution families who have pit bulls as pets. In the wake of this tragedy, some parents are wondering if they should keep their pit bulls.

"Oh, they should keep their pit bulls,'' Faibish said. "Even though my son has been killed in a tragic accident, I don't think they should be banned. You've just got to worry about them when they are in heat. I didn't know Rex was going to be so possessive.''

Again, this is just self-serving nonsense on Maureen Faibish's part. No, all people should not be banned from keeping pit bulls as pets because of this tragedy (though some steps should be taken to curtail irresponsible owners, such as mandatory training, fencing, and liability insurance requirements); yes, she did know that something was up with these dogs because, for the thousandth time, she deliberately took the precautionary step of locking her son in the basement. If they were harmless, loving dogs, what was she attempting to protect her son from?

I don't know if sending Maureen Faibish to jail will do her or her family any good; in fact, it probably won't. But accountability for this has got to start somewhere.