A Japanese octogenarian, who had part of her ear bitten off when she was mauled by a pit bull on a street corner nearly two years ago, has suffered ongoing trauma and is unable to live an ordinary life.
The same dog later attacked and injured another passerby, and a district court in Gifu, central Japan, convicted the owner, a 28-year-old woman, of gross negligence resulting in injuries in handing down a suspended sentence in July.
In recent years, the American pit bull terrier fighting breed has become the subject of a spate of incidents across Japan, with the finger pointed at negligent supervision by their owners.
Known as one of the most lethal and powerful dog breeds in the world, pit bulls have a bite force strong enough to take down bigger animals.
On the afternoon of Nov 27, 2022, at an intersection in Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture, the woman, 84, was riding her bicycle home when a male pit bull weighing 22.6 kilograms bit her right arm, causing her to topple over, before biting off half of her left ear. The owner had been walking with the dog’s leash wrapped around her waist and was pulled along by her pet when it attacked.
According to a person with knowledge of the incident, the victim, who wishes to remain anonymous, reported the incident to the police. She received medical treatment, but continues to suffer trauma symptoms such as visual and auditory hallucinations and has a persistent ringing in her ear. She remains hospitalized.
“She had the rest of her life to look forward to,” lamented a friend. Once a keen fan of going out to karaoke with friends, “it’s as if the aftereffects of that attack have forced her to shut everything down,” the friend said.
The same dog struck again on Aug 31 last year. At around 7 a.m., Sho Haraguchi, 17, then a first-year high school student, was riding his bicycle along a riverbank with a schoolmate to baseball club practice when he was bitten.
The pit bull’s fangs punctured 2-centimeter-deep holes in his leg that took about six weeks to heal.
Haraguchi was taken to the hospital by ambulance. He recalled, “It was so sudden that I couldn’t think of anything. I was upset that I couldn’t go to my club activities.”
It was later revealed that the owner had entrusted the dog-walking that day to her grandfather, who was in his 80s, without giving him adequate instructions about the animal. The dog apparently was not well behaved with the man.
The dog owner was charged with gross negligence and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, suspended for four years, for “failing to read a pamphlet on accident prevention and neglecting to train” her dog.
The judge concluded that “the danger was sufficiently foreseeable while the negligence was grave and highly reprehensible.”
Shinji Shibata, president of the Gifu Veterinary Medical Association, said, “Pit bulls can even tear through a wild boar’s skin when they bite. Proper training is necessary to own a pit bull.”
He added that at his veterinary clinic, pit bull owners are warned not to let them come in contact with other people or animals.
Sapporo, the prefectural capital of Hokkaido, and some other municipalities have under local ordinances designated pit bulls as “specified dogs” that may harm people. These authorities urge that they be kept in cages that lock and be muzzled, among other measures, and impose fines if such steps are not taken.
Gifu Prefecture does not have a similar ordinance, but it calls for walking pit bulls on streets with little to no traffic or during times of the day when there are few people as well as asking owners to hold their pet’s leash with both hands.
According to the latest data, 42 of the animals were registered in Sapporo, 191 in Ibaraki Prefecture, and nine in Saga, southwestern Japan, among other municipalities. Runaway pit bulls have become a problem in the various areas.
In April, a pit bull that had broken loose from its owner attacked another dog and its female owner on a street in Tochigi, north of Tokyo, and three others who tried to help her were also bitten on the hands and arms.
Later the same month, one of the animals escaped from a breeding facility in a small town in Hokkaido, while in June, two pit pulls bolted from a moving vehicle in Tochigi and were captured a few days later on a road close to a nearby residence.
In September, one escaped from the yard of a house in a town in Gunma Prefecture, eastern Japan, before it was discovered loose on a road two days later.
It was followed by an incident the next day when a pit bull wandered into a private home in Omitama, Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, and bit the hand of a resident. City officials tried to catch the dog, but it ran off. It was later captured near the owner’s home.
Last month, a Brazilian national was arrested on suspicion of gross negligence causing injury when one of his two pit bulls escaped in a city in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, and bit a 68-year-old passerby on the hand after the owner failed to take precautions such as tethering the dog and locking the gate of his house.
The injured high schooler’s father, Yoshihiro Haraguchi, 46, said that to prevent further incidents, “a permit system should be introduced so that the animals cannot be easily kept by people.”
© KYODO
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