But, but pit bulls...

Van Zandt County sheriff credits family's pit bull with keeping her safe

But everyone knows that breed of dogs are murderers! They're vicious monsters that need to be banned for the safety of the public.

I'm shocked the dog didn't just eat her when it found itself alone with the girl.

Sweet.

Found 2 hours away, or 2 miles away?

Actually, Brownie was just bringing her to the local underground toddler fight.

IXI Jim IXI: A dog named Jayne?

He'll be in his bunk.

Good publicity for Pit Bulls.

When I was a kid we had two bloodhound/coonhound mixes. A son (maybe 4 years old) of my dad's friend wandered off from our house. Those dogs took off and found the boy in 20 minutes about a mile away in a pasture. They sat with him and bayed until we all got there. Good dogs.

a 3 year old got two hours away...on foot?

"The dog helped her stay safe, I think," he said.

Or maybe she was just in your local woods and not the congo jungle. It's not like she was out there dodging predictors and murderous white gorillas. The world isn't really as dangerous as you probably think it is.

/Except when it is.

By Elvira Sakmari
...
Van Zandt County Sheriff Pat Burnett Jr. said Zoey Smith was found just after 7 p.m. in a wooded area nearly two hours away, holding on to the collar of the family's pit bull named Brownie.

Dear Elvira,

"Hours" are units of time, not distance.

Sincerely,
The rest of the world

Huh? The yokels in the article say the dog both lead her astray and kept her safe. Well... which is it? What the fark kind of parents are these anyway? The pitbull is the least of this kid's problems.

cgraves67: Good publicity for Pit Bulls.

When I was a kid we had two bloodhound/coonhound mixes. A son (maybe 4 years old) of my dad's friend wandered off from our house. Those dogs took off and found the boy in 20 minutes about a mile away in a pasture. They sat with him and bayed until we all got there. Good dogs.

TFA doesn't tell you about the circle of dog-chewed corpses found around the little girl.

Damn good dog.

/Now do I buy a fence for my toddler or a dog?

wherenow: a 3 year old got two hours away...on foot?

She Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: By Elvira Sakmari
...
Van Zandt County Sheriff Pat Burnett Jr. said Zoey Smith was found just after 7 p.m. in a wooded area nearly two hours away, holding on to the collar of the family's pit bull named Brownie.

Dear Elvira,

"Hours" are units of time, not distance.

Sincerely,
The rest of the world



Disagrees.

BurnShrike: Van Zandt County sheriff credits family's pit bull with keeping her safe

But everyone knows that breed of dogs are murderers! They're vicious monsters that need to be banned for the safety of the public.

I'm shocked the dog didn't just eat her when it found itself alone with the girl.

Simple, the dog was saving her for when he got hungry. Duh.

I want to know if this book is in the house.

That'll do, Pit.

carnifex2005: wherenow: a 3 year old got two hours away...on foot?

She Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: By Elvira Sakmari
...
Van Zandt County Sheriff Pat Burnett Jr. said Zoey Smith was found just after 7 p.m. in a wooded area nearly two hours away, holding on to the collar of the family's pit bull named Brownie.

Dear Elvira,

"Hours" are units of time, not distance.

Sincerely,
The rest of the world

[i.imgur.com image 640x808]

Disagrees.

Are you suggesting this toddler was attempting to make the Kessel Run?

if I read the article correctly (assuming it even conveyed any useful info) Brownie was the cause of the child's disappearance when it led the girl away into the woods.

Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: By Elvira Sakmari
...
Van Zandt County Sheriff Pat Burnett Jr. said Zoey Smith was found just after 7 p.m. in a wooded area nearly two hours away, holding on to the collar of the family's pit bull named Brownie.

Dear Elvira,

"Hours" are units of time, not distance.

Sincerely,
The rest of the world

Not in Texas. I never thought about it until I started working a job with some northern folk who asked me why everyone here measures distance in time.

It may be silly, but that's the way it is.

HailRobonia: Actually, Brownie was just bringing her to the local underground toddler fight.

So Brownie was recruiting for the Tea Party?

HailRobonia: Actually, Brownie was just bringing her to the local underground toddler fight.

... made me snort in my tea - thanks for that

The missing piece of information:
Was the dog gone the whole time too?

Dog probably led the girl away, though he did lead her back and keep her safe from certain possible dangers.

Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: By Elvira Sakmari
...
Van Zandt County Sheriff Pat Burnett Jr. said Zoey Smith was found just after 7 p.m. in a wooded area nearly two hours away, holding on to the collar of the family's pit bull named Brownie.

Dear Elvira,

"Hours" are units of time, not distance.

Sincerely,
The rest of the world

Dear Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion,

We are a huge country with extreme varying speeds. Using miles does not give us the right information that we need. A twenty mile drive in the city going at 35 mph is very different from a twenty mile drive on the highway at 75 mph. So, we use time as a distance measurement. Everyone here uses time as a distance measurement. That's just a cultural thing. As in, "How far is it from Virginia to New York?" "Oh, about five hours." Because you will be hitting at least half a dozen different speed changes so miles distance tells you nothing.

Sincerely,
USA

But they're animals!!



/dnrtfa

IXI Jim IXI: wherenow: a 3 year old got two hours away...on foot?

To be fair, she didn't really have to walk too far to get two hours away. She just had to stand there for 120 minutes.

Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: carnifex2005: wherenow: a 3 year old got two hours away...on foot?

She Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: By Elvira Sakmari
...
Van Zandt County Sheriff Pat Burnett Jr. said Zoey Smith was found just after 7 p.m. in a wooded area nearly two hours away, holding on to the collar of the family's pit bull named Brownie.

Dear Elvira,

"Hours" are units of time, not distance.

Sincerely,
The rest of the world

[i.imgur.com image 640x808]

Disagrees.

Are you suggesting this toddler was attempting to make the Kessel Run?

Impossible. No child that small has a cloaking device.

This dog deserves an extra thick prime cut of beef tenderloin filet. Keep being kickass, Brownie!

Ebenator: But, but pit bulls...

He's just waiting for her to become a little bigger snack before taking her out.

mekki:
Dear Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion,

We are a huge country with extreme varying speeds. Using miles does not give us the right information that we need. A twenty mile drive in the city going at 35 mph is very different from a twenty mile drive on the highway at 75 mph. So, we use time as a distance measurement. Everyone here uses time as a distance measurement. That's just a cultural thing. As in, "How far is it from Virginia to New York?" "Oh, about five hours." Because you will be hitting at least half a dozen different speed changes so miles distance tells you nothing.

Sincerely,
USA

So, what you're saying is that she got stuck in traffic?

Don't you think it would make more sense to express the distance toddler, on foot, managed to achieve in terms of miles, kilometers, football fields, etc. rather than a term generally reserved for a person traveling major highways by automobile? Even a more generalized term like "two streets over" or "the next neighborhood" would be more meaningful than to say she was found "two hours away", especially when you just got done telling us that she was missing for six hours. There's a major disconnect in the reporting there.

But, since you seem happy to accept crap reporting, I won't argue with you.

cgraves67: Good publicity for Pit Bulls.

When I was a kid we had two bloodhound/coonhound mixes. A son (maybe 4 years old) of my dad's friend wandered off from our house. Those dogs took off and found the boy in 20 minutes about a mile away in a pasture. They sat with him and bayed until we all got there. Good dogs.

Pure-bred pit bulls that are not mistreated are actually some of the least likely dogs to bite, because during the creation of the breed they were intended as fighting dogs, and any of them that showed a propensity to bite humans (as opposed to other dogs) were not allowed to breed, and in fact were often put down. It actually takes a lot of mistreatment to get a pure-bred pit bull to bite people. That said, purebred pit bulls can be a big danger to neighboring dogs more than to neighboring people.

Now, part of the problem is that other dog breeds did not have this same breeding effort to reducing biting, and so pit bull crosses are actually a lot more dangerous than the purebreds. They tend to keep the bite strength that makes a pit bull so dangerous in the first place, but lose a lot of the biting inhibition because they have the same tendency to bite as the non-pit bull parent. Considering that pit bull crosses are often, effectively, mutts, they are also more commonly owned by people who mistreat the dogs or at least do not train them properly. A mistreated, mistrained pit bull cross is often a very, very dangerous dog.

Dog of death saving toddlers?

/good job
//have a biscuit

However, she was found six hours after she went missing. Doesn't that mean she was six hours away?

/I was told there would be no math.

found six hours later?

my parents used to call that, "go play outside".

mekki:
Dear Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion,

We are a huge country with extreme varying speeds. Using miles does not give us the right information that we need. A twenty mile drive in the city going at 35 mph is very different from a twenty mile drive on the highway at 75 mph. So, we use time as a distance measurement. Everyone here uses time as a distance measurement. That's just a cultural thing. As in, "How far is it from Virginia to New York?" "Oh, about five hours." Because you will be hitting at least half a dozen different speed changes so miles distance tells you nothing.

Sincerely,
USA

Dear USA,

Surprisingly enough, we agree with you in general principle on this one, and generally measure travel distance the same way. Mostly because when someone is asking "how far to so and so place" what they're really asking is "how long is going to take me to get there?" It's more of a conversational shortcut than anything because if someone actually answered that it's x number of kilometers, the next question would just be about how long it would take anyway.

However, in this case (the toddler was two hours away) it is inappropriate and kinda dumb sounding since it's not really talking about travel in any generalized way.

Sincerely,
Canada

c.c.: The rest of the world, Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion

mekki: Using miles does not give us the right information that we need.

Then maybe you should ask for the information you're looking for. If I ask you how far it is to a location, surprise surprise, I actually want to know the distance. If I wanted to know long it would take to get there, I'd have asked you that. See how that works?

Maybe you folks should stop being so lazy with your communication.

johneee: mekki:
Dear Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion,

We are a huge country with extreme varying speeds. Using miles does not give us the right information that we need. A twenty mile drive in the city going at 35 mph is very different from a twenty mile drive on the highway at 75 mph. So, we use time as a distance measurement. Everyone here uses time as a distance measurement. That's just a cultural thing. As in, "How far is it from Virginia to New York?" "Oh, about five hours." Because you will be hitting at least half a dozen different speed changes so miles distance tells you nothing.

Sincerely,
USA

Dear USA,

Surprisingly enough, we agree with you in general principle on this one, and generally measure travel distance the same way. Mostly because when someone is asking "how far to so and so place" what they're really asking is "how long is going to take me to get there?" It's more of a conversational shortcut than anything because if someone actually answered that it's x number of kilometers, the next question would just be about how long it would take anyway.

However, in this case (the toddler was two hours away) it is inappropriate and kinda dumb sounding since it's not really talking about travel in any generalized way.

Sincerely,
Canada

c.c.: The rest of the world, Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion

Dear Johnee, Ganglion, and others too dim to understand time as a distance:

Obviously time is not a measurement of distance. But we're not talking about rocket surgery, here. Perhaps the kid had a straight line walk through well traveled paths. Perhaps she had to bush whack her way through the jungles of Canton. There is no way to know if you cite only distance as the measurement. It is most useful to give both the time and distance so everybody is happy and informed.

Either way, time as a distance is both useful and common. And Ganglion's orig comment smells of troll, so I feed you accordingly.

Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion: mekki:
Dear Pelvic Splanchnic Ganglion,

We are a huge country with extreme varying speeds. Using miles does not give us the right information that we need. A twenty mile drive in the city going at 35 mph is very different from a twenty mile drive on the highway at 75 mph. So, we use time as a distance measurement. Everyone here uses time as a distance measurement. That's just a cultural thing. As in, "How far is it from Virginia to New York?" "Oh, about five hours." Because you will be hitting at least half a dozen different speed changes so miles distance tells you nothing.

Sincerely,
USA

So, what you're saying is that she got stuck in traffic?

Don't you think it would make more sense to express the distance toddler, on foot, managed to achieve in terms of miles, kilometers, football fields, etc. rather than a term generally reserved for a person traveling major highways by automobile? Even a more generalized term like "two streets over" or "the next neighborhood" would be more meaningful than to say she was found "two hours away", especially when you just got done telling us that she was missing for six hours. There's a major disconnect in the reporting there.

But, since you seem happy to accept crap reporting, I won't argue with you.

You still don't get it. The time as a measurement thing is ingrained in us. We can adjust automatically depending on the means of transportation.

So, to say that the toddler was two hours away, we know that is quite a distance for her though not for an adult because we can imagine how much of a distance a toddler can take within each step.

To say, "She was in next neighborhood" isn't really telling. How big are the neighborhoods in that area? A neighborhood in the city is usually smaller than a neighborhood in the burbs and a suburb neighborhood is usually smaller than one in a small town where you can go to farrrrrrmmmm, neighborhood, farrrrrrmmmm, neighborhood.

Again, it's a cultural thing. And something you will not understand unless you live here.

syberpud: BurnShrike: Van Zandt County sheriff credits family's pit bull with keeping her safe

But everyone knows that breed of dogs are murderers! They're vicious monsters that need to be banned for the safety of the public.

I'm shocked the dog didn't just eat her when it found itself alone with the girl.

Simple, the dog was saving her for when he got hungry. Duh.

Came for this and leave satisfied.

She was lucky the dog had probably been fed recently and still had a full tummy. Another few hours and the story would've been completely different.

The dog took the child on the Kessel run, that's clearly what happened here

Sin_City_Superhero: What is the first rule of Underground Toddler Fight Club?

Have fun and try your best?