Dog attacks are now the No. 1 reason that children wind up in hospital emergency rooms. Incredibly, nearly half of all American kids have been bitten by the age of 12. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that more than $100 million gets spent yearly treating dog bites in the nation's emergency rooms, and U.S. insurance companies paid out $250 million in dog-bite liability claims in 1996. Pit bulls and pit-bull crosses (not always easy to distinguish) have caused more than a third of the nation's dog-bite fatalities since 1979 and a comparable proportion of serious injuries. You would have never have read about a poodle or a tick hound eating the toes off a baby. Pitbull owners need to register their dogs, same as someone would if they raised lions or wolves. Better yet, just do away with these dogs, all of them! People aren't smart enough to care for them properly.