Any minute now we’re going to hear from a chorus of apoplectic pit bull owners insisting that their dogs do not kill more people every year than all other breeds combined. 

No matter what the numbers say. 

Their dogs do not routinely shred family pets. Even though they do.

They’ll insist their dogs are just love bunnies. Gentle as kittens. They may even post photos of their dogs with infants.

Chilling, frankly.

How do I know what’s coming? I’ve been telling the truth about pit bulls for almost 20 years.

I first wrote about this muscular, unpredictable breed in 2001 when a family love bunny in Great Neck Meadows chewed his way through a garage door to attack an 11-year-old girl shooting hoops in her driveway. A neighbor saved the girl’s life by beating the savage animal into submission with a pail.

In 2005 I wrote about Dorothy Sullivan, an 82-year-old Spotsylvania woman who was fatally shredded by a pack of marauding pit bulls. 

That same year I wrote about a Suffolk toddler who was killed by the family’s pit bull mix. 

In 2016 I wrote about the Hertford County, NC woman who was killed by her own gentle-as-a-kitten pit bull.

In June of 2017 I wrote about the 90-year-old Virginia Beach woman who was disemboweled and had most of one arm chewed off by her daughter’s newly adopted pit bull. She died hours later.

In December of 2017, I wrote about the 22-year-old pit bull owner in Goochland who was ripped apart by her sweet pets.

Between sordid tales of human carnage, I’ve also written about family pets mauled by pit bulls. 

In 2006, for instance, I penned a column about an attack on a miniature dachshund in Norfolk. The dog happened to be the beloved pet of the then-Vice Mayor Daun Hester.

“Daun Hester and ‘Tootsie’ were taking a morning stroll when…a pit bull suddenly grabbed the little dog by the neck. Luckily, Tootsie survived,” I wrote at the time.

“Hester told me that encountering that vicious pit bull was ‘the worst experience of my life’."

This from a cancer survivor.

Why are we talking pit bulls today? Because it appears that a pair of pits with a taste for blood are running loose at the North End of Virginia Beach.

Last Friday night they killed a little Maltipoo named Blizzard on the beach at 48th Street. The Virginian-Pilot reported that it may have been the work of the same demented duo that attacked and nearly killed a therapy dog, Bella, on the same street in May. 

In both instances witnesses said the owner of the vicious dogs - a tall, dark-haired white guy - ran away.

Freaking coward.

In 2005 - after a 12-year-old San Francisco boy was killed by his family's pit bulls - animal rights activist and PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk wrote a column that called for a ban on the breed.

"These dogs were designed specifically to fight other animals and kill them, for sport. Hence, the barrel chest, the thick hammer-like head, the strong jaws, the perseverance and stamina,” she wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Pits can take down a bull weighing in at over a thousand pounds…. Many are loving and will kiss on sight, but many are unpredictable."

"An unpredictable Chihuahua is one thing,” said Newkirk. “An unpredictable pit is another.”

I’m not a fan of PETA, but when its founder is right, she’s right. 

Sadly, Virginia lawmakers are too spineless to take on the rabid pit bull lobby. 

It’s up to us to protect ourselves and our pets from marauding dogs. 

After her encounter with a pit bull, Norfolk's vice mayor began to carry a baseball bat on her nightly walks.

Folks who take their dogs to the beach should do the same.

Batter up!