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McDonald's, in an attempt to promote it's new menu offering,  has pulled an advertisement that has come back to bite them.

A Kansas City-area radio ad for the restaurant chain's new Chicken McBites was pulled Friday after only a few days on the air, according to a company spokesperson. The ad suggested to listeners that eating a Chicken McBite was less risky than petting a stray pit bull, causing some critics to cry foul.

McDonald's issued an apology by email and social media sites and people who called a toll free number got a recorded apology.

“The ad was insensitive in its mention of pit bulls. We apologize. As soon as we learned of it, we tracked the source and had the local markets pull the ad immediately. We’ll do a better job next time. It’s never our intent to offend anyone with how we communicate news about McDonald’s,” Ashlee Yingling, spokeswoman for McDonald’s Corp., said Monday, quoting from the apology.

Rachele Lizarraga of Sacramento says she found it reckless. "Why would you try to promote the safety of food?" Lizarraga has started a Facebook site and an online petition. “It was stupid marketing, playing into the media hysteria about pit bulls," she told the Associate Press.

Some critics said McDonald's should also donate to pit bull causes or use a pit in an ad.

No word from McDonald's on those ideas.

The radio ad also suggest eating a Chicken McBite is less risky than shaving your head, naming your son Sue or giving your friends your Facebook password.

(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)

Did McDonald's go too far with this ad? Should pit bull owners be enraged? Sound off below.