The problem with pit bulls

What is it with 100 year old guys and outdated ideas?

On the back of Hugh Wirth’s hysterical scare campaign, Graeme Smith from the LDH has weighed in with a call to declare all “pit bull types” dangerous saying;

“The number of declared dangerous dogs known to and registered by authorities is the tip of the iceberg compared to the number of dogs with the potential to turn killer.”

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“The only way of preventing people and other defenceless pets from being attacked and killed by pit bull-type dogs is to declare all of them a restricted breed. Not just the pedigrees but any dog with any part of the breed in it.
Herald Sun

Yikes!

So just what is a ‘pit bull’? Well, some of the countries the biggest ID experts can’t actually say..

WA Rangers Association president Samantha Tarling said identification had emerged as a fundamental problem, with WA’s chief veterinarian refusing to ‘testify to the DNA’ of a dog.

“I once challenged some owners that their dog was a pit bull,” she said. “They showed me the parents with the paperwork. It was a cross between a boxer and a labrador. I could have sworn it was a pit bull.”
The West Australian

But really, what does it all mean to the average pet owner? Given that staffies are some of the most common dogs in the country and along with ridgebacks and mastiffs are the most likely to be misidentified as a a pitbull, it means that many, many pets are at risk.

Ready to play ‘Spot the Pibble type dog?’

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Here’s the thing; all of these guys have been assessed as temperamentally sound and been rehomed to new families. But with breed ID’s driven by the opinion of the assessor, rather than science that will hold up in court all are all at risk of being labeled of ‘pit bull type’ in the future. What Hugh and Graeme are proposing is that round these guys up; regardless of whether they’ve ever done anything wrong and kill them because of the way they look.

So how’s it working overseas?

These are pictures of just one load of dogs that Denver has rounded up and killed as part of their breed ban. “Well,” you might say, “dogs are killed every day in shelters across the land.” Yes, they are and it is all awful. But these were dogs who had homes. These were owned dogs that got picked up and killed for what they look like, not for anything they did. Underneath this pile of dead dogs, but not shown, were something like twelve puppies that were not even weaned yet. The photographer wanted to show them, but didn’t have the heart to move the bodies of the adults around to show the puppies. Either way, this is how a breed ban manifests itself–in the rounding up and killing family dogs.
Wag the Dog

So has Denvers 20 year old pit bull ban made the community safer? (20 years! To give you some idea why the ‘old chaps’ still think it’s revolutionary, while the rest of the scientific community has moved on);

…. authorities in Denver have stubbornly stood beside their ban – -and have done so without any evidence that the ban has actually improved public safety. In fact, the city admitted as much last November in an article by the Colorado Springs Gazette:

As director of Denver’s Animal Care and Control, which has euthanized nearly 2,000 pit bulls in three years, Doug Kelley has to play the bad guy in the pit bull debate. But even he is not a strong advocate for the pit bull ban.

“You’ll never see a more controversial ordinance,” Kelley said.

He said the ban has lessened the number of attacks by pit bulls, certainly, but he has no evidence that the ban has decreased the total number of dog bites or attacks in the city. He also said the ban gives people “a false sense of security.”

In spite of the lack of success of the ordinance in improving public safety and in spite of growing financial burdens of defending their breed ban in court, the city has stubbornly stood by its failed ordinance.  They have done so in spite of other embarrassing and costly situations — including killing over 2,000 pit bulls over the past 3 years– many of which were family pets,  holding down a former military officer at gunpoint while they confiscated her dog, a child killed by a non-pit bull type dog, and the highly publicized incident where a dog named Forrest was confiscated from his owner, deemed not aggressive, but the breed ban prevented the dog from going back to his owner and thus he had to be shipped out of state.

But that might be changing.

For the past few months, Councilwoman Carla Madison has been working on a proposal that would end the city’s ban on pit bulls. Apparently the city is looking to save some money — in efforts to close its $120 million shortfall.  The city apparently is looking to repeal the ban, in part, because they are looking for a compromise to help squash the legal costs associated with defending their law and stop the mounting legal fees. A cost calculator put together by Best Friends Animal Society puts the cost of enforcing the city’s BSL at about $803,170 annually….and I can gurantee their litigation costs that they have figured in don’t even come close to covering Denver’s bill.  It appears as if Madison at least may have the support of the mayor as well.
KC Dog Blog

So, that’d be a no.

Check out the ASPCA’s position paper ‘Are Breed-Specific Laws Effective?’

Perhaps the most unintended yet harmful consequence of breed-specific laws is their tendency to compromise rather than enhance public safety. When limited animal control resources are used to regulate or ban a certain breed of dog, without regard to behavior, the focus is shifted away from routine, effective enforcement of laws that have the best chance of making our communities safer: dog license laws, leash laws, animal fighting laws, anti-tethering laws, laws facilitating spaying and neutering and laws that require all dog owners to control their dogs, regardless of breed.

So, that’d be a double no.

And finally, Lynn Bradshaw, the national president of the RSPCA has come out in opposition of both Hugh and Graeme saying;

We know that a dog’s tendency to bite is the product of at least five factors: the dog’s genetic predisposition to aggression; early socialisation to humans; its training or mistraining; the quality of its care and supervision; and the behaviour of the victim. Genetics is only one of these factors. In the wrong circumstances, any dog, regardless of size, breed or mixture of breeds can be dangerous. The RSPCA believes that deeming a dog as “dangerous” should therefore be done on the basis of its behaviour, not its breed.

In fact, studies have found that dog breeds subject to breed bans are no more likely to attack or cause more serious injuries than any other similarly sized dog. While there is some evidence that certain breeds may be genetically predisposed to aggressive behaviour, most research concludes that breed-specific legislation is unlikely to have a significant impact on the frequency of dog bites. Recent experience both here and overseas has also shown us that it is virtually impossible to effectively enforce such legislation.
SMH

Triple no = fail

I’m not sure Australians fully understand how uselessly crap this legislation is at its goal of making the community safer, the sheer expense involved in policing it, or the fatal flow on effect it will have on hundreds of thousands of ‘pit bull types’ that are presently living as family pets and whom will never, ever pose any threat to public safety.

** Cheat sheet for the breed id’s

1. Staffy x
2. Staffy
3. Bullmastiff x
4. Staffy x
5. Neo x Mastiff
6. Ridgeback Cross
7. Greyhound (purebred)
8. Mastiff x
9. American Staffordshire (purebred)
10. Ridgeback
11. Staffy x
12. Sharpei x
13. Staffordshire Terrier
14. Kelpie
15. Staffy x
16. Bull Arab
17. Boxer
18. Great Dane x Bull mastiff
19. Rhodesian Ridgeback