December 2, 2009Comments are closed.dogs
Hat tip to KC Dog blog for his great posts this week about the inefficacy of BSL around the world:
… residents have irrational fears of ‘pit bulls’, but can’t identify them, they make calls about non-problem dogs, that aren’t ‘pit bulls’, that tie up a lot of animal control resources. Yakima, WA is just one city that has struggled with this as well.
Ontario’s second largest city, Ottawa, has decided against enforcing the ban and as long as the dog is not a problem, they are leaving them alone — noting that the law was too costly and difficult to enforce.
Death in the UK highlights the failings of BSL
The reason this dog attacked is the same — regardless of what breed of dog it ends up being. But unfortunately, in the UK, they’ve chosen to focus on breeds, and throwing the educational piece out the window — and the citizens in the UK are worse off for it.
In spite of the breed ban that dates back to 1991 – -and quite likely BECAUSE of the breed ban — major attacks are becoming almost commonplace in the UK.
and a bit closer to home…
Gold Coast, Australia learns of difficulties of enforcing BSL
In 2003, a Gold Coast, Australia woman was attacked by a ‘pit bull’. The victim appeared before the city council and demanded the city do something to ban ‘pit bulls’.
Like too many cities, the hysteria of the moment was to much to overlook, and they began one of the strictest enforcements of Queensland’s state-wide ban on four breeds of dogs: Dogo Argentino, Fila Brasileiro, Japanese Tosa and American Pit Bull Terrier.
Years later,the Gold Coast City Council has discovered to its great cost, banning pit bulls is not as easy as it might seem. The city has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars (likely in the millions) on court cases pertaining to accurate breed identification — having lost at least 57 such cases in the past few years.
If you’re going to bring in programs which kill innocent dogs, cost millions in taxpayer funded dollars and are a huge drain animal management resources, then you want to be doing so based on a premise which has been shown to actually work. And BSL ain’t it.
