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Elgin, Illinois to Vote on Breed Discriminatory Ordinance

October 14, 2009, 11:39AM MT

By Denise A LeBeau

Help prevent breed discrimination

UPDATE: 10/14/2009: CITY COUNCIL MEETING TONIGHT! Meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. The city may hear options on the breed discriminatory ordinance.

Elgin Residents, we need you! The City of Elgin has renewed its interest in a breed discriminatory ordinance.

The City has repeatedly expressed its disinterest in dealing with anyone other than Elgin residents, so we desperately need Elgin residents to contact the city to help City Council understand that banning certain breeds of dogs does nothing to keep the residents safe from dog bites and is ineffective use of taxpayer money.

Click here to contact City Council today!

Written by Best Friends Staff

To Illinois Residents

Elgin, Illinois is considering breed discriminatory legislation (BDL). Please send your polite and respectful opposition to the Elgin officials below and provide effective alternatives to BDL.

Request More Useful Legislation
Best Friends opposes canine profiling as it does not reduce dog bite incidents nor effectively manage dangerous dogs. Rather than breed-discriminatory restrictions, Elgin should mirror good generic dangerous dog/reckless owner laws that have been enacted in Minnesota.

Some of these laws include regulations that:
• Protect innocent dogs and responsible owners.
• Encourage residents to spay/neuter their pets.
• Effectively identify and manage truly dangerous dogs.
• Restrict tethering.
• Enforce stricter consequences for dog fighting.
• Prevent reckless owners from having dogs.

3. Give reasons and examples
Chose from the list below or share your own. Remember to be always be respectful and avoid being emotional. This is your chance to educate someone about truly effective ways to manage dangerous dogs.

• It is often difficult for even experts to determine the breed of a dog-particularly with mixed breed dogs. Click here to find the pit bulls on the web. Many dogs are misidentified and confiscated simply for their appearance.

• Breed discriminatory laws cause unintended hardship to responsible owners of friendly dogs that happen to fall within the regulated breed category.

• Breed-discriminatory laws compromise public safety by requiring officers to enforce regulation on dogs that may or may not be dangerous instead of investing resources into proven, effective tactics that make the community safer.

• A dog is an individual with its own personality. It should be judged on its temperament and not its appearance.

• Studies of pre and post breed ban dog-bite-rates in the United Kingdom and Spain concluded that their pit bull breed ban had no effect whatsoever on reducing dog bites.

• Italy recently revoked its breed ban stating the ban had no scientific justification.

• Calgary, Canada has lowest dog bite rates in 25 years, without enacting BDL.

Contact City Council Members Today!
Available contact information listed

City of Elgin
(Name of Council Representative)
City of Elgin
150 Dexter Ct.
Elgin, IL 60120-5555
Phone: 847-931-5590
Fax: 847-931-5610

Click here To email Mayor and City Council Members

Thank you for taking action for animals!

Additional Information and Resources

• Join the Stop BDL community for more information on how you can help put an end to breed discrimination.
• Learn more about breed bans and dog bite facts at the National Canine Research Council.

Photograph by Clay Myers, Best Friends Staff
Posted by Denise LeBeau, Best Friends Staff

Comments

Posted June 17, 2009, 9:37AM by kwalton

I sent out e-mails and got this response:

Thanks for your e-mail on this quality of life and safety issue Elgin citizens are struggling with.

We are working hard to do what is right for the citizens of Elgin. I have personally promised our citizens that I will not be swayed by anyone who does not live or work in Elgin on this topic. It's too important of an issue.

Sincerely,
Councilman John Prigge

PLEASE e-mail this man and POLITLEY inform him that his decision will have an immediate ripple affect that will not ONLY affect the citizens of Elgin, but animal welfare and rescue groups throughout IL as well as many other states!

prigge_j@cityofelgin.org

THANK YOU!

Posted June 14, 2009, 4:30PM by patvanil

It is not the dogs who should be banned, it is the owners of these animals. Banning a specific breed will do nothing to stop gang, drug, and dog fighting activity. They will find another way to break the law.
Whatever laws are currently on the books should be enforced. You are not solving the problems, you are moving the problems to other towns and neighborhoods. It is like spitting in the wind, dog fighting is endemic in the U.S. Education and mandatory spay/neuter laws might be a start. However, again you cannot stop stupid.

Posted June 15, 2009, 1:52PM by nicol

BSL does not work... look at Denver... it has been a abysmal failure. There are no bad dogs, just bad people. Dogs are a reflection of their owners and the way they have been treated and trained, nothing more, nothing less. That is why we need tough laws that go after all the people who abuse, mistreat, torture, fight, and neglect dogs. Until you target the right end of the leash, the problem will never go away. Abusive and reckless people must be arrested, prosecuted, serve jail time and must be banned from having animals for the rest of their lives. If you take their dog away or ban a breed, they simply move onto another. I lived in the UK where they have BSL, and guess what, the deranged sick people who would abuse and mistreat pit bulls are doing it to other breeds. The current breeds of choice are akitas and chocolate labs. IT IS THE PEOPLE THAT ARE THE PROBLEM, not the dogs!!! BAN THE BAD PEOPLE.

Posted June 17, 2009, 10:46PM by Mimi

I hope Councilman Prigge doesn't mean that his determination not to be "swayed" is also a determination not to be informed. I appreciate his interest in not bowing to external pressures, but a good idea is a good idea wherever it comes from, and relevant data is still relevant, regardless of the address of the person presenting it. He is right: it's too important of an issue.

Posted July 15, 2009, 11:47PM by sillyrabbit02

Elgin city council is considering a ban on "Pit Bulls" after a Chihuahua was allegedly attacked by two dogs and later euthanized due to her injuries. However, as far as I know, details of the situation were never clarified. Did the Chihuahua run onto the dogs' property? Or were the pit bulls loose and able to attack her outside on the sidewalk? In either scenario, the responsibility lies with the owner of the respective dog(s). I am shocked and ashamed that my own town's council is actually considering a breed-specific ban on pit bulls, when there are several residents here with pit bull type dogs that we have rescued from local shelters. We have all had our dogs playing together in the dog park, along with a large variety of other breeds as well as humans of all ages. I sincerely hope that Councilman Prigge and the rest of the members will, as he states, really think about this issue before making rash and ineffective decisions. Michelle C. Elgin, IL P.S. Here is the link to a local blog with an ongoing discussion about this issue. http://elginite.org/blog/2009/07/01/elgin-considers-pit-bull-measures KWalton, I mentioned the response you received in a comment I just posted there to illustrate that the council is NOT carefully thinking this out as they claim to be. If they were, they would realize it isn't an issue that only affects current residents.