News

So what do you do if your town council decides to ban pit bulls? Fight back! But fight back with solutions that will make your community safer. It is not enough to simply say you are against breed-specific legislation; you need to offer something more effective than a breed ban.

By Russ Mead, Best Friends Staff

And why do we need to do this? Because if they ban pit bulls today, your favorite breed may be next. Twenty-eight different breeds are now banned somewhere in the U.S. So, this is an important issue for all dog owners, not just pit bull owners.

We need to educate our neighbors and town councils about a few basic realities:

-A ban on pit bulls does little to reduce dog bites. To make a community safer from dog bites, much more effective ordinances are available.

-Breed bans only attack the symptom of a deeper problem: dogs living in our communities who either have aggressive tendencies or who have been trained to be aggressive.

First, we need to find these dogs and make it safe for them to live in our communities. The solution is not to kill them, but rather to rehabilitate them or take steps to reduce the likelihood that they will bite. Second, we need to punish breeders and trainers who profit from making dogs mean. Finally, we need to educate the public about how to treat their dogs so they don’t become aggressive. These steps, taken together, will make a community safer from dog bites.

One workable alternative to a breed-specific ban is a Family Dog Act, an ordinance that gets at the root of the dog aggression problem. It includes provisions for:

1. A progressive system of dog and owner training, muzzling, and restrictions that take effect when a dog bites or demonstrates aggression. This system reduces future or more serious injury and can even rehabilitate a dog.

2. Banning the tethering of dogs. A dog who is routinely on a chain is almost three times more likely to bite.

3. Creating criminal penalties for breeders who breed aggression into dogs and those who train dogs to be mean. We need to stop producing aggressive dogs.

A well-crafted Family Dog Act identifies dogs who truly might harm people and makes the community safer from those particular dogs. Breed bans target all dogs of a particular breed, with no regard for whether a particular dog shows aggressive tendencies. Breed bans do nothing to protect our communities from the Labradors, shelties, and golden retrievers who bite.

A Family Dog Act that identifies and deals with dogs who show aggression regardless of breed makes our communities safer. The ordinance should mandate treatment based on the severity of the bite: A small nip might require dog training. A mid-level bite could require that the dog be muzzled in public or not be walked in public at all. An aggressive attack could require that the dog live away from the public in a special kennel.

We can reduce the number of dog bites simply by banning the tethering or chaining of dogs. The Centers for Disease Control tell us that dogs who are tied up are 2.8 times more likely to bite than those who are not tied up. A tied-up dog feels trapped, unable to escape danger. The two basic defense mechanisms are fight or flight; if a dog can’t run away, his instinct to bite is triggered.

There is a new culture surrounding pit bulls and other “tough” dogs. Breeders are looking for the “bad” dogs and breeding them to be even meaner. This practice has introduced dogs into our communities that are not the same dogs we lived with even 10 years ago.

To rehabilitate the breed of pit bulls and other “tough” dog breeds, our communities need ordinances that make it a crime to breed dogs who have bitten in the past. Those who train dogs to be mean should also be prosecuted. People who take nice dogs and make them aggressive should pay for endangering the rest of us and mentally injuring the dogs.

This is an important issue in America now and acting today may save your dog tomorrow. “Make a plan and beat the ban.”