Breed Specific Legislation Gives Pit Bulls a Bad Reputation

In 2017 in 2017, the Springfield

Missouri, city council started discussion of a new breed-specific law (BSL) specifically aimed specifically at Pit Bulls. The proposed breed restriction has predictable results as similar to those seen across other towns. The amount of Pit Bulls abandoned in shelters–and sometimes in the streets due to the shelters were crowded.

“We have a large percentage of people in this city who fall below the poverty level,” says Sue Davis, executive director of the Humane Society of Southwest Missouri in Springfield. “Unfortunately, when they started talking about more legislation, we just ended up with so many at the shelter.”

The voters ultimately voted against the ban on the 7th of August by 68 percent votes. Indiana Birds While this is a tiny city located in the Midwest Animal welfare groups consider it to be an example of larger disapproval of BSL.

Ledy VanKavage who is the senior legislative attorney at Best Friends Animal Society, located in Kanab, Utah, says that the group keeps track of BSL defeats from 2009. They are encouraged by the sheer number of cities, counties and states that are rescinding restrictions against Pit Bulls and repealing old laws already in force.

How BSL Impacts Families With Pit Bulls

Springfield was already awash with Pit Bull laws in place in 2016 that require Pit Bull owners to spay/neuter their pets, keep them on a leash and muzzle them when they go out in public with a microchip placed beneath the skin and display signs at their homes.

In 2017, during the heat of summer the mother of a local family and two young children were attacked by what they called Pit Bulls. The city council responded by introducing a new law that would allow grandfathering in Pit Bull owners who were complying with the law but not allow different Pit Bulls within city limits.

“These laws typically do stem from reaction on the local level,” says Kevin O’Neill, vice president of state affairs at the Sacramento, California, office of the American Society for the Prevention of cruelty to Animals. “Elected officials focus on the breed of the dog involved, as if that will solve the issue, instead of looking at due process.”

Due process is the term used to describe laws that target inconsiderate and negligent owners as well as the dogs that are aggressive, rather than the entire breed. The groups like The American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Bar Association and the ASPCA are advocates for these types of laws.

Misidentification of Pit Bulls

One of the challenges Pit Bull advocate in Springfield – and in many other cities–face in implementing the bans is the wide classification that is used to describe Pit Bull or Pit Bull kind dogs within legal descriptions. Can Dogs Have Broccoli

For instance The Springfield law defines “Pit Bull dogs” as any dog “that is an American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, or any dog displaying the majority of physical traits of any one or more of the above breeds, or any dog exhibiting those distinguishing characteristics which substantially conform to the standards established by the American Kennel Club or United Kennel Club for any of the above breeds.”

The issue advocates claim is that it’s hard for shelter and animal control personnel to recognize Pit Bulls. A study from 2012 was conducted in the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida discovered that out of the 120 dogs involved for the research, just 25 could be identified as Pit Bulls by DNA. Pit Bulls. However, shelter workers classified all 55 dogs Pit Bulls.