Breed Specific Legislation

[ruthie]

I might add this too...some dogs are overbred, some dogs are purposrly bred for certain traits...for instance, taking two known aggresive pits and breeding them..for what purpose? dog fighting.
Course, I don't go for purebreeds anyway. Mutts are much nicer and less neurotic.

[j2k4]

I might add this too...some dogs are overbred, some dogs are purposrly bred for certain traits...for instance, taking two known aggresive pits and breeding them..for what purpose? dog fighting.
Course, I don't go for purebreeds anyway. Mutts are much nicer and less neurotic.

Too true, and what I meant by "geneticly-disposed"; certain breeds will, if inclined to attack, get more of that done by mistake then another will intentionally.

[Everose]

TheCanuck...

Are they trying to totally ban these dogs, or does the proposed ordinance set up hard-to-comply with restrictions on the dog and owners? Such as tethering, fencing and insurace restrictions?

I live in an area with a high influx of immigrants and it became a common perception that these immigrants actually took pride in the aggressiveness of their pit bulls, and encouraged them to be aggressive. After numerous complaints from neighbors who were concerned and numerous attacks by these dogs, a control ordinance was passed.

At the time, I oversaw compliance of my City's ordinances, and this one was a tough one. I felt the restrictions possibly made the dogs even more aggressive, and put real financial hurdles on the owners in order to keep their family dogs.

I remember a newly arrived family with a pit bull. The woman assured me their dog had never been aggressive, was great with the children in their family and didn't have an aggressive bone in its body. I had to tell her that I understood that, but we had this ordinance and restrictions would have to be met.

These restrictions involved tethering and leashing the dogs..........type of chain they must be kept on when outside........fencing in the yard they were kept in must be so tall, and so many inches into the ground. Even when the dog was allowed the run of the home, there had to be certain restrictions on the locks and strength of a screen door to inhibit their access to the outside. The owner also had to carry a $300,000.00 liability insurance on the dog. As I said earlier, these restrictions make it almost impossible to keep such a dog.

Anyway, such restrictions could not be met overnight, so I gave the family the usual two or three days to at least show us they were working toward compliance, but did tell them they would have to keep the dog on a chain while outside during this time.

The next afternoon a little neighborhood girl was attacked by this newly arrived dog and had to have a horrific amount of stitches to her face and neck area due to the attack. There were witnesses to the event. The dog broke its chain and went after the child without any provocation. The dog's owners were shocked, as the dog had never shown any of this aggessiveness.

Could this same situation happen with any breed of dog? Probably. But it was a pit bull and gave the City Council further justification for their ordinance.

[ruthie]

Well, i wouldn't muzzle my dog..then again, I don't take him out much. here, when he wants to go out, we can let him run. he comes right back, and if i see a neighbor wants to let their dog out, I bring him in, or snap on his leash. I'm sure if our dog thought I was in "troublr", he would bite, as i hear in his history, he does have that side to him. He's about 9 or 10, and we've only had him a few years.
The problem with pits is..they lock on, and you have to use something to open their jaws...no fun..i've been around pits that got into a fight and had to be seperated that way. I don't like aggresive dogs, period..whatever the breed.
yup, give me a mutt. they can be worked with much better.

[ilw]

ilw

Total number of dogs would be useful too. I think it might suggest Pit Bulls are disposed towards biting in relation to their overall numbers.

However, as said above, the owner has a big part to play here. Some people are pre-disposed towards certain dogs and encourage them to be aggressive once they have them. It used to be German Shepherds but now it is Rottweilers and Pit Bulls - note the sudden leap in Rottweiler incidents and decline in German Shepherds.

I couldn't get stats on breeds, but as you say to keep their numbers/deaths ratio in line with other dogs, I'm guessing that approximately a third/quarter of all the dogs in the us would have to be pitbulls and i don't think thats accurate. I would suggest that the thing most likely to throw off those stats is people training their dog to be vicious and choosing pitbulls because they are the most territorial and dangerous.

I think everyone would agree that there must be rules on how dangerous animals (eg lions, snakes scorpions etc) should be kept, so that people nearby are safe. The legislation as i see it is simply redefining what is meant by dangerous to include certain large and powerful breeds of dog.

[hobbes]

Well, I see the analogy police have made an arrest.

And Biggles has rightly pointed out the danger of charts and statistics in general. Always ask yourself what it is NOT telling you.

How many of each breed Biggles pointed out, but just as important is # of exposures to that breed.

I don't need to turn scientific community to have them tell me that different breeds have different traits, that is obvious. Even dogs in loving homes have a threshold of tolerance.

That is why golden retrievers are so sought after, they tend to walk away from hair pulling children. I would suspect that the children attacked by the "docile" breeds were left alone with these dogs repeatedly and the parents never gave it a second thought. Whereas with pitbulls, most parents would make it a point to be sure little Billy is no where near that dog. Every now and then a wee one will grab a sensitive appendage of a golden and get bitten, and that is where the numbers of attacks come from.

[hobbes]

What people tend to forget is that nice dogs are not necessarily nice to strangers.

My Cairn Terrier bit me once, on the shoe so I felt no pain, because I was being a prick and deserved it. But that dog would sit at the front window and bark and snarl at anyone on our property. Sometimes we would be on the front lawn and a jogger would pass by and the combination of property violation and something running would drive my sweet dog mad. She would chase after the jogger who would become quite distressed. It was really rather comical as my dog was kept with very short hair and was quite fat. It looked like the jogger was being attacked by a piglet. I would have trouble running after her because I would be laughing so hard. Anyway, she never bit anyone, just made lots of noise.

I had a similar incident when hiking a trail with a friend. The sky opened up and we were stuck in the middle of a horrible thunderstorm, lightening everywhere. As we ran for shelter we lost the path. We found ourselves on someback road, and there were 2 medium sized dogs waiting for us by their house. These dogs were completely unrestrained, no fence, and no owner in sight.

Let me ask you people a question. Do you really think breeds don't have traits?

If those dogs had been Doberman Pincers or Pit Bulls, I wonder what story I would tell. Had they been Golden Retrievers, I would have probably just called them over.

In this case they were mutts. The dominant one came after us as we were on his property, the smaller one kept back barking "Yeah, what he said". I told my friend to not alter his path and not to run. We just ignored them and walked down the road. Once off their property their demeanor changed and about 2 miles later they we just walking with us out for the fun of it. Then a pickup truck pulls past and stops. The dogs run and jump in the back and they drive away. Friggin barsteward could have given is a lift.

Anyway, as perspective, when I was little, my dog would walk with me to school in the morning. Then it would have free reign of the entire neighborhood and eventually return home for dinner. Free roaming dogs are a thing of the past.

[NikkiD]

I live in Ontario as well, and I'm totally baffled by the proposed laws. The laws would make it illegal to own the breeds of dogs stated by the Canuk.

I agree 100% with dangerous dog legislation - if a dog is vicious, it should be put down, and the owners held responsible for its actions. I also agree with leash and muzzle laws - for ALL breeds of dogs.

I have owned one of the dogs on that list, a rottweiler. She was neither mean nor viscious. My oldest son could climb on my rottweiler and she would submit to him. I never once hit the dog, apart from a little tap on her butt once or twice to get her attention. I needed only to raise my voice and she would quiver. She incidentally outweighed me and could have ripped my arm off if she'd wanted to, the point is, she didn't want to. My parents used to own a black lab - who bit everyone, but I don't see labs on that list?

I hear stories about attacks all the time. My brother was nearly killed by a german shepard. Does this mean I think all shepards are vicious? Not in the slightest. I've met pitbulls that are among the most well behaved dogs I've seen. It has everything to do with proper breeding (reputable breeders) and proper training. If you're aggressive with your dog, your dog will be aggressive with you. Hell I don't see poodles on that list either, but I've seen many of them who are vicious little buggers and bite continuously.

It goes to what is popular at a specific time - many dog owners want a dog because that breed is the "in thing" at a particular time. When I got my Rottie, I knew almost no one that had one, and had seen very little of the breed. I made the decision on what dog I wanted, based on a lot of reading, and meeting a lot of breeders. Now, I see rottweilers everywhere. The problem is that not all dog owners are interested in putting in the time and effort needed to raise a puppy properly or paying decent bucks to get the dog from a reputable breeder. They just think the breed is cool. So you end up with a large number of dogs whose breeding is unknown, and who aren't properly trained. Expensive or not, getting a puppy from a reputable breeder, you can see what the parents are like, and you know that the dog has not been bred for violence. Getting a puppy from the pet store or an ad in the newspaper - you have absolutely no idea what you're getting, and you take a chance.

[Smith]

TheCanuck...

Are they trying to totally ban these dogs, or does the proposed ordinance set up hard-to-comply with restrictions on the dog and owners? Such as tethering, fencing and insurace restrictions?

I live in an area with a high influx of immigrants and it became a common perception that these immigrants actually took pride in the aggressiveness of their pit bulls, and encouraged them to be aggressive. After numerous complaints from neighbors who were concerned and numerous attacks by these dogs, a control ordinance was passed.

At the time, I oversaw compliance of my City's ordinances, and this one was a tough one. I felt the restrictions possibly made the dogs even more aggressive, and put real financial hurdles on the owners in order to keep their family dogs.

I remember a newly arrived family with a pit bull. The woman assured me their dog had never been aggressive, was great with the children in their family and didn't have an aggressive bone in its body. I had to tell her that I understood that, but we had this ordinance and restrictions would have to be met.

These restrictions involved tethering and leashing the dogs..........type of chain they must be kept on when outside........fencing in the yard they were kept in must be so tall, and so many inches into the ground. Even when the dog was allowed the run of the home, there had to be certain restrictions on the locks and strength of a screen door to inhibit their access to the outside. The owner also had to carry a $300,000.00 liability insurance on the dog. As I said earlier, these restrictions make it almost impossible to keep such a dog.

Anyway, such restrictions could not be met overnight, so I gave the family the usual two or three days to at least show us they were working toward compliance, but did tell them they would have to keep the dog on a chain while outside during this time.

The next afternoon a little neighborhood girl was attacked by this newly arrived dog and had to have a horrific amount of stitches to her face and neck area due to the attack. There were witnesses to the event. The dog broke its chain and went after the child without any provocation. The dog's owners were shocked, as the dog had never shown any of this aggessiveness.

Could this same situation happen with any breed of dog? Probably. But it was a pit bull and gave the City Council further justification for their ordinance.

They are banning them so that after this generation dies you cant own them in ontario, you can keep the one you have now, but you can no longer breed them

[Everose]

I can only tell you that I have never even met a pit bull. But I can also tell you I have heard too many pit bull owners that speak well of their dogs to believe that aggressiveness is a trait that runs through all of these dogs.

Banning future generations sounds like a tracking nightmare to me.

They have apparently decided that all of these dogs are dangerous. By their ban they are stating this, that they think they are dangerous. And maybe they feel they are being sensitive to the current dogs and dog owners by doing it this way, I don't really know.

I know in my City if this type of a future ban was suggested, our City Attorney would have stopped it. The reason being, after this ban is put into effect, say one existing pit bull would attack someone............that person could turn around and sue the City claiming that by their ordinance/ban, they believed that this could happen and did nothing to prevent it from happening currently.

We had many pit bull owners that started housing their dogs right outside of the City Limits.