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Breed Specific Legislation (BSL)

Breed specific legislation is all about treating every breed as equals.

Miami started the fad of banning pitbulls, thinking it was a public safety measure.  Many communities followed.

Does banning pitbulls make your community safer?  Yes, but so does banning Cocker Spaniels and Chihuahuas.   Most dog bites are the result of irresponsible dog owners, but poor ownership qualities become more noticeable as the size and the power of the breed increases.  A bad Chihuahua owner is hardly noticed because the bite of a Chihuahua rarely needs medical attention.  Bites caused by pitbulls are increasingly causing fatalities… thus the decision communities take to ban them.

Are Pitbulls getting a bad reputation?  Yes and no, Pitbulls are very loyal dogs, but they attract the worst pet owners; on top of that, genetics play a role that makes the dogs predisposed to aggression towards other animals.  Many humans are bitten trying to protect their pet from an attacking Pitbull.

People always find their way around the BSL laws.  When Pitbull owners discover that their breed has been unmasked, they simply respond saying that the dog is a service animal.  You already know how I feel about the abuses of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) concerning service animals; but, now you have communities dealing with the dilemma of dealing with Pitbulls as an ADA issue.

The chant opposing BSL is, “The deed, not the breed.”  The idea is that if a dog is aggressive, it will display that aggression by biting someone.  Given that every dog has the potential to bite, you don’t arbitrarily ban a breed without proof of aggression.  In theory, this sounds fair, but the problem arises that someone now has to be bitten.  The idea of BSL is to prevent bites before they occur.

We now live in a world in which people want to champion the cause of the under dogs and as such we are seeing a movement to rescind BSL laws in many cities.  Some State have created laws prohibiting breed specific laws.  Although this movement will not sway the insurance companies that have banned these dogs from homeowner insurance polices or stop apartment managers from renting to owners of specific breeds.

The underlying problem is that in the wrong hands dogs, any dog, presents a risk to society when the owner of that dog decides that his right to own a potentially dangerous dog out weighs the rights of his neighbors to live safely.  Pitbulls can live in our community, only if their owners can recognize the potential threat that they may pose and take the necessary steps to prevent them from causing harm… this also applies to Chihuahuas as well.

Although Pitbulls are finding good pet owners, they are prominently still falling into the hands of the worst owners, as evidenced by the volume of Pitbulls that are overwhelming our shelters.  In leu of a ban on Pitbulls, I would recommend legislation that requires the sterilization of the breed; it is our only hope of getting our shelter populations under control.  As long as pitbull breeds fill over half of the kennels in our shelters that are and will remain a problem in our communities.

A few years ago, after Denver banned pitbulls, people began identifying their  pitbull as a service animal.  As you have read in other posts on this site, the laws concerning service animals had gotten way out of control and Denver was dealing with that abuse as people fought for their banned pets.  In February of 2020, the City of Denver overturned the previous ban and provided for passage of pitbulls to be treated like other pets, following a two year probationary period.

States started transitioning away from breed specific legislation and began banning laws that don’t treat all animals as equals.  In our WOKE society, the breed laws were decried as racist and “didn’t follow the science.”  Many states began passing laws directed at insurance companies who first discovered that paying out insurance claims differed from breed to breed.  Given that some breeds were responsible for the greatest number of serious bites and fatalities, they decided to not insure those breeds.

As governments start pressuring insurance companies into accepting all manner of breeds, it will be interesting to see how these companies will respond to being forced to pay out claims for animals that they see as high risk.

Anyone who has been bitten by various breeds knows that all breeds are not equal.  Smaller breeds are more likely to bite more often, but larger breeds inflict the most injuries.

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Bad Fences Make for Bad Neighbors

One of the most frustrating thing that we face in our profession is determining the risk of a failing fence.  I have had countless conversations with owners of perceived aggressive dogs as to the state of their fence line.  We are not in the insurance business, but we know a accident waiting to happen.  The problem we face is that the owners of aggressive dogs are not the brightest tool in the box and as Animal Control Officers, we cannot take action until the dog actually escapes the yard.

The other day, 9-year-old Emma Hermandez was killed by three pit bull type dogs in Detroit after Emma’s father spoke to the dog’s owners about  the sad state that his fence was in.   The owner was arrested, but the article stated that the “prosecutors are determining what charges, if any, their owner may face.”  The problem with prosecutors is that they rarely deal with fatal dog cases and can’t think objectively.  Every dog has the potential to bite, but few have the ability to kill.  Dogs are like a loaded weapon, some are like BB guns and other are more like a 45 caliber.  Having been warned about the neighbor’s concern and failing to take action, the owner should be charged with reckless endangerment.  If the Animal Control had received and acted on previous complaints, the owner should be charged with murder.

As with guns, there are no laws that keep dogs out of the hands of idiots.  You can usually tell when a neighborhood has one of these dog owners, the rest of the neighborhood knows that a gun will trump a dog anytime.

I have advised neighbors to know the response time of their police and go on record filing a complaint with both the police and animal control.  A person needs to build a case for themselves as to the necessity of the actions that they have taken to protect themselves.  You may one day be in court trying to convince a judge that your actions were necessary.  A person needs to keep their wits about them, even an experienced police officer can fail to hit a vital organ.  My shelter dealt with a pit bull dog that had been shot by the local police officers 19 times and lived through the experience.  The best shot comes when the dog is running directly at you, presenting that large forehead.  If you miss, offer up your forearm and you are in perfect position to line up for a perfect shot.  If you work for the police department, volunteer to catch your canine dog on a wrap.  Plenty of “wrap time” can get you to see for yourself the opportunity that is made available to you.  If you find it necessary to shoot the dog, remember that in all of the excitement, you must always insure that you have a safe background behind the dog.

Why would you consider shooting a dog?

  1. You do not carry the necessary equipment to capture the dog alive without risk to yourself.
  2. It is a quick solution to a problem that demands an immediate response.  Let’s face it, the longer that a dog is allowed to chew on a child, the less likely the child will survive.
  3. It is a permanent solution to a problem that you cannot trust the dog’s owner to fix.

In the case with Emma, a neighbor shot one dog and the others were later captured by animal control; but, it was all too late for her.   As with any of these fatal incidents, there will be someone wanting to save the dogs.  They might even hire a “dog expert” to justify the dog’s actions, these guys are paid well to spin a yarn, they’ll even make the case that it was the victim’s fault.

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The Case for Pookie

In 1995, a 2 year old girl was playing in her yard, when she decided that she wanted to pet the neighbor’s dog, Pookie.  She began climbing the chain link fence so that she could reach over and pet the dog.  As she climbed the fence, the dog grabbed on to the toe of her shoe and began pulling her toes, then foot, then leg through the fence.  A witness at a nearby bus stop reported that the dog look like a land shark, trying to pull that child through the fence.

The dangerous dog case against this dog was thrown out because the judge ruled that when the child’s toes crossed the plane of the fence, the child was trespassing and determined that the child’s actions triggered the attack upon her.

This incident became a landmark case in Portland Oregon because it set the stage for a local attorney and his wife to turn the local animal shelter into a prison as they appealed dangerous dog cases that came their way.  Anyone who has worked with the courts know the lengthy process and the attorney used this lengthy process to punish the shelter by forcing them to hold dogs pending the appeal process.  The appeals serve to keep the animal shelter full of “dangerous or potentially dangerous dogs,” and where the dogs become the victims of being caged for a long time.  Many debate as to how humane it is for a dog to be caged for years pending a court resolution.

The war between public safety and the rights of animals has been constantly waged in Portland Oregon for years.  This attorney and his wife have repeatedly stated that there really is no reason to declare an animal as dangerous, it is a human problem.  As with any cause, there are people at the extreme left and extreme right.  The people who live their lives in the fringe of any cause do not accept those of us who try to remain balanced and stay in the middle.   Working in the animal welfare field, you are going to be constantly called on to take one side or the other.  If you are a government employee, you have to understand that even though we got into this business because of our love for animals, our primary purpose is to protect our community.  In spite of what people will tell you, there are animals that are too unsafe to live in our communities.  Sure, most of them became unsafe as a result of their owners; so, even though it isn’t their fault, they are still a public safety risk.

The purpose of people like this attorney and his wife is to intimidate us.  They believe that if they are persistent long enough, we will cave to their will.  Along the way we are going to lose a case or two, but we will carry on because we have a higher calling: to keep our children safe.

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Animals in Hot Cars

A summer doesn’t go by without news of a child or dog dying in a hot car.  People do not seem to comprehend how quickly a vehicle can heat up.  It is tragic t loose an animal in this fashion.  For that reason, animal control organizations need to have policies in place to make sure that animal control officers are not guilty of committing the same acts, especially if those officers are using unairconditioned animal control boxes on their vehicles.

In creating a policy, the organization must determine the ambient temperature that will trigger the policy; eighty to ninety degrees seems to be a good temperature range to work with.  When the temperature reaches that threshold temperature, the policy is triggered that sets the maximum time that an animal may be in the vehicle; 60 minutes is a good length of time, providing that the carrier box pushes air through each kennel.

If an animal seems hot during pickup, that holding time should be reduced to 30 minutes and the animal should be given water and wetted down prior to transportation.  Animal Control Officers need to be smart enough to park in shaded area and to constantly check on the animals onboard the vehicle.  Frequent stops at gas stations might be necessary to keep the animals hosed down and kept cool.

There is no excuse for an animal control officer leaving an animal onboard his/her vehicle for extending period of time in the summer; but, every year we hear about an officer forgetting about an animal that is left on the vehicle over night.  Officers need to get into the routine of checking their vehicle at the end of their shift and cleaning the vehicle for use the next day.  One stupid mistake can bring to an end of your animal control career.

Keeping animals safe in the summer is a matter of common sense.

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Having the Right Tools

Being an animal control officer is much easier than being a police officer; I’ve always been able to predict the behavior of an animal, but I am still trying to figure out people.  Given the tools that are available to animals (teeth and claws), it is necessary for animal welfare workers to have the right tools.

Muzzles:  as I have mentioned previously, if you need a muzzle for a cat, you have already lost the battle.  However, muzzles are effective tools for potentially aggressive dogs.  It is important that if you see the need to put a muzzle on a dog, that you use the right size.  A muzzle is useless if it doesn’t stay on the dog.

Catchpoles:  a catchpole is for the safety of an individual.  Anyone who has used a catchpole knows that it can be a public relations nightmare.  Many dogs have never been on leash, so you can imagine how they will respond to a pole.  Using a catchpole on a cat is much like using a muzzle; it is always hard to watch.  It is too easy to harm a cat, so make sure that you catch one of the front legs; otherwise, consider using a net.  Catchpoles are one of those tools that you should ALWAY carry away from your vehicle.  I walked up on a Rottweiler with only a leash and quickly discovered how stupid that was.

Pepper spray:  pepper spray is extremely important to carry if you are stupid enough to get out of your vehicle without a catchpole.  On a side note, the owner of the Rottweiler filed a complaint against me for using pepper spray on her dog, she should have file a stupidity complaint against me.  I had the right tools but didn’t have them immediately available.  Fortunately for me, the sergeant investigating the incident was attacked by the dog and was nearly shot.  I received no disciplinary action other than the verbal abuse I received from myself.

Nets:  nets make me think dogcatcher.  I hate using nets on poles.  My officers use giant nets in Atlanta.  I hated them, but I saw that they were very good at using them and the animals were safe… I overlooked my objections.  Nets are really the only way to catch and control aggressive cats.  The problem is getting a cat out of net and into a carrier.  I have found most gloves insufficient for handling cats.  It is also very hard to find an experienced person willing to test a new set of gloves on a cat.

Metal clipboards:  other than a brick wall, there is no better protection to keep from getting bit than a sturdy clipboard when by an aggressive dog at the owner’s front door.  When the dog rushes out the door, the clipboard is what you feed it.  You use it as a shield.  You continue feeding it until you can back away and get into your vehicle.  I’ve rarely found the owner willing or able to control their pet during one of these incidents.   If two dogs come rushing out at you, you pepper spray both and hope that the spray stops one of them.  The clipboard may be your only protection at the door, so make sure you spend the extra money to get a metal one.

Snake tongs:  I hate snakes.  The first tools I purchased when I started work as an animal control officer was a snake tong and snake hook, even though I had never encountered them in my work.  No sooner did I have the new tools in my vehicle that I got my first snake call.  So, be careful what you order.

Gloves: one of the most useful tool that I ever had was a Neptune Glove.  You probably have never hear about them because I may have been the only one who ever bought one.  It looked like an attack sleeve used in training police and military dogs, but had an additional covering of chainmail on the outside of the glove.  Although the glove was expensive, it paid for itself the night that I got called out to remove a badger from the truck of a car (long story).  Chainmail is used on smaller gloves for people working with knives.  There are gloves rated for animals, but I have never gotten anyone to test them on a feral cat.

Flashlights:  when working at night, remember that it takes two hands to work a catchpole, so make sure you get a light that you affix to your head or pole.

Duct tape and cable ties:  I can’t think of any use for duct tape while working, but it is still a useful tool.  Maybe you can tape your flashlight to your catchpole.  In a disaster, duct tape usually fixes anything… like an emergency repair to a animal carrier that lost half of its screws.  Which reminds me that cable ties are handy when you’ve lost all of your carrier screws.

CO2 fire extinguisher:  This is one of the most effective tools in breaking up dogfights.  The extinguisher provides a momentary shock to the dogs that will hopefully break up the dogfight… once administered, it is important to quickly move in with leashes or catchpoles.

The most important tool is the one you decide you need when you don’t have it; so, in each situation, think about what tools would make your job easier (safer).

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Records Request

We have entered a period in our society in which people want to second guess government decisions.  In an effort to peak into our decision making processes, people will make requests for information under the freedom of information act (FOIA).  Many requests that are made are overkill and as such government has the right to charge the appropriate fees when responding to such requests.  Many times, when government provides an estimate to the cost involved with producing the request, the requester will either refine their request or claim that the information is for the “public good” and ask that the information be provided at no charge.

FOIA requests give us opportunity to review how our information is stored.  Most requests are for emails on certain topics.  Many large government organizations backup the email server nightly and email requests can be handled through the IT Department.  Organizations need to be constantly reminded that retention of documents must be adhered to.

Some government organization prohibit texting and social media because the information is usually not archived and thus unsearchable.  If you cannot search records that are used in your government employment, you should not use that method of communication.  It becomes critical that your staff does not delete messages, text, or social media posts if they are used to conduct government business.  The more methods that you use to conduct your business, the more searching you have to do when responding to a FOIS request.  Anyone who works for an organization that records telephone calls will understand the difficulty in searching audio files that have been requested.

When updating your local laws, it might be a good idea to see how your client records are protected.  I have had FOIA requests for licensing data of pet owners.  Your database is a good source of data that someone can use to target the pet owners of your community.  Although FOIA states that you must give the information in the form that it is maintained, electronic data becomes problematic and it might be a smart move to offer the data in printed form… maybe a mailing label, so that data is used only once.  If you are considering protecting your data from vendors, you should consider protecting the data that comes from your veterinarians when administering rabies vaccinations, since licensing requires that information.  By protecting the information from veterinarians, your licensing data will also be protected.

It is  common for someone to request adoption information.  The request is usually by the owner of a pet who failed to timely reclaim their pet and wants to use the information to bully the person who adopted their pet.  I would suggest that you find a way to protect that data as well.  There are two ways to do that: the first way is to protect the data by ordinance, the other is to put a check mark on  the adoption contract in which the adopter can ask for confidentiality.  It would force the old dog owner to take you to court for the information; then you can explain to the judge that the previous owner has no legal right to the animal and providing the information may place the adoption family at risk.

FOIA requests have become so common that you might consider having a person specifically responsible for handling them.  Time limits are set and it is important not to violate a person’s right to information.  When working on a FOIA request, you’ll need to track the length of time to conduct the search and wages of the people involved.  You should calculate the cost of paper and the ware and tear of your copier or printer.  Many organizations just simplify the process by charging per page.  Some database request would resort in thousand of pages, so to save paper, you might consider converting the files to PDF and provide them via email.  Make sure you collect your fees first.

FOIA is a necessary service for the public to see how their government is working, but it frequently is used to bog an organization down in work to punish  the organization for performing an action that a person dislikes.  It is important that you are meticulous in performing this function; many times the person knows that there is a specific file (probably one leaked from an employee or volunteer) that they are looking for and if you fail to find it or fail to provide it, you will face some difficult questions that you will have to answer.

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Identifying Dog Breeds

When I first started working in animal welfare, you could easily identify 99 percent of the dogs coming through your shelter with a good dog breed book.  Over the years dogs have been interbreeding to the point that I’ve been unable to identify the primary breed.  It is common to identify two distinct breeds, but eventually we began to see breed combinations that are no longer readily identifiable.

When I first stated in this business, I worked on an animal shelter management software tool.  The most common request that our users asked was to allow for them to distinguish the primary breed as unknown.  I recognized the problem of doing that when lazy shelter employees would identify all of the animals in the shelter as “unknown” breed.  It would have made record keeping impossible.

As time passes, I began to experience the same problem of identifying the various breeds contained in a dog.  For a long time, pitbull dogs were misidentified and many people took on the task of teaching staff how to correctly identify the breed.  Some shelters recognized the problem of calling a dog a pitbull and began calling them by other breeds, such as an “American Dog”.  I always believed in the integrity of my data.

The most common complaint from people was that most dogs were identified as a “pitbull mix.”  It wasn’t that we could not identify the breed, the fact was that pitpulls were being intentionally bred with other dogs.  My daughter just announced to me that she adopted a pitbull/poodle mix that was seized from a breeder in her community.  I don’t know if I should be critical of using a pitbull or using a poodle.

The fact that breed identification was so difficult, shelter staff is constantly asked to change a dog’s breed description so as to get the animal adopted.  I explained that it is pretty embarrassing for the owner of an adopted  pitbull puppy to be confronted by their landlord or veterinarian with the truth about their dog’s breed.  I have always insisted on the integrity of my organization.

I had a group of volunteers trying to convince me that a pitbull (American Staffordshire Terrier (I know, some people will claim that this isn’t a pitbull, but it falls into the group of dog breed groups that we call “pitbull”))  Under the pressure of this group, I started to see some Great Dane characterizes in the dog.  I could see myself caving on this issue.  My staff thought I was nuts.  I guess as you get older, you either try to compromise more or you begin to lose your vision.  I suggested that we send the dog’s DNA off for testing.  The dog came back 100 percent American Staffordshire Terrier.  I was proof that the longer that you stare at a pitbul the more it begins to look like another breed.

I recently read a news headline about forty new mixed breeds that people are crazy about… just what we need!  Animal Shelters are a constant battleground as to breed identification.  I fondly look back to the days when breeds would be readily identified.  When it came to animal identification, those were the good old days. Today,  it is okay to step back from a dog and shake your head and say, “I don’t know what it is.”

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Woke

Our politics and the animal welfare profession is driven by the fringe.  The fringe is so fervent in their beliefs that they are prone to violence; that is why the rest of us stay quietly in the middle.

In human politics, we encounter self-proclaimed individuals who are over sensitive on every issue, who claim that we cannot be woke unless we believe exactly like them.  This past week, they went way past the line of reason.  Their longtime solution is to erase history so that we cannot celebrate our past.  America is great because we have done some wonderful things and have learned from our mistakes.

This same fringe is driving the animal welfare movement, they would have us put animals before people.  This “Animals First” movement has led to animal shelter staff and volunteers lying about animals to get them adopted.  But, our mission is not to get an animal into every home, it is to get them into the right home.

For pet owners, if your dog is chained in your backyard, you are definitely not woke.

Being woke is being sensitive to the plight of others.  Unfortunately, the determination of being woke is in the hands of over-sensitive people; who find issues where no issue exists.

Probably the greatest area of animal welfare awokeness is the belief that every breed is the same.  In our plight to get people to believe that pitbulls are like any other breed, national organizations make that a part of their belief system.

During my career as an animal control officer, I have been bitten by several animals and I can vouge that not every breed is the same.  I have found that I would rather be bitten by a poodle than a pitbull.  Most animal control officers would agree.  Poodles are very rarely in the news for killing someone.

Our woke society would have you believe that dog breeds are no different.  I have to tell you that dog bites are different.  The reason that pitbulls are in the news more frequently is that they belong to owners who do not recognize their potential to cause harm.  Poodles are more likely to bite, but less likely to cause any serious damage.

There is a large segment of our society who are bad pet owners.  Unfortunately, only the ones who are the owners of powerful breeds ever make the news.

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Cowboy Justice

One of the most common ways for judges to deal with aggressive dogs is to vanquish the dog from the jurisdiction.  This means of administering justice is similar to dog owners hiding their dog following an incident in which the dog has injured someone.

The judges don’t want to make the decision to destroy the dog and the pet owner is unwilling to accept responsibility for the actions of their dog.  Neither have any concern about throwing out an aggressive dog from one jurisdiction makes the dog a risk to another jurisdiction.  As long as the dog doesn’t pose a threat to our community, they are okay.  When it comes to pet ownership, as a society, we have never thought globally.

The reason that so many people are attacked by aggressive dogs is that neither the community nor the owners take their responsibility seriously and the children seem to take the brunt of these folks failing to accept their civic responsibility.

Anytime I heard about a “get out of town free” order, I would determine where the dog was going and call the animal control officers of that jurisdiction to make them aware that an aggressive dog was moving into their neighborhood.  I figure that if all we do is push our problems off on another community, they can prepare to deal with it in their community.   This kind of thinking has forced many neighborhoods to take protection with them as they go out on their daily walk; some of them even carry guns.

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The Evolution of the “Running at Large” Ordinance

In the beginning, dogs were considered running at large if the dog was not under the “control of the owner”, while off the property of the owner.  There seemed to be a discrepancy between what the owner consider under control and what Animal Control Officers consider under control.  It became obvious that voice control proved to provide inadequate control under most (every)circumstances.

Ordinances migrated to requiring dogs to be kept under physical control.  Eventually the ordinance evolved to requiring maximum leash length and the leash had to be held by an adult with the capacity to “physically” control the dog while off the property of the owner.

Soon the laws required dogs to be physically confined to the property.  It was a time when the Invisible Fence folks tried to convince the law makers that their device should be viewed as physical confinement; we didn’t buy it.  We had enough experience to know that a headstrong dog would suffer the brief pain to breach the fence and then would be punished every time the dog tried getting back into the yard.

People too cheap to fence their yards would start chaining their pet in the yard.  After a few years we discovered the chaining caused dogs to become more aggressive and it was inhumane to chain the dogs for long periods of time.  We then began to create tethering laws; that created a whole new world of pet owners trying to interpret the law.

It wasn’t long that cats got into the act.  I think we received more complaints about cats than we did dogs.  Cat owners, like the dog owners before them could not understand how they could be breaking the law while their cat was just sitting on the porch.  Most people did not understand the concept of their pet having the potential to leave the property because the animal was not physically confined to the property.  Not a single pet owner convinced us that they had an infallible honor system with their pet that was never broken.

be We constantly were told that “My pet never leaves the yard.”  In all my years in animal control, I found only two dogs that could not be coaxed from their yard.  They were two Shelties living on a corner lot in Pullman Washington.  Those animals have passed on, so I am convinced that there are now no animals to my knowledge that will not breach the boundary of their yard.

Cats became more of an issue because cat owners exercised loose ownership of their cats.  People treated their pets as passing strays in the neighborhood.  For that reason, we then had to define the term of owner.  It seems that the more laws that we created to make people responsible pet owners and good neighbors were creating a culture of absentee pet owners.  The thinking is that if I pretend that I don’t own the animal, then maybe I can convince someone else that I really don’t own the animal.