KC DOG BLOG

Breed Identification Issues - Omaha

Last week, the Nebraska Humane Society had four puppies listed on their website for adoption. Here is the pic -- and here are the descriptions of the four dogs

1) Harriet is now available for adoption. This spayed female, brown and white "Pit Bull Terrier has been at the shelter since November 11, 2009. She is recommended for households with family members aged 5 and older. ID# A695500.

2) Lucy is now available for adoption. This spayed female, brown and white Pit Bull Terrier has been at the shelter since November 11, 2009. ID# A695502

3) Charlotte is now available for adotpion. This spayed female, brown and white Pit Bull Terrier has been at the shelter since November 11, 2009. ID# A695503

4) Hazel is now available for adoptoin. This spayed female, brown and white Labrador Retriever and Pit Bull Terrier has been at the shelter since November 11, 2009. This dog is not required to comply with Omaha's breed specific regulations.  ID# A695501

So, which one is Hazel?  What is it that makes one of these dogs a "lab mix" and the other three 'pit bulls"?  And really, why does it matter?

And there we have an example of why Breed Specific Legislation cannot -- and is not -- enforced equitably.

Here we have four puppies -- by all signs litter-mates (They all look nearly the same, appear to be the same age, and all came into the shelter on the same date) -- three of the four puppies will have to spend the rest of their lives wearing muzzles outdoors (unless their new owner meets a series of requirements), but one, for reasons I cannot even begin the guess, gets to live its life as an ordinary dog.  Why do not all of them get to live the lives as ordinary dogs?  

When it comes to breed identification, especially for puppies and mixed breed dogs, the decision is inevitably arbitrary. It is nearly impossible to judge the genetic background of mixed breed dogs that resemble 'pit bulls'.

The residents of Omaha are becoming increasingly upset and frustrated by the new Omaha law -- as they feel like the fines are too heavy-handed and because the breed identification is arbitrary.

What may make the situation worse for the residents of Omaha, is they have very little recourse right now. The city of Omaha uses the Nebraska Humane Society for the enforcement of all of their animal control laws. Because NHS is a technically a 501c3 organization, and because of the way their contract with the city is written, NHS is not subject to the same open records laws as all of the other city entities. So people don't have any access to their euthanasia statistics, or how many dogs have been confiscated from their homes because of the new breed-specific laws -- and detailed bite statistics are not available.

It should be noted that using the most basic of bite numbers, Omaha saw a 37% increase in dog bites in the first half of 2009 under their new breed specific ordinance.  And if recent headlines are any indication, that isn't improving. NHS continues to spend too much time enforcing the breed specific part of the law, and too little time focusing on the majority of dogs of all other dog breeds.

Beginning in 2009, the city started enforcing its breed specific laws. The cost to the city to enforce went up $75,000. The number of people bitten went up 37%. And the arbitrary nature of enforcing the breed-specific law continues to be a problem.

Back in August, I made some recommendations that I think would dramatically help the city deal with  the problems they're seeing.

Hopefully they will begin listening too.

Here is a screen grab of the entire NHS adoptions page that I snagged while the dog's pictures were up last week. I imagine the dogs' images are down now which is why I did the screen grab. Charlotte is just out of the picture on the screen grab.

Breed Identification continues to be problematic and costly for BSL cities

You've read it here before on many an occassion, but breed mis-identification continues to be a haunting and expensive problem for cities that continue to thing determing a dog's viciousness by "breed" is an easier solution than basing it on thei actual bahavior.

It's not.

And cities and taxpayers continue to pay the price for this outdated thinking.

Last week, Lucas County Dog Warden Tom Skeldon was again in the court room.  In this case, Skeldon had confiscated three dogs that he deemed to be "pit bulls' saying that they were in violation of the county's Vicious Dog Law.

The owner of the dogs, Hugh Smith, says the dogs are not "pit bulls', but instead, he has the paperwork for the dogs that shows that all of them are documented Cane Corso's -- a type of Mastiff.  Smith's attorney, who appears to get the problem, notes that this mis-identification is a part of a larger issue:

"There's a history here of misclassifying pit bulls when they are not. Many of the people are scared to fight for their dogs, threatened with criminal prosecution."

While the case is ongoing, the dogs were granted a conditional release so they no longer have to be "cared for" at Lucas County Animal Control. From reports I've gotten, the dogs were in terrible shape after just two weeks at the Dog Warden's Facility, caked with feces and urine, sick with kennel cough, and already under weight.

In Denver, Kevin O'Connell had his Boxer-mix named Dexter taken from him by Denver Animal Control. O'Connell lived in nearby Thronton, but dropped Dexter off at a friend's house when he was headed out of town on Business. That is when animal control officers, who were responding to an unrelated call, saw Dexter in the back yard and took him to the pound because they thought he was a 'pit bull' - banned under the city's breed ban.

However, O'Connell appealed the breed identification, and an administrative judge ruled that Dexter was not a 'pit bull' -- even under Denver's broad definition.

"This verdict shows that Denver cannot enforce it's pit bull ban, They do not have qualfied experts in to enforce the ban and determine breeds of dogs," said Jennifer Edwards, the founder of the Animal Law Center.

Even though O'Connell was found innocent -- and that his dog was unfairly taken - he still got stuck with the bill from Denver for the Attorney fees, impound fees and vet fees -- something many people would not be able to afford if they were unfairly targeted.  This has caused many - including Denver's  alternative newspaper the Westword - to question just how many of the 3500 'pit bulls' that were killed in Denver since 2005 were really 'pit bulls' -- or dogs that were unfairly targeted and the owners did not have the resources to appeal the ruling.

"There could be thousands of people out there who can call into question if their family pet was killed for absolutely no reason," said Edwards. "How many of them were never actually pit bulls?"

Meanwhile, the costs of enforcement, and legal proceedings continue to mount in Denver -- all at taxpayer expense -- as the city is in the middle of yet another lawsuit and continues to defend its breed ban in site of having never done an audit of the ban to determine its success.

There's more on this case from the Animal Law Coalition website.

The combination of these two cases further enhance the statements that people have been making for years:

1) Breed ID based purely on looks is unreliable -- as most people aren't rally very good at visual breed ID of mixed breed dogs.

2) Dog bite studies based on media reports (that are based on visual breed ID) are not very reliable

3) And BSL is completely unenforcable because of the difficulties in breed ID -- and impact many dogs that are not among the targeted breeds.

All of this has caused some to declare this the "Beginning of the End of BSL" -- and it is certainly tearing away at the idea of it. It is proving to be ineffective, costly and too vague in how a "pit bull" is defined to be accurately and uniformly enforced. And as such, citizens should demand a wiser spend of their tax dollars to not waste so many dollars targeting dogs THAT AREN"T EVEN AGGRESSIVE -- but just happen to have a certain "Look" that people fear. 

And that just doesn't make sense -- on any level. And mainstream failures like these affecting innocent owners and dogs are going to cause a break down in the entire program.  Which will be good for everyone.

An interesting article on DNA Testing

 The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on DNA Testing for dogs (thanks to reader MG for the hat tip).  The story centers around a dog named Parrot (pictured) and the author takes Parrot through all four major DNA tests to see if she cang get an idea of what Parrot's breed is.  He was adopted from the Shelter as a "pit bull/Weimaraner mix". 

The results are very kind of interesting...the bottom line seems to be that many of the tests seem to be pretty suspect because they don't have a very large list of breeds in their database (one has only 63 of the world's 400 some breeds).  However, the Mars Wisdom Panel test -- the one that has the largest list of breeds available to date (157) seems to be at least somewhat accurate.  It only makes sense that a test is going to have issues if the breed your dog is is not included in their database.

While all of the doggie DNA testing is new, it's interesting as we learn more about the actual DNA tests resultshow poor we really are at labeling mixed breed dogs.

It's an interesting read.  If only biology classes growing up had been this fu.

Breed ID, DNA Testing, and why BSL is faulty and failing and the ridiculousness of it all

In Salina, KS,a pet named Lucey owes her very life to DNA testing.

A few weeks ago, when someone was pet-sitting Lucey, they made a mistake and Lucey got free. When animal control officers found Lucey, they demed her to be a 'pit bull' -- a type of dog that has been banned from the city since 2005.

If Lucey was a 'pit bull', she would be killed by the city. It didn't matter that she was loved by her family, that she wasn't aggressive, and that she didn't bite anyone. She would be killed...because when cities discriminate against breeds of dogs, good behavior no longer matters.

Animal control took Lucey to a vet to get a second opinion -- and the vet did a DNA test on Lucey.  Lucy came back as a DNA certified mutt -- with 12% Staffordshire Bull Terrier, 12% Boxer, 12% Bull Terrier and 25% Bernese Mountain Dog.

Lucey's life was spared.

In a similar incident, a dog that was labeled as a 'pit bull' and set to be killed because of Ontario's ban on 'pit bulls' was saved by some rescuers who didn't believe that the small, pointy-snoited dog was really a 'pit bull'. The dog had a brindle coat - and even though over 20 different breeds of dogs can have brindle coats, most seem to get labled in shelters as 'pit bulls'. 

However, the well-natured dog was saved -- and moved to Nova Scotia which does not have a breed ban.

Incidents like this underscore the whole failing of breed specific legislation.  BSL is based on the misconception that dogs that shared certain genetic traits were more prone to aggression -- and thus, needed to be banned or regulated in some way.

Not only is the premise untrue -- but we're finding out very quickly that the datapoints often used to justify this action is based on faulty information:

    -- Most of the dogs that are called 'pit bulls' in the shelter seem to have very little genetic ancestory in common with any of the 'pit bull' breeds

    -- Meaning that most of the dogs that are labeled as 'pit bulls' have little to no genetic relationship to each other

    -- Every dog bite study that was performed without DNA testing (which is all of them at this point) are based on visual IDs of dogs.  We're finding that this visual identification is most often wrong and that there is little genetic linkage among the dogs -- which means hundreds and thousands of dogs are being called 'pit bulls' because of how they look - -and not because of any genetic linkage.  The idea that looks cause aggression, and not genetics, is even more ridiculous of an idea than the genetics one.

And none of this even points out that even IF the information the bans were based on was legitimate (which it's now clearly not), the idea of taking a non-aggressive family pet and killing it because of how it looks just doesn't make sense.

The solution seems so simple.  If the dog is aggressive, then deal with that situation.  If the dog is not aggressive -- quit wasting animal control resources on it and leave it (and its owners) alone.

Meanwhile, DNA testing is going to become very expensive for cities. If they want to insist that a dog is a 'pit bull', they are either going to have to prove it by paying for the DNA test themselves (at a cost of $160 or so apiece).  OR, make the dog owner pay for it, which would be a violation of the US Constitution that makes the government prove your guilt instead of making us prove our innocence.  Remember:  Innocent until proven guilty.  Violating that will subject dozens of cities to legal suits for violating the Consitution - a very costly situation for taxpayers.

So how is it that cities still continue to entertain the idea of BSL --when time and time again it shows:

    1) that we don't really know what 'pit bulls' look like

    2) determining whether or not a dog is a 'pit bull' is costly

    3) every dog bite study in existence right now is based on what a dog looks like, and not genetics - and we've just seen in #1 that that makes them innaccurate

    4) That even without the first three problems, science doesn't support that genetics makes dogs aggressive.

    5) and that because of all of this, BSL has not one single case study of having been successful in improving public safety.  Anywhere.  Ever. 

It is time to put the focus on the behavior of the dog in determining its aggression. The idea of killing a friendly family pet because of how it looks is absurd...and everyone should be dismayed by it.

    

NCRC -- is the media a reliable source for dog attack data?

The National Canine Research Council has a great article today about breed identification by the media when it comes to fatal dog attacks.

Yeah, not all that accurate.

Most dog bite reports, including the infamous CDC report, Merit Clifton's report, and reports from an online pit bull hate group rely 100% on media reports for their 'research".  The CDC, to their credit, admit that the accuracy of the media reports was questionable -- but it seems that most people fail to read the "conclusions" section of the report.

In this article, the NCRC shows pictures of dogs that were reported as being the same breed, but really bare no resemblence to the breeds they were reported to be.

I've mentioned in this space a lot over the past few weeks about the failings of visual identification when it comes to dog breeds. You can read those posts hereand here.  And Lakewood, OH has provided us some recent examples.

BTW, the two dogs pictured in this post are from the NCRC article. Both were involved in fatal attacks on humans between the years of 2002 and 2008.  One was listed as a "Chow" and one as a "Chow mix" -- and both count equally against "Chows" in fatal dog attack reports.

Check out the rest of the examples here.

Another person moves from Lakewood, OH

Otis, a white Boxer that was shocked with a taser last week is going to be allowed to live -- but Otis and his owner, Daniel Kier, won't be living the rest of their lives in Lakewood.   The dog was released from the shelter, but has to be removed from the city.

Lighthouse Boxer Rescue will keep the dog for a couple of weeks until Kier can get out of Lakewood.   Then Otis will got to live with Kier elsewhere.

This isn't the first person with a non-pit bull dog that has been forced out of Lakewood because of the city's 'pit bull' ban. A couple of months ago, Leonard Shelton and his dog Roscoe, a dog that had a DNA test performed to prove it was not a 'pit bull', moved from the city because of the city's pit bull ordinance.

Now, Kier, will join Shelton as someone who owned a dog that they didn't think was affected by the ordinance but the city, because they failed at identifying breeds of dogs and because their due process rights were violated, deemed otherwise. 

Lakewood is a suburban community outside of Cleveland with a population of about 50,000 that had a 10% decrease in population since 2000 -- and seems to be adding to it. Which cannot be good for the already struggling local economy.

For more on Kier and Otis, read my previous post  here and a follow up link here.

For the Pit Bulls has a good post on the subject here.

Weekly Roundup, Week Ending 8/2/09

Thanks for the reponses last week. I just wanted to be sure there was value in this weekly post and since there is, I plan to continue it for the foreseeable future.   Let's get to the news.

Cities and Laws

From Stop BSL: The mayor of the city of Laurel, MD is asking Prince George's County, MD to lift their ban on pit bulls that has been in place since 1997. It doesn't sound like the ban is having any positive impacts but a whole lot of negative ones.  This is the third time in the past decade that the county has looked at a repeal.

BSL watch for Elkhart, IN who is at least talking about the possibility. There even is a "Pit Bulls are like a loaded gun" comment in there, even though guns kill tens of thousands of people ever year in the US and pit bulls get 6-10 in a typical year. People in this country aren't really all that good at math though and like drama much better.

Hutchinson, KS may now be looking at breed specific legislation following an incident where a woman was bitten by a pit bull there.

Sioux City, IA residents are still pushing for changes to the city's dangerous dog law. Since the new law was put in place (which included a pit bull ban), three dogs in the city have been declared dangerous including a pit bull, a Great Dane, and city councilman Aaron Rochester's Labrador.  Sioux City's struggles with BSL have been pretty well documented and it looks like they're going to look at other options besides their current ban maybe this fall.

The city of Olathe, KS is now not sure they want to close down their shelter because of budget cuts and because of expansions to the fire station next door that requires the space occupied by the shelter. They're doing a pretty thorough job of looking into this. While their shelter is one of the better city run shelters in the area while their alternative, contracting with Animal Haven is also a sound choice.

Cities, Dog bites, and media reporting

The Sheriff in White County, TN is no longer recommending that the county look at a county-wide breed ban. There was talk of this last week following an attack where a woman was attacked by what the media reported as two 'pit bulls'.  However, it turns out one of the dogs was actually a Boxer (and how anyone missed that breed ID I have no idea, it couldn't look more like a Boxer -- and frankly, the 'pit bull' doesn't look very 'pit bull' either) and the sheriff is realizing that something breed neutral is more the way to go. The deputy on the case said he originally identified the animals as 'pit bulls' based on the victim's and witnesses testimony (which we know is entirely innaccurate). It's just amazing how some bad media reporting can spark a debate that shouldn't have been taking place at all.

Dog bites and attacks

There were a LOT of stories this week about young toddlers getting bitten by dogs. These types of bites are fairly common and breed is irrelevant. What would be great is that instead of talking about breeds when it comes to dog bites, we would spend that time and energy talking to parents about great ways to introduce toddlers into their family with an existing dog. If we would do that, so many of these bites would be eliminated.  Of course several of these involve 'pit bulls', because the media loves a good pit bull story, but if you look at the ones involving other breeds you'll note there is really no difference in these bites except for the way the media covers them. Parents, if you have young toddlers and dogs, it is your responsibility to socialize the two together and closely supervise all interactions.

In New Mexico, an 11 month old toddler was bitten while playing with the family's 'pit bull' without close adult supervision.  The grandmother on the scene noted that she "heard a nip" -- so obviously wasn't watching the child/dog interaction.

A 17 month old Redondo Beach, CA boy was bitten after he was bitten by the family dog. The boy was playing with the dog in the living room when he apparently pulled the dog's tale and caused the dog to lash back at the boy. Toddlers often don't have any understanding of their actions causing harm to dogs -- and dogs that are harmed will often lash back as biting is their only form of defense.  The dog is being called a 'pit bull' by the media -- but that dog looks nothing like any of the "pit bull" breeds.

A 9 month old Tuscon toddler was attacked by the family's "shepherd mix" -- both the toddler and the dog were near the child's mom while she was out planting a small garden.

A 16 month old child in Waco was bitten by the family's dog.  The child's mother left the room for "just a moment" and when she came back the child was crying and bleeding after being bitten by the dog.

A 15 month old Eden, NC child was bitten by a mixed breed dog requiring stitches. Apparently the dog was on a chain but was able to reach far enough to bite the child who received injuries on his houlder, jaw and nose.

All of these bites were EXTREMELY preventable given a proper amount of parent education.  But we MUST stop talking about "breeds" and start talking about circumstances if there is every going to be any hope of curbing these types of preventable bites.

In other stories:

A 10 year old Bloomington, IN boy was bitten in the face pretty severely by a mixed breed dog causing part of his nose and lip to be town off. There have been previous reports of an animal biting children at the same address....none of which appeared to have been covered by the local media.

A 13 year old Oshawa (Ontario) boy was taken to the hospital to receive stitches after being bitten by an American Bull Dog. Ontario has a ban on 'pit bulls' -- but because they focused on breeds and not irresponsible and neglectful dog owners, attacks like this still happen. 

Two Russian Wolfhounds that attacked a man and his dog earlier this month were returned to their owner in East Alton (IL?) .  The owner plans to return the dogs to the breeder where he got them.

A family is searching for a cat that attacked their 7 year old son. 

An 8 year old boy apparently provoked the family's "bull mastiff" (I really question this breed ID as the dog is supposedly 3 years old and weighs only 80 lbs) into attacking him...but the dog is getting kicked out of the house anyway.

An Akita in Kingston, MA is being ordered to be neutered, restrained when outside and receive professional training after it bit a 9 year old boy in the face and stomach in april.

Officials in Newmarket, DE seized a mixed breed dog (a very cool looking dog, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like it) that bit four people.  Officials are calling it a Rottweiler mix, which I guess it could be, but I'm not so sure.

Abuse Cases

A pit bull in Sheridan, ORdied because it was chained up in the back yard to its dog house and apparently unable to get to its food or water in 103 degree weather last week.  The dog died not 30 feet away from the family's above ground pool where they were cooling off from the heat.

A Dearborn, MI man suffered from a tragic case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that ended up leading him to collect Chihuahuas -- and last week, 110 live dogs and 150 dead dogs that were kept in freezes were pulled from a trash and feces filled home. Even five days after the investigation began, authorities were still finding dogs in the home.

Dogs and the Police

Police in Kirkwood, GA are taking some heat for shooting and killing a family's Labrador Retriever for apparently very little reason.

An off-duty police officer in Hialeah, FL attempted to shoot a "charging pit bull' but missed the dog and the bullet riccocheted and hit a woman that was standing nearby. The woman thankfully is going to be ok, but sort of a scary situation. Meanwhile, the bullet evidently missed the charging dog, but the officer wasn't bitten by the dog....so it looks as if the free firing of the bullet was a little pre-mature.  Scary stuff...and we need to demand that police officers get better training with dogs instead of the current shoot first, ask questions later mentality that seems to exist out there right now.

Miscellanious

A great article from out of Jamaica about pit bulls and how people don't really understand them and give them a bad rap.

This is a follow up to an earlier story from this week that includes some great video footage from Fox 8 in Cleveland of a white Boxer and his owner playing with each other at the shelter. The dog got loose earlier this week and then was tasered multiple times by police and is now being detained because police officials are claiming the dog is a pit bull and should be killed. This whole story highlights the ridiculousness of BSL as now valuable animal control resources are being used to detain this dog that is obviously not aggressive -- and obviously not a pit bull. This diverts resources from dogs that are truly aggressive dogs or have truly neglegent owners. To the city of Lakewood: Accidents happen. Fine the owner for the loose dog and send him home. And quit tying up resources in the name of your own neglegence ignorant laws trying to defend your actions. Say you're sorry and be done with it. You're wasting everyone's time and wasting taxpayer dollars.  And continuing to embarrass yourselves. And this isn't the first time.

A great article about TNR programs in Chicago helping to curb the feral cat populations.

Good article from Charlotte, NC -- Despite attack, some (including true experts) point to pit bulls' bad rap

Blog Postings for the week

Some really great blog postings from the internets this week that deserve their own category:

One Bark at a Time: A Public Service Announcement for Commercial Dog Breeders.

The Pet Connection: Orwellian Language Redux: I don't think "abandon' means what you think it means.

Our Pack: Introducing Your Dog to a New Dog

Lassie Get Help:Good cop/bad cop, live dog/dead dog

Wayne Pacelle: Anti-Dogfighting Training Camp (The blog posting is in its usual self-glorifying tone, but I am a really big fan of this program and the pictures and acompanying picture gallary alone are worth the visit.

How well can we really identify breeds of dogs?

Our friends over at the National Canine Research Council have been having some fun with DNA testing of late.

Last week I noted some new research from the AVMA is indicating that DNA testing may just be debunking any studies ever done on dog bite studies by breed. Basically, every dog bite by breed study out there is based on people's visual identification of the dog breed -- and we're finding out that people really aren't that good at identifying breeds of dogs by looks -- and in fact, it is more or less impossible.

But when you put images with it, it is really telling.

So last week, the NCRC published a "Find the Labrador Retriever mix" visual ID game. Similar to other version of the Find a "Pit bull" game, it turns out that a lot of mixed breed dogs that we assume to be mixed breeds that are predominently common breeds don't often contain any of those breeds at all.

Most people, including many who work in animal rescue, are not all that great at knowing the looks of all the different dog breeds. The AKC/UKC combined recognize over 150 different breeds of dogs....but at this point, there are over 400 recognized dog breeds. And often, when these breed intermingle, they don't carry with them looks of any of the breeds they represent.

However, because we are familiar with a few dog breeds, we have become pretty good at grouping dogs together in groups with other similar looking dogs.  Is the dog about 80 lbs and black?  "Lab Mix." Boxy head and muscly? "Pit bull".  Long hair and snout?  "Shepherd mix".  Never mind that there are several breeds of "Shepherd" that don't look all that much alike -- and many of the "shepherd mixes" don't really look like any of those breeds.

We group them, because in our mind, it's easier to classify them. Besides,  what does a Chesapeake Bay Retriever/Chihuahua mix look like?  And what does that mean to a potential adopter?  Mostly nothing. But it's a cute black dog that kind of looks like a Lab, so let's call it that.

So what do our classifications mean?  It means we group a lot of mixed breed dogs of uncommon breeds into a grouping of more popular breeds. So go to PetFinder, your local shelter, or look at any bite study. Almost anywhere you look for classifications by breed, you see "labs", "shepherds" and "pit bulls" as the most common breeds.  Most often it's not because these dogs share the same DNA -- but because the LOOK similar to each other and it they are more easily categorized that way.

I think this is a really important distinction. When communities say they are putting restrictions based on "breed" because they say they are "inherantly dangerous based on their DNA" -- we need to be honest about what that means. These communities are not making decisions based on DNA, or breed at all -- but on LOOKS. They are determining that a LOOK is aggressive - not genetics. Which is an even crazier notion than the genetics argument which doesn't hold up to science either.

It's turning out that the more we learn about dogs and breeds, we find out the less we ever knew in the first place.  And that pretty much every study we have ever done about dogs and breeds is completely irrelevant now because we didn't identify the breeds right in the first place.

DNA Testing may debunk all dog bite studies that cover breed

There is a new article that just came out today via the AVMA that discusses DNA testing and what it may mean to any type of previous study that is done based on dog breeds.

It's well worth the read, and Winograd has kindly posted a copy on his site.

Essentially the article looks at how shelters look at dogs that come into the shelter and how the dogs are classified. 

"Those of us who walk through shelters and animal control facilities compare the posted breed descriptions of the dogs to what they look like to us – with frequent differences of opinions.  Those who have worked at shelters and similar facilities are aware that as dogs move through the steps in admission or during their stay that their breed descriptions may change.  It is my impression, when visiting    animal control or adoption agencies, that most medium to large size dogs with straight, short/ medium length brown hair coats are cast as German shepherds or shepherd mixes, dogs with a black spot on their tongues are designated   Chow mixes , and most medium sized, stocky, broad headed,  small eared dogs with a short hair coats are pit-bulls or pit-bull mixes."

 

That certainly mirrors how I've seen most shelters work. In fact, in Overland Park, Kansas, when the public safety committee was hearing testimonial about their potential breed ban (which eventually passed), when questioned about the city's ability to accurately identify dogs, City Attorny Mike Santos (who used a lot of misinformation in his testimony to get the city to passe the ban)even noted that for 20 years, the animal control officers have received breed identification training to recognize the characteristics of the three main breeds.  You can read the comment here, on page 18.  Note, being able to identify three breeds means squat when there are well over 100 breeds, and without having any knowledge of those breeds, you cannot identify them, and thus, everything becomes one of the three breeds.

 

Rarely are dogs that enter shelters purebred dogs -- and seldom are people allowed to just call the dogs what they are -- mixed breed dogs. Thus, they are asked to identify the dog by what does it look mostly like.   This information ends up in a database, and then ends up getting used for dog bite studies and dog bite fatality studies.

 

However, with DNA testing now at least an option beyond strictly visual idenification, studies are showing that a dog's primary breed is reportedly different on DNA test vs visual identification in 87.5% of cases.

 

So in essence, DNA testing is starting to show that any dog bite studies based on visual identification or media reports based on visual identification could have an accuracy rate of about 12% based on true, actual, DNA information.

 

And while people who have for decades now have said that media reports have shown bias based on faulty breed identification, scientific evidence is starting to agree with them on a the subject -- and by a wide margin.

 

Interestingly, most 'pit bull' advocates were very much against DNA testing when it first came out because they feared that cities would use the DNA tests as a way to go out and kill certain breeds of dogs.  Now, it may be proving what they knew all along, which is that literally thousands of dogs each year are being called 'pit bulls' and really have not DNA related to any of the 'pit bull' breeds.

 

Meanwhile -- the pictures in this post represent almost exactly what the study talks about. The first picture is a picture of Jeffery.  A gorgeous, well behaved dog that, because of his wide head and short fur, would, in most juristictions be labeled as a "pit bull".  However, he has a known ancestory - -with one parent being a purebred French Bulldog (2nd pic) and the other being a purebred Labrador Retriever (3rd pic).  However, with any dog that doesn't have a known ancestory (which is pretty much any dog that was adopted, stray or otherwise came through a shelter or rescue), that ancestory would not be known, and Jeffery would be classified as a 'pit bull'. 

 

Which is why the whole argument of breed specific legislation is failed. Even if a certain breed of dog, because of its DNA, was more prone toward aggressive behavior, it would still be so costly to accurately enforce for cities using DNA testing that it would not be feasible for cities to implement it.  And if they decide that making the determination without DNA testing and based solely on how the dog looks is a better option (which almost all do at this point), 87.5% of the dogs that are affected by the ban would not actually be the desired breed that is affected at all.

 

And if breed identification based on looks is only 12.5% accurate, then the idea of a breed ban, based solely on looks, is so unconstitutinally vague that there is no way it would stand up in court.

 

Which would take us to the natural conclusion, the one that should have been reached long ago, ordinances that are based on owner behavior are FAR more fair and effective than anything that focuses on the look of a dog.

 

It is time to end the madness.

 

 

 

Breed Bans = vague laws that impact good people

 Shortly after I finished Thursday''s post, I got an update about Leonard Shelton.

Mr. Shelton is the member of our military that came home from serving our country in Iraq, and then had to deal with the city of Lakewood, OH,badgering him about the type of dog he was walking because they claimed the dog was a pit bull (which are banned in Lakewood). They confiscated his dog.

I'm happy to report that Mr. Shelton and his dog Roscoe are back together...and that Mr. Shelton has moved from the city of Lakewood so he will no longer be harrassed.

While it is great that they are back together, and Shelton can go on trying to get back to life as usual, it's appalling that one of our war veterans would be harrassed by animal control because of the way his dog looks...and be forced to move because of it.

Amazing. I'm sure everyone in Lakewood can hold their heads high over the way the law is being used and defended.  I know I'd be embarrassed, and livid, if I lived there.

One would think the very act of harrassing a someone who served and defended our country because of his dog would be enough to in a post by itself. And it probably would be.  But there's more to this.

During this whole process, Mr. Shelton went out and got the DNA test done on his dog. The net result?  No traceable amount of any of the "pit bull" breeds in Roscoe's DNA. None.

And while Shelton was told that Roscoe was  a Boston Terrier mix (which is why he didn't think he would be affected by the law), there is no traceable amount of Boston in him either.

And this is exactly why every single one of these laws, that claims a dog to be banned, or dangerous, or automatically aggressive, based on the way it looks if it looks too much like a "pit bull" should be struck down based on vagueness.

According to our legal Void for Vagueness Doctrine, a law is considered "vague" if a person of ordinary intelligence cannot determine what persons are regulated or what conduct is prohitbited. It is also designed to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of laws.

In this case, how would someone who owns a dog with zero trace of a pit bull in him would still be restricted under an ordinance that restricts a breed of dog that he does not own? 

Just this week, Animal Farm Foundation and the National Canine Research Council released a new "find the pit bull" sheet -- this time containing the results from actual DNA tests to go with the pictures.

Can you guess which ones carry significant amounts of "pit bull" breeds? 

Do you trust that animal control in a city with a ban on 'pit bull' breeds can tell the difference?

Does the fact that they can't -- but could deem your dog a 'pit bull' anyway and take it and kill it (without any due process in the state of Ohio) seem like a problem to anyone else?

And in spite of all of this, even if they could accurately tell if a dog was really a 'pit bull', that it still wouldn't indicate that the dog was actually aggressive.

So why have we stuck with BSL for so long? Why do we allow our governments to enforce vague laws against good people in the world like Leonard Shelton who become unsuspecting victims of these laws. Why not focus all of our energies on people who actually have dogs that behave aggressively, instead of harrassing good people and forcing them to have to move from their homes because of an arbitrary law that they didn't even break? 

We'd all benefit if we used our limited animal control resources more wisely than that.

And Lakewood, OH -- shame on you.

-- When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace -- Jimi Hendricks