KC DOG BLOG

Death in the UK highlights the failings of BSL

A four year old boy, John Paul Massey,was attacked and killed by a dog in his grandmother's home in the UK. And the reaction of the media and local authorities has highlighted why the Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991 in the UK has failed -- and failed miserably.

Most of the focus of the media articles, and of the authorites, have involved what breed of dog was involved in the attack. According to one news source:

Police said genetic tests would be carried out to establish the breed of the dog involved.

Added the police spokesman: "The process of identification of whether a dog is illegal under the dangerous dog act takes time.

"It is a complex issue and further forensic examinations are ongoing to establish the type of dog involved in this attack."

The dog, for what it's worth, has been described in the media as a "mastiff", a "bull-terrier" a "bull terrier-type", a "bull dog", a mastiff/Bull terrier cross and even one report of it being a 'pit bull".

And while the authorities have been talking about the breed of dog involved, and the media has been creating sensational images around the attack, not once, in nearly 200 articles about this, has anyone seemed at all interested in the circumstances surrounding an attack that led to a four year old boy to be killed.

And that's where this whole thing has gone wrong.

Anyone with any sense at all realizes at this point that breeds are not responsible for aggressive attacks -- that it takes a series of unfortunate circumstances and a neglegent owner for them to happen. By focusing on breeds of dogs, the authorities in the UK are not only wasting their animal control resources trying to gather up 'pit bulls', but are missing a key element to ending major attacks -- which is educating owners on the causes that lead up them.

The reason this dog attacked is the same -- regardless of what breed of dog it ends up being.  But unfortunately, in the UK, they've chosen to focus on breeds, and throwing the educational piece out the window -- and the citizens in the UK are worse off for it. 

In spite of the breed ban that dates back to 1991 - -and quite likely BECAUSE of the breed ban -- major attacks are becomming almost commonplace in the UK. 

In Bradford, the areas saw 42 people treated in the hospital from dog bites in 2001/02 and 41 in '02/'03. That number has been near or above 90 in each of the past 3 years.

In Lancashire, the number of people hospitalized from dog attacks had doubled in just the past 5 years -- from 36 in 2003 to 75 in 2008.

In West Yorkshire, the number of people treated in hospitals for dog bites had gone up 43% in the past 5 yars.

In Midland, hospitalizations are up 60%.

In Scotland, the number has risen 160% in the past 8 years.

Across the nation, the law has been a failure -- and they continue to just throw more money at the issue vs actually dealing with the problem.  And the problem is that everyone in the country seems too focused on "breeds" to realize that it isn't breeds causing the problems, it's a lack of owner education and a lack of focus on irrepsonsible owners that is causing the problem -- and both problems are actually INCREASED because of their breed ban, not improved.  Because of all of this, there is becoming an increased push across the UK to overhaul the Dangerous Dogs Act. And not a moment too soon.

Folks, BSL is failing -- everywhere.

Gold Coast, Australia learns of difficulties of enforcing BSL

In 2003, a Gold Coast, Australia woman was attacked by a 'pit bull'. The victim appeared before the city council and demanded the city do something to ban 'pit bulls'.  

Like too many cities, the hysteria of the moment was to much to overlook, and they began one of the strictest enforcements of Queensland's state-wide ban on four breeds of dogs: Dogo Argentino, Fila Brasileiro, Japanese Tosa and American Pit Bull Terrier.

Years later,the Gold Coast City Council has discovered to its great cost, banning pit bulls is not as easy as it might seem.

The city has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars (likely in the millions)  on court cases pertaining to accurate breed identification -- having lost at least 57 such cases in the past few years.  One such case involved a dog named Rusty that was impounded and sentenced to death by three council experts -- one of whom was Deborah Pomeroy, a Brisbane City Animal Control supervisor who helped devise the 22 point identification system used across Queensland.  During the trial, Pomeroy admitted that she was selft trained, hand no veterinarian qualifications and could claim no scientific basis for the identificiation system she'd helped create.

The case caused a tidal wave of lost breed identification cases, all at substantial costs to the cities and the state of Queensland.

As more and more places rack up experience with BSL, and find that it is way more difficult and costly to enforce than they had thought, it is leading more places to seek breed neutral policies that focus only on the behavior of the dog -- not on some arbitrary "look" that should be outlawed. 

Breed specific legislation has proven to be difficult and expensive to enforce -- and ineffective at dealing with the problem of dangerous dogs around the world -- including Australia, Canada, Puerto Rico, the UK, Germany and in the U.S.

It is a failed idea, based on a failed premise that is not scientifically sound. It is time to move on.

Hat tip: Stop BSL

London, Ontario struggles with BSL

Four years after Ontario's ban on 'pit bulls', London, Ontario -- the provence's 5th largest city, continues to see a lot of concerns about 'pit bulls'.

"Over the last couple of years, the issues with pit bulls do not support the number of investigations," said City Environmental Director Jay Stanford. "But it's the fear of pit bulls that still with us."

The "fear" is something that was in many ways CREATED by Ontario's breed ban - it certainly isn't because they really are a major cause of th eproblem -- given that there hasn't been a pit bull related fatality in Canada in the past 50 years.  However, the breed ban created fear, as have media reports like this one (how is it, exactly, that a case involving 2,234 ecstasy pills, hash oil, cocain, illegal weapons, a couple tied up in the basement and a sexual assault ends up with 'pit bull' in the headline?)

Of the city's 11,758 animal-related complaints in 2008, more than 2,000 of them were about 'pit bulls'.  However, in many of the cases, the complaints were mistaken about the breed.

This is a common problem -- because residents have irrational fears of 'pit bulls', but can't identify them, they make calls about non-problem dogs, that aren't 'pit bulls', that tie up a lot of animal control resources.  Yakima, WA is just one city that has struggled with this as well.

Another thing that is taking "significant workload" is keeping track of some of the 'pit bulls' when their owners move.  Again, these are dogs that are not problems, but are taking up a lot of resources.

So do we think that the folks in London are "safer" because they are using a large amount of animal control resources -- way larger than the actual "problem" represented by 'pit bulls' -- enforcing the breed ban?

 It should also be noted that Ontario's second largest city, Ottawa, has decided against enforcing the ban and as long as the dog is not a problem, they are leaving them alone -- noting that the law was too costly and difficult to enforce.

So this is two of Ontario's 5 largest cities that have admitted struggles enforcing the provencial breed ban -- one can only hope the MPPs are listening and use this information to strongly support Cheri DiNovo's recently introduced bill that would repeal the breed specific language in the Dog Owner's Liability Act.

For a bit more information about the bill --here is a new radio interview from out of Toronto that features DiNovo talking about the bill -- and includes Bill Bruce, from Calgary, talking about their success because they've focused all of their resources on educating owners on what really causes dog bites and only on dogs and dog owners that really represent problems in their city. (I owe someone a hat tip on this, but can't remember where I snagged it, so sorry).

It's time to focuse our resources on dogs that are actually problems, and put our irrational fears and the idea of breed specific legislation to rest.

Denver BSL Redux

The Denver Westword -- an Alternative Newspaper in the Denver area -- has a great article today on Denver's 20 year old ban on pit bulls -- wondering if it's time for a recount on Denver's declaration of 'pit bulls' as public enemy #1.

The article tells some of the stories of the people who have been affected by the law. Kevin O'Connell had his Presa Canario that got out while a friend was watching his dogs and attacked a neighbor's Chihuahua.  When animal control officers arrived, they confiscated not the dog that actually attacked the other dog, but the other dog that was in the yard minding its own business because they said it was a 'pit bull'. It also tells of his signing of a document that declares his dog a 'pit bull' in order to get his dog out of doggie prison -- which is a forced signature of guilt in order to get his now sickly looking dog -- which is a violation of the 5th amendment of the US Constitution.

It also tells the story of Heidi Tufto -- an army staff sergeant -- who was held at gunpoint while authorities confiscated her dog they thought was a 'pit bull' while she was walking her dog in the park in 2002. Tufto ended up being flown out of the state on a military transport to get out of the city. 

The article also talks about the costs associated with Denver enforcing the ban. Since 1992, Denver has impounded 5,286 pit bulls.  In 2005 and 2006 alone (right after Denver won its lawsuit against the state of Colorado in order to keep its ban), 1900 pit bulls were confiscated -- of those, 1,453 of them were killed. In total, 3,500 'pit bulls' have been killed by the city - -at an estimated cost of roughly $256 per dog from pickup to killed.   In total, about $900,000 has been spent by the city killing pit bulls -- mostly in the past 3 years.  The city has indured three lawsuits (one is still ongoing) and even levied its own lawsuit against the state (which doubles the taxpayer expense since they're paying for both ends of the suit) in order to keep the law.  The city pays six full time evaluators just to determine breed identification. 

In total, the city has spent millions of taxpayer dollars enforcing the ban, and killing dogs -- all at a time when the city is facing a $160 million budget shortfall -- with no measure of success.

According to the report:

Denver has never done an audit of the pit bull ban, never conducted a study of how effective it has been, never established a commission to determine whether one of Denver's most controversial policies is actually accomplished what it was created to do.  But evidence from other sources suggests that after two decades of classifying pit bulls as public enemy number one, it could be time for Denver to redo its math.

While proponents of the city's ban point to the fact that since the ban was put in place no one in Denver has been killed by a "pit bull", that is a really narrow focus.  Someone has been killed by a dog in Denver since the ban was put in place -- just by a different breed of dog -- which is actually pretty amazing given how rare such attacks are.

Meanwhile, a study by the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment notes that a person bitten by a dog in Denver is much more likely to go to the hospital than a person bitten in many neighborhing counties that don't ban pit bulls -- and a separate study done by the Coalition on Living Safely with Dogs notes that the bite rate in Denver is much higher than it is in neighboring communities.

So how is it that the city of Denver has been allowed to spend millions in taxpayer funds to enforce and defend a controversial ordinance with no study on its own part to determine the effectiveness of such a law?  It almost seems criminal.

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What makes it worse is that this all started after an attack by a 'pit bull' on Wilbur Billingsly -- a 58 year old evangelical pastor.  Billingsly was severely mauled.  It turns out that in spite of the owner's assertion that the dog had never been a problem before, this wasn't the dog's first run in with trouble.  In fact, the dog had bitten three people in three consecutive years - -including one incident in which a child was bitten so badly that a child spent 3 weeks in the hospital.  Animal control let the dog that attacked Billingsly stay with its owner - -who continued to leave the dog chained in the back yard. Just three days before the attack, the dog had broken free from his chain and nearly attacked an 11 year old girl.  Had animal control done anything at all to remove this dog from the situation -- and prevented the dog's clearly irresponsible owner from continuing to own, and mistreat the animal -- Billingsly may likely have never been attacked -- creating what then council president Cathy Reynolds still recalls as "the hysteria of the moment.  It was emotional, there was no way you could stop it."

Had animal control simply done their jobs -- Wilbur Billingsly would likely have never been mauled -- and a ban that has cost the taxpayers of Denver millions of dollars with no measurable success would have never taken place.

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The after affect has been equally tragic. Dogs ripped from people's homes. People forced to move. Armed services officers held at gunpoint. Thousands of dogs killed for no reason at all.

The article has an accompanying pictoral of Denver's "Pit Bull Row".  It's extremely powerful. 

Please check out both articles.

For Two decades, pit bulls have been public enemy #1 in Denver. But maybe it's time for a recount.

Denver's Pit Bull Row.

And while you're at it, check out denverkillsdogs.com. 

And alsoFor the Pit Bulls blog on the same subject.

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.

    

The media, breed bans, and the ineffectiveness of breed bans

Last week, a South Salt Lake City man was bitten by two dogs outside of a gas station.

The dogs, roaming off-leash, approached the man. There is no word that the dog approached the man aggressively, but regardless, the man became scared and when the dogs got close to him, he began kicking one of the dogs. The dogs retaliated and "attacked" the man.

Of course, the headlines were all about the "pit bull" attack -- not about the reality that the man attacked the dogs first.

When police came to get the dogs, police officials said the dogs were quite friendly and showed no signs of aggression...apparently only showing aggression when they are kicked.  Many dogs would react the same way.

The story goes on to talk about how attacks like this often lead to talk of breed bans -- even though the news source didn't find one person in favor of such a ban --- although th Humane Society of Utah spoke out against such a ban.

The news station also noted that the community of South Jordan, UT passed a ban on pit bulls (which happened in 1997).  The article even shows South Jordan's dog bites from 2000-2007. During that time, the total number of dog bites went from 42 to 112.  Less than 5% are coming from 'pit bulls'. It's interesting to note the huge increase in dog bites from 2000 to 2007 -- a 167% increase in bites over the 7 year timeframe. It's worth noting that South Jordan is a rapidly growing city in Utah -- and the population grew from 29,437 to 48,046 during this timeframe. But while the city has grown in population by 63%, the number of dog bites has increased at more than double the rate of the population.

The breed ban there isn't improving public safety in South Jordan. Bites continue to go up at an alarming rate.  And quite likely this is in part due actually TO the breed ban -- which as noted in Yakima earlier today, eats up animal control resources dealing with 'pit bulls' (both real and not real) and not with aggressive dogs -- regardless of breed. Additionally, the media fear-mongering leads to people having an irratoinal fear of pit bull type dogs -- which would lead a man outside of a gas station to kick two friendly dogs because of his unfounded fears -- and actually CAUSE him to get attacked.

And so the vicious cycle goes.  A 'pit bull' bites someone.  The media uses the situation to fear monger and create talk of breed bans even when such talk really doesn't exist. The media even uses the "other cities are doing it" approach -- ignoring the fact that it isn't improving public safety. And then another city passes a ban, which decreases public safety, and increases ignorance about what it really takes to increase public safety, which leads to more dog bites, and the cycle continues.

It's time to break the cycle. It's time to insist that cities look at ordinances that actually WORK -- not just laws that other cities are passing.  It only makes sense...and we need to quit letting the media fear-monger us into bad legislation and further ignorance among people in our communities.

Yakima, WA - Wasted Resources Don't Improve Public Safety

Last week, KIMA TV in Yakima, WA ran a story about Yakima's 20 year old ban on 'pit bulls'.

In spite of the city's ban, Animal Control officers are reporting that pit bulls are filling up the city's shelter -- to the tune of about one pit bull arriving per day. With a 20 year old ban, one would think that a working ordinance would have eliminated all pit bulls from the community.

But it hasn't. There are still many.

What makes the problem even worse is the wasted time spent by animal control officers on calls made about pit bulls that weren't really pit bulls.

"It would free up a lot of our time," said ACO Ben Zigan. "Because a lof the calls we get about pit bulls turn out not to be pit bulls." 

 So, in other words, calls that they're responding to about "illegal pit bulls" turn out to not be illegal dogs...which wastes the time of animal control officers on dogs that are not aggressive. How much better would their time be spent just showing up on calls to deal with aggressive dogs, regardless of breed, than on 'pit bulls' that are neither pit bulls nor aggressive? 

Meanwhile, this is the same community, that just over a year ago, was discussing potentially updating its pit bull ban to included addtional breeds of dogs that had become problems because of a rash of dog attacks that happened in the city.

The problem was never the breed of dog involved. It's always the owners.  And until we get to the point where we focus our animal control resources (which are always limited) on the reckless owners, instead of chasing dogs that weren't a problem but some civilian thought resembled a pit bull, cities will never succeed in dealing with the problem of biting dogs in their communities.

Hat tip on the story to StopBSL.

More Pressure on Denver

News about Denver's continuing struggle with its 20 year old breed ban continues to make the news.

The city is curretnly facing a $120 million budget deficit -- and the costs of enforcing the law, as well as the continued court costs that are going in to defending the law against legal appeals, are coming under the microscope.

Adding fuel to the fire, is a very detailed report on dog bites throughout central Colorado done by a group of veterinarians, rescue groups and animal control officers that joined together under the group, the Coalition for Living Safely with Dogs, that provides actual dog bite statistics for the region. The report noted that a large variety of dogs bite, and most bies are quite minor....and provided useful action steps in dealing with the problem of dog bites in the communities.

These factors, along with public outcrry, are leading the city to look at options besides the city's breed ban.

While the proposal that is on the table is really bad legislation, the reality that Denver's law is costing the financially strapped city unneccesarily, and that the law hasn't actually reduced the number of dog bites in the city, is a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile, there is a large dog ban protecst march planned on City Hall on August 25th at the Denver City and County Building lawn -- 1437 Bannock St. The protest is at 1 pm -- and if you want any additional information you can reach out to jan@denverkillsdogs.com.

Head on out and show your support for a repeal of the costly and ineffective legislation. 

Targeting the wrong people, defining "success", and a lack of public information -- Case Study: Omaha

Last October, the city of Omaha passed a new ordinance regarding "dangerous dogs" for their community. Some of the ideas were good and some were awful. And the real results of the ordinance really have not become a part of public knowledge.

The ordinance featured a lot of stuff -- you can read more about it here -- but the gist of it is:

1) No dog may be tethered outside for more than 15 minutes at a time, unless on a trolly system, in which case the time limit is 1 hour.

2) A Designation for Dangerous and Potentially Dangerous Dogs

3) A classification for Reckless Owners

4) Increased Licensing fees

5) Requirements for owners of 'pit bulls' -- including fencing, leash length, muzzling requirements, insurance requirements, age of owner requirements and ways to avoid the muzzling requirements if responsible dog owners pass the Canine Good Citizen Class.

Most of the laws went into effect on October 15, but the pit bull muzzle law went into effect Jan 1 to give people the opportunity

My opinions on each of the ordinances (some good, some bad) was included in the previous post, but essentially I (and several city council members actually) stressed at the time that while some of the elements (like the Dangerous/potentially dangerous and the reckless owner designations) were good -- most of the requirements for the pit bull ownership was targeting mostly responsible dog owners. That essentially, anyone who was going to go through the work to get the Canine Good Citizen designation to avoid all of the breed specific legislation was never a problem in the first place.  But the new requirements were just a series of hoops for good dog owners, and tying up animal control resources (animal control and shelter services for Omaha are contracted out to the Nebraska Humane Society) that were being wasted on responsible owners.

Meanwhile, these resoures were going to be pulled from personnel that would be out dealing with truly irresponsible dog owners - -who make the minority of the dog-owning population of all breeds -- and would cause more problems than it would help.

And it has, depending on who you ask.

At the beginning of July, NHS released their statistics for the first 6 months of the year. They include:

-- 90 citations to pit bull owners who were unable to provide proof of insurance (note -- I've had conversations with several people in Omaha who have had a terrible time trying to secure the insurance requirement - so this may be less of a result of "irresponsibility" and more of a result of lack of availability)

-- 33 tethering citations

-- 9 reckless owner declarations (3 appeals were granted)

-- 70 potentially dangerous dog declarations were issued (4 appeals granted)

-- 62 dogs took the Canine Good Citizen Class.

Based on these numbers, NHS VP of Field Operations Mark Langan called the ordinances a success.

"The new ordinances seem to be doing their job.  Animal control officers have been aggressive in enforcing the law and, for the most part, the public has been cooperating with the law. But occassionally we are dealing with some angry dog owners."

However, the ordinance wasn't designed to hand out more citations -- it was created with the idea in mind of IMPROVING PUBLIC SAFETY. It seemed curious to me that the whole number of dog bites never came up. THAT should be the measure of success. Not citations. Are people safer because dog bites are going down?

Um, no.

According to numbers I receive yesterday, the total number of dog bites for the first 6 months of 2009 was 449 bites recorded.  In the same time period in 2008, it was 328.  For those doing the math, that's a 37% increase in dog bites in the first 6 months of the year following the passing of their new ordinance. By comparison, this comes after a couple of consecutive years of decreases:

2006 dog bites: 916

2007 dog bites: 821

2008 dog bites: 808

This year so far we're at a 37% increase.

Meanwhile, the city is paid out $50,000 more money to NHS to enforce the ordinance in 2008, and increased their contract $75,000 in 2009 to enforce the new ordinance. So at this point, the citizens of Omaha are out $125,000 to see an INCREASE of dog bites.

For an ordinance that was designed to improve public safety, I wouldn't call that a success.

Meanwhile, the city and its current mayor, Jim Suttle (who voted against the ordinance) are staring at an estimated $11 million budget shortfall in 2010.  Some of the things being considered to make up for the budget shortfall include: pay freezes for civilian city employees, pay freezes for police and fire employees, pay freezes for the mayor, staff and city council, and some increased fees.

I have a suggestion to help:

1) Improve the tethering ordinance so that it prohibits "unsupervised" tethering...this 15 minute rule is pretty draconian and doesn't really solve the problem. The problem is people who use tethering as a primary form of containment, so focus on those people.

2) Keep the dangerous/vicious dog designations -- and focus energies on enforcing these laws.

3) Keep the reckless dog owner laws -- there is likely a very small percentage of dog owners who are causing the majority of the problems...and this law will help there.

Laws 2 & 3 are similar to laws passed in Minneapolis and St. Paul in 2007 that led to significant decreases in dog bites in their first year of use.

4) Get rid of all of the 'pit bull' specific laws -- if the dog isn't "dangerous" or "vicious" based on those classifications based on the dog's actual behavior, NHS officials should not be wasting resources dealing with the dogs...which is taking away from their work on the dogs that are a problem based on their actual behaviors.

5) By cutting out the breed-specific laws, they can cut back the fees to NHS so they can give it back to the struggling budget.

6) Rewrite the NHS contract so that NHS's numbers are subject to Sunshine Law Requests.  Right now, NHS is a 501c3 organization and their numbers are not subject to the state Sunshine Law requests. The city is paying them $700,000 in taxpayer funds this year, and taxpayers have no way of looking at the NHS numbers.  This gives them the ability define success any way they want (by citations, not bites for instance).  Their numbers should be subject to open records request.  It would be unfathomable to have a police force that doesn't have to provide crime statistics...and yet, NHS, which has police powers, is not subject to the same scrutiny. If they have nothing to hide, they should have no problem with this.  If they do have a problem with it, one has to wonder what it is they are trying to hide.

In October, the ordinance will have been in existence for 1 year. I think the early results are enough to say that given the current economy, the ordinance is too costly and too ineffective to stick with and that some changes need to be made. 

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.