« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »
Today's topic is about animal control. I want to hear what your personal experiences have been with your local animal control and city shelter. Good? Bad? Ugly? Additionaly, what are your perceptions of AC in your city? (And don't forget to include your city.)
Trying to figure out what your tax dollars are going to? Or are they always there at your beck and call? I'd love to hear from you.
| | |
|
I've been adding some new stuff to the blog roll this week as there are several other excellent blogs out there that I've recently discovered.
The first gets in for its awesome title, "Save the Pit Bull, Save the World". It has a slightly more light-hearted feel than you'll get from me (although I'm really trying to loosen up the tone here a bit).
Another that I've added is "The Tennessee Waltz", who has been doing a great job covering a lot of the recent insanity in Tennessee, and deserves to be linked to. In fact, even if she wasn't doing a great job covering the news of dangerous dog legislations being proposed down there, I would still have linked to her for using the phrase "bow to Brent's wisdom" without complete sarcasm.
One final link comes from the folks at Marginal Revolution -- who are economists (yes, I truly have a side that is that geeky) -- and their post about the Law of Unintended Consequences. They define the law as the results that happen when a simple system (government) tries to control a complex system (society)...and that even well-intensioned laws can sometimes yield results counter to the vision. I've written about this several times here and this is why I am so persistant that city administrators need to focus on laws, policies and regulations that have worked in other places (with the focus on results) vs focusing just what other people have done.
Meanwhile, Christie, over at the Pet Connection Blog, has a great post about the city of Los Angeles, the No Kill Movement and AB 1634 that is well worth the read. Here's a taste:
Do you want No Kill in your communities? Stop trying to legislate what pet owners do with their pets’ reproductive organs. Do what communities that have reached that goal have done: Implement the No Kill Equation. Stop blaming pet owners and reform the failed systems. Stop pushing for intrusive, divisive legislation with no track record of accomplishing what you want to accomplish.
| | |
|
I just got this note in from someone who attended the Ohio House Bill Hearings yesterday regarding HB 366. I'm just going to post the comments in their entirety with a small comment at the end:
I attended and spoke at the proponent testimony on House Bill 366. There were about 10 others that spoke as well, including but not limited to: somebody representing the Ohio Veterinary Medicince Association (2400 members), somebody representing HSUS, For The Love of Pits owner (Shana Klein), somebody who owns pits and uses them for community service in Lake County, and somebody who brought their pit bull with them discussing how this dog is going through therapy dog training. I felt it went well. The representatives were asking many questions, including some that grew up in neighborhoods where free roaming pit bulls were a problem. I even felt one of the representatives was consistently asking questions that further helped the testimony. At one point, the question was asked, "Are all of you here to just get pit bulls out of the state law?". The answer was yes, this is where it starts.
On another note, please let all readers know that if they ever go through this, please provide solutions, solutions, solutions. All representatives took a lot of notes on solutions based testimony and asked for further clarification. They set their pens down when personal stories with a lot of emotion came into play. We all love our dogs, specifically pit bulls, but they are not looking for our love of these animals, they want solutions that can work.
This is certainly great news that the House Committee seemed willing to listen and that such a great, well-rounded group showed up to present. I think the writer's note is an excellent reminder in that we cannot always continue to just defend "pit bulls" in these committee meetings, but we must be willing to talk about viable solutions to aid in solving their problems. (Note, I know that the scale of the problem is often debateable, but I do think there is some merit to talking about dog bites, not just fatalities).
However, at this point I want to remind people to be very cautious in the solutions you offer. There has been some really bad legislation written (Louisville) based on these "solutions".
While a great number of the problems can be solved with increased animal control and proper enforcement, I also think we should focus on case studies that have actually worked in other places. Calgary, for instance, has a great case study on the value of building higher licensing, doing a better job of adopting out animals (and getting animals home prior to even going up for adoption), providing more opportunities for animal socialization, and enforcing basic ordinance -- and using this to dramatically reduce the number of bite incidences in the community.
New Jersey and New Hampshire have shown the value of state-wide voluntary low-cost spay/neuter progrmas that have significantly lowered overall animal control costs and lowered the overall population of animals -- without creating unenforcable legislation.
There are great case studies available for people to use to provide real-world solutions these problems with programs (often they are programs, and not laws) that actually work. We MUST focus on these as the solutions...and be careful what other tools we unwittingly give legislators for lawmaking.
| | |
|
Reading Pennsylvania has what may be one of the wackiest laws out there with a law that if one "breed" of dog is found to be responsible for 40% of their dog bites, all dogs of that "breed" will all be declared vicious.
While this has tied up a lot of people's time in trying to determine the exact number of dog bites and what breeds were responsible (animal control and health department numbers didn't match), the Reading Animal Control Board has recommended against BSL, but has opted to recommend a more far-sweeping policy of enacting mandatory spay/neuter.
Their deciison was based on this same number of dog attacks, where nearly 80% of the dog attacks in Reading were by unsterilized dogs.
Sounds good, doesn't it?
However, this is one of my hot buttons. I have never seen any type of study anywhere that would indicate to me that neutering your dog reduces aggression.
If we can thing rationally about this for a minute, let's deal with a couple of unproven, but pretty easy theories to jump on board with.
1) Dogs that attack are owned by irresponsible dog owners. This shouldn't be terribly controversial, and I think most people more or less agree with this. People who don't train/properly care for their pets, are more likely to have pets that attack. So if we accept this, we can move on to #2
2) Irresponsilbe owners are less likely to spay or neuter their dogs. While this one has much less actual evidence to support it, let's think about it rationally. If someone isn't willing to take the time to properly train/care for their dog, chances are, they aren't going to go to their vet's office and fork over the $120 or so to spay/neuter their dog. This by no means indicates that everyone with an unaltered dog is irresponsible, only that the majority of irresponsible owners don't alter their dogs.
If we can buy into this, the following correlation exits:
Attacking dogs = irresponsible owners = unaltered dogs
So it is only logical that attacking dogs are primarily unaltered.
But I've never seen any evidence, scientific or otherwise, that indicates that the act of being unaltered MAKES the dog more aggressive. Mandatory spay/neuter laws continue to take the root cause of dog attacks out of the equation....the irresponsible dog owners. They are, and continue to be, and will always be, the root cause of the problem. Until we start focusing on the part of the equation that actually has a direct link to the CAUSE of the attack, we will continue to focus on the wrong issues.
Just because there is correlation between unaltered dogs and attacks does NOT mean there is causation associated. The cause is the irresponsible owners. Let's focus our efforts there, and leave responsible dog owners alone.
| | |
|
Dallas is looking at making some changes to their animal control ordinances. The ordinances are sought because of the large number of stray animals roaming neighborhoods and due to a large number of animals that live life tethered to trees or other structures.
The number of animals that are put down in the area shelters is not a new problem in Dallas -- as Dallas and many of its suburbs have been euthanizing many of their animals for quite some time - -including one North Texas Shelter that put down over 82,000 animals in 2005 on their own.
The city is looking at several different options to solve their problems based on a commission of shelter worker's recommendation that includes:
1) Unsupervised chaining or tethering
2) Requiring all dogs and cats to be spayed and neutered unless htey are owned by people with breeder permits
3) Allowing residents to keep no more than 6 animals
4) Allowing the city to immediately sieze animals deemed dangerous (which is defined as those that have attacked a person without provocation).
Honestly, most of these recommendations are pretty good. I'm personally a fan of laws that prohibit unsupervised tethering (not all tethering, but tethering where the dog is a sitting dog for abuse, theft or attack which is bad for the dog and for wandering young children). Siezing biting animals is kind of a no-brainer. While I'm not a sure how setting pet limits will actually help their shelter euthanasia numbers (it will tend to have the opposite affect), but at least theirs is set pretty high.
However, let's talk about the mandatory spay/neuter law.
Let's start with the reality that there are too many animals in Dallas to possibly enforce this law. given some estimates based on 2000 Census numbers and the growth of the city, I'm estimating Dallas has 480,000 households. Based on AVMA numbers that indicate that 37% of all households own dogs, and each dog owning household owns 1.7 dogs, I'm estimating that there are over 300,000 dogs and based on the same AVMA Census number, 350,000 cats that live in Dallas proper. That's 650,000 animals that their already strapped animal control now has to figure out if they are complaint by being spayed or neutered. These animals would all reproduce and create more animals faster than their animal control could possibly check the animals for compliance. The law is completely unenforceable.
And this is just counting animals with actual owners.
Dallas seems to have a large problem with stray dogs. These dogs don't even have owners....so no law is really going to affect them (most dogs I've encounterd can't read). So while animal control is focusing their resources on enforcing mandatory spay/neuter, these stray animals will be reproducing out on the city's streets...and these dogs are already there because the city doesn't have the resources to pick them all up. Owners seldom have an unwanted litter of puppies and just turn them out on the streets. In order to control the stray dog problem, you must dedicate resources to gathering up stray dogs. That's the only way.
A much better option for the city would be to create a good, low-cost spay/neuter program for low-income pet owners and encourage people to use it. Then, focus the city animal control resources on gathering up stray dogs.
Low cost spay/neuter programs work. New Hampshire and New Jersey have both enacted statewide low-cost spay/neuter programs. Based on their results, they've seen huge decreases in the number of unwanted animals using low cost programs -- and have found that for every dollar they put into these low cost programs, they save $3 on the back end by not having to capture and eventually euthanize the animals. You can read a good bit about the New Hampshire study here.
Chances are, a large part of Dallas' problem is that they have not staffed up animal control resource to keep up with the increased animal (and human) population. Dallas has seen a 23% increase in population over the past 15 years. Given the rise in popularity of pet ownership in the past decade, it is likely that the total pet population has grown at an even faster rate. I seriously wonder if Dallas has increased its animal control resources at the same rate.
There are many good examples of what can help to decrease the "pet overpopulation problem". My first three suggestions are these:
1) Increase animal control resources to round up stray dogs
2) Institute a voluntary, low cost spay/neuter program
3) Work on increasing the number of dogs that are adopted out from their animal control facilities.
And I'd really hope that everyone involved read Nathan Winograd's book "Redemption" before making any decisions on what to do about their stray dog problem.
| | |
|
Buckner, MO, a little township with a population of about 2,700, passed a ban on all new 'pit bulls' into the town.
Several citizens apparently expressed concern when someone's 5 month old pit bull puppy came into their yard where a child was playing.
Let's keep in mind, that Buckner is the same community that had a large Bull Mastiff that mauled two adults in the street last year. This dog's owners had allowed their dog to attack someone else two years previously.
So what is a city with a major dog attack to do? Ban the "breed" of dog that had a puppy come close to a child.
We could have started with enforcing a leash law (note, Buckner has no animal control officer).
But no, the ban the 'breed' of dog that didn't even hurt anyone. And even better, if the dog "looks like a pit bull, and acts like a pit bull, it will be counted as a pit bull."
So if it rolls over on its belly for belly rubs, curls up on people's laps, and licks a lot it will be counted as a 'pit bull'? If it likes to go for walks, chew on Nyla-bones and curle up on dog pillows and sleep a lot, it will be counted as a 'pit bull'?
I'm not noting any logic in any of this...
| | |
|
Jim Crosby has a complete rundown of all 33 of the 2007 dog attack fatalities with some insights over at his blog. Jim's reports are as reliable as anything you'll read anywhere on this subject as Jim actually does hands-on research on many of these cases and doesn't just rely on media reports. The other thing that is interesting is that Jim tracks not only the breed of dog involved, but also notes other potentially important factors -- including the age of the child, reproductive status of the dog, whether or not the dog had a previous bite history and whether or not the dog was tethered.
It is impossible to find any other correlation among dog bites other than breed if "breed" is the only thing that you track. Jim tracks other relevant information and has much more relevant information than others who call themselves "experts".
One note, not only does Jim point out that 18 of the 33 victims were kids under the age of 11 (most under the age of 3), but I'll also note that another 10 of the victims were over the age of 60 -- with 3 of those over the age of 90.
Dog bite fatalities seldom happen to healthy adults. Of the 5 non-elderly non-child attacks:
1 woman was killed by a Catahoula/American Bulldog mix and a Golden Retriever
1 was killed by 4 American Bulldogs (another person was involved in this attack
1 was killed by 2 'pit bulls'
1 other was killed by 2 'pit bulls'
and 1 other was killed by an unknown pack of dogs.
In other words, in no cases in 2007 was a non-elderly adult killed by only 1 dog...and at least 4 different breeds of dogs were involved in the 5 fatalities -- including everyone's favorite family pet, a Golden Retriever.
And kids, especially young children, are especially prone to attacks because of their small size and their lack of understanding of animal behaviors.
Go see Jim's post for all the deets.
| | |
|
It's been a crazy week, one that has involved dog attacks, state laws dealing with dogs, local laws dealing with dogs, and a fatal Jack Russel Terrier attack. I'm going to try to boil this down to just the most important stuff...
There are both good and bad dogs
I'm going to start the day with a horrible editorial that someone thought it was more important to give their opinion than to actually do any research or have a clue what they were talking about.
"These are terriers — they bite and hang on. I don’t want a lot of e-mails from pit-bull lovers, but the neighbors thought they had a friendly dog. Not so. It’s in a pit bull’s genes, in my opinion, to eventually snap and attack. "
I'd like to note that this woman's "opinion" is not one of a person without expertise in the area she's talking about....and yet, people will believe what she wrote, and even parrot it.
Teen girl suffers injury when bitten by boyfriend's pit bull
It sounds as if the 19 year old girl was playing (possibly roughhousing) with the dog and the dog bit her in the face and mangled her nose. Jim Crosby got an interview for this one and notes:
"If you're playing with the dog rambunctiously and you're at face level, it's not uncommon to get hit in the face with teeth. The dog may not have intended it," Crosby said.
The headline is a bit misleading as the boy was bitten by the "pit bull" when he reached for a ball. The dog was chained up in the backyard and was a new momma who'd just had puppies.
A "pit bull" bit a teenager in the community and now the city council is looking at all dangerous dog possibilities, including a ban on "pit bulls". This attacked followed another attack earlier this year. The chief of police gets it right:
"The bottom line is that if people took the time to put their dogs on a leash, and kept their animals under control, these incidents would not have occurred."
This is the case in the vast majority of dog bites and attacks; either a) the current laws if they had been enforced could have been prevented or b) it happened in the dog's home and wouldn't have been prevented regardless of what laws were enacted.
Waterloo, IA looking at putting "teeth" in their dangerous dog ordinance
The mayor, Tim Hurley didn't say what he had in mind, but local resident Nathan Merrill was pushing for stricter regulation of dogs that were capable of causing a lot of damage after his pet Poodle was attacked and killed by a dog earlier this year. "I'm personally not pushing for a ban on pit bulls" he said.
Keep an eye on Waterloo...as these things can get really wacky really quickly.
Dothan, AL on a downhill spiral
Following an attack that happened in Dothan a few months back, the city council has drafted an ordinance that includes breed specific language and mandatory spay/neuter.
The Alabama Canine Coalition has all the details on their website...with line by line notes of all the things that are wrong with the ordinance.
Several dog fighting busts made this week
Here's one in Yalaha, FL where 17 pit bulls were found in horrible conditions. Actually, it turns out there were 2 homes involved, and 26 dogs. Three men have been arrested.
Here's one in Jackson, MS. where 3 men were arrested and 10 'pit bulls' rescued from the scene.
In Los Angeles, a 55 year old man was arrested and 11 "Staffordshire Bull Terriers" were rescued from an alleged dog fighting ring.
I hope that if these men are guilty they get the harsh penalties they deserve.
Knoxville, TN looking at breed neutral dangerous dog ordinance upgrades
Their proposed bill would increase the demands on owners whose dogs were deemed potentially dangerous based on behavior and give animal control officers more ability to confiscate dogs when their owners didn't comply with the restrictions.
Stray dogs a problem in Lubbock
West Texas has had several dog attacks this past year. In the first 16 days of the new year, their animal contro got 305 calls for stray/loose dogs. However, compared to much of the rest of West Texas, Lubbock's problem is not very severe. Amarillo average 2500 such calls each month last year. Midland picked up about 900 stray dogs each month.
These are pretty amazing numbers -- and a LOT of stray dogs. It's no wonder that dog bites have been a problem out in west Texas.
Four year old attacked by family pit bull in Mobile, AL
The boy got in an argument with his brother and the dog got in the middle of the fight and bit the four year old boy.
Dogs tend to be protective of their owners...and will sometimes jump in if they feel their owner is in danger. This was a pretty normal dog behavior in this instance that will no doubt be chalked up to the breed of dog involved.
Pit bull attacks 4 year old boy in Winston Salem, NC
This dog was on a chain in its back yard. Chaining dogs continues to prove to be a bad idea.
Two dogs thrown off Missouri Overpass
Two dogs, a pit bull mix and a Akita/Golden Retriever mix were thrown from a 30 foot tall overpass in the St. Louis area earlier this week. The pit bull was put down later due to the severity of his injuries. The Akita/Golden Retriever mix was able to run off from the scene and hasn't been found.
Pit bull warns owner of fire, saves his life
The owner had saved the dog's life 4 years ago when he found "Baby", a 'pit bull', mauled and dumped in front of his house. This week, Baby returned the favor by waking him up and warning him about a fire in his house. The man was able to escape, but unfortunately, Baby's final act was one of heroism and returning the favor of saving his owner's life.
South Sioux City updates its dangerous dog ordinance
I'm really confused by the newspaper coverage of this. One one hand, the paper says that the ordinance is not breed specific and doesn't ban 'pit bulls' or require insurance, but then says that pit bulls are automatically deemed "potentially dangerous" which puts them under a huge set of criteria including insurance requirements, licensing and muzzling. So anyone who has any idea what this ordinance actually says is more than welcome to enlighten me. Man the media is great at getting facts strait when it comes to dogs.
Rambo has friends in high places
Rambo is a friendly 'pit bull' that got away from her owner and was picked up by animal control. Based on Ontario's ridiculous ban on pit bulls, Rambo is now slated to be killed by the local authorities. It sounds like a few members of the Mississauga City Council would like to find a way to help Rambo's owner get him shipped to a rescue group and out of the province.
"I have a 10-month-old puppy at home and I know if she was put in that situation, she would just cry and cry," Councilor Pat Saito said. "The Province has given municipalities a terrible job to do," in interpreting and applying the legislation. The law is "terrible legislation that is poorly written and poorly worded."
Yip.
Another idiot columnist that completely failed to see the real picture. This columnist was bitten by a friend's 'pit bull' when she was dog-sitting the dog. The friend told her to just throw food over the fence because the dog was known to be very food aggressive. The columnist didn't do that, and in fact grabbed the food bowl away from the dog and ended up getting bitten on the hand.
So the dog sitter is stupid and doesn't follow the rules and gets bit, and blames the breed of dog. Not Smart. And, her friend, has a dog that is terribly food aggressive (popular in all breeds of dogs) and instead of training the dog to not be aggressive, tries to work around it. Again, not smart. Instead of either of these lessons coming out in the column, the columnist chooses to perpetuate myths and stereotypes.
Tennessee Senator Tommy Kirby Proposes State-wide BSL
Kirby proposed the bill that would it make it a misdemeanor to own a pit bull in the state of Tennessee. Kirby says he knows the bill is unconstitutional, but wanted to use it as leverage to get a statewide law passed that would more harshly punish owners of dogs that attacked people. The bill doesn't have a sponsor, so it's likely to die very quickly, but I'd keep an eye on Senator Kirby.
| | |
|
| | |
|
About a year after Louisville went through and passed some crazy legislation that included all kinds of stupid, non-productive legislation like mandatory spay/neuter, a six week old child was attacked and killed by a dog yesterday.
The attacker, a Jack Russell Terrier.
Apparently the dog was left alone with the child and at some point, attacked it. Interestingly, the family also owned a "pit bull" that was not involved in the attack.
So let me make a note of a couple of tidbits in how the media reported this.
1) First, of the six media reports on this attack, not a single one of them has put the breed of dog involved in the attack in the headline.
2) Every one of the stories mentions that there was a 'pit bull' that lived in the house that wasn't involved in the attack
3) One, even claims the pit bull was dangerous based on signs in the yard, saying "From the looks of it, the pitbull was dangerous. Signs warn neighbors of what could happen, but it happened to the Mozer's own baby boy, and the culprit was the Jack Russell Terrier."
4) One calls it a "rare attack by a small breed" based on Merritt Cliffton's useless "statitistics". Bites by Jack Russells may or may not be all that rare, but the MEDIA ACTUALLY REPORTING ON THEM is quite rare -- THAT'S what Cliffton's numbers show.
The bottom line is that you can't legislate responsible dog ownership. Oh, you can hold people accountable for the actions of their dog (and you should), but you cannot legislate away ignorance (and trust me, if it were possible, I'd be all for it). People will be ignorant and irresponsible...the only way to combat this is with education...not legislation.
| | |
|
Recent Comments