Sioux CIty, IA Struggling Early with BSL

 Sioux City, IA is struggling with the early stages of their BSL.  For years, the city has relied on veterinarians to handle dog licensing.  When people go in to get their pets vaccinated, the vets have been handling getting the dogs licensed with the city.

Now, it appears that many of the vets are no longer cooperating with the city.  Once the city passed their ban on 'pit bulls' (which several area vets spoke out against), vets no longer want to be responsible for determining the breed of dog involved and be identifying which dogs should be restricted and which ones should not be.

"Now they've added the burden on us of identifying what animals are pit bulls and veterinarians as a whole don't want to deal with that," said Dr. David Ray. Ray said that specifying breeds based on visual appearance is tricky, especially when the dog is a mix of multiple breeds.

In other words, the vets say they can't really visually identify a dog that is predominantly 'pit bull' with accuracy, and don't want that burden placed on them.

Because many of the vets won't license, the city may have to provide their own ways for people to license their animals -- meaning added administrative expense for the city.  Currently the city brings in $52,000 in revenues from licensing (which has a compliance rate of 10-15%) but has a cost of $340,000 for animal control (and that number may soon be rising).  Taxpayers are paying the difference.

There are so many things wrong with this train wreck, but here are my initial thoughts:

1) Cities should not necessarily look at animal control as something that should be completely funded by pet owners any more than schools should be completely funded only by parents. There is value to society in not having stray, loose, dangerous dogs roaming a city. 

2) If a city can completely fund animal control through licensing, all the better. Calgary is the only city I know of that has been able to do that -- and they've done this by providing a service to their constituents and by not imposing unfair and harsh legislation against their dog owners. Increasing licensing certainly can't be done if people are being targeted for punishment by the city even if they've done nothing wrong.

3) With all of that said, cities need to be responsible with the amount of money they spend on animal control.  There are many city services that people pay for, and increasing the amount of money for animal control in order to enforce ordinances that don't improve public safety or the safety of animals is taking away resources from other programs that really do improve public safety.  Omaha continues to struggle with crime even as they added $500,000 to the city budget for animal control, and Cincinnati, which has one of the highest murder rates in the country is using police to enforce their "pit bull" ban.  It just doesn't make sense.

4) It is going to be increasingly difficult to get people to license their animals in light of a) the city using people's data that is being used to target them once new laws are passed and b) when just in the past 2 weeks, cities like Arkansas City, KS and Welsh, LA are looking at adding additional breeds to their banned list because the ban on 'pit bulls' hasn't solved their dangerous dog owner problem. People become very concerned that their type of dog will be next because the irresponsible owners change breeds of dogs but that doesn't make them responsible. Cities must learn that they have to deal with the root cause of the problem -- OWNERS -- in order to solve it. It isn't, and never will be about "breed".

5) Universally, Veterinarians say they find it almost impossible to determine breeds of dogs, particularly when dogs are mixed breeds.  This is one of the major reasons the AVMA does not support breed specific laws.   And yet, cities all over think they can enforce this type of legislationg by using veterinarians, animal control officers, or judges to determine what type of dog something is.  The enforcement is arbitrary at best. This is why Kansas City, KS has lost multiple lawsuits over the past 15 months by mislabeling dogs as pit bulls, even some dogs that were originally adopted from their shelter.  Who cares what type of dog it is if the dog isn't aggressive?

Hats off to the veterinarians in Sioux City who do not want to help the city enforce their inneffective legislation...

Comments

[pitbull friend]

Bravo to the vets! I assume they take an oath like physicians do: "First, do no harm." Power to them for recognizing how their knowledge may be misused & having no part of it.

[Jennifer Frost]

Thank you for doing all this research. I will be sharing this as we are bring forced to give up our family dog of 9 years because of the ban.

[Jennifer Frost]

Would you be able to help me get updated info on registration revenue and rates of compliance for Sioux city?