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.

Comments

[Karen]

How can they be so stupid?

[MichelleD]

PLEASE spread the word for people to NOT DONATE TO THIS ORGANIZATION!!! Quit empowering these agencies to exploit and kill animals!

[Pibble]

What idiots! And they have the nerve to push their stupid laws on us when they can't tell one breed from another - within the SAME LITTER?!

[MichelleD]

The thing is they can't tell what breed these dogs are PERIOD. THEY are the ones that pushed to add more breeds to the list because THEY ADMITTED they couldn't tell the difference between a pit bull and an Am Bull. And even within the same litter they can have different dads. None of these dogs are probably "pit bulls" - whose to say these aren't boxer lab mixes? Who the hells knows!?!?

To a larger point - THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PUBLIC SAFTEY. NHS helped Omaha pass this to bring in revenue for their CGC classes and fines.

[Pai]

A prime example of why I'm highly skeptical of the claim that '25% of shelters dogs are purebred'. The staff at most of these places have no clue how to identify breeds. Anything with a square head = pit. Anything that's black and tank = rott mix. etc etc.

[The Pied Piper]

It's been a few years since my last experience with NHS, but the Then versus Now comparison hasn't much improved apparently. Then, it was against their policy to take in (as from other shelters or rescues) any brindle dogs, no matter the breed appearance, regardless of the litter's quality (i.e. all but one was solid colored, showing indications of being greyhound mixes). Their reasoning was that any brindle dog would be labeled pit or pit mix, and according to them, vets in the area would tell any owners of brindle dogs to get rid of those dogs immediately. It seemed to me that this was a convenient way of distancing themselves from any responsibility to educate or advocate for shelter animals.

Since then I have been told by volunteers that the shelter has tentatively worked to try and find homes for a few pits and pit mixes, though the impression I got was that it was very sparingly.

[Angel]

Well written Brent! Thanks so much for writing this blog and for all of your advice and support(Omaha).

[Keira]

Thanks for the great blog on how stupid Omaha is. I wish they would think a little more like Lincoln is! In fact it would be nice if more city would think in such a way.

[Brent]

Keira,

Interestingly, not only is Lincoln more fair in the way they approach their canine legislation, their dog bite numbers have been consistently dropping over the past at least 6 years. Meanwhile, Omaha's are up. So not only are they thinking right, it's working.

[YesBiscuit]

If these 4 aren't littermates, I'll eat my hat. That said, it is possible the dam of this litter was a Pitbull and the sire of 3 of the pups was also a Pitbull but the sire of the 4th pup was a Lab. POSSIBLE. But not bloody likely and I'll be damned if I can tell any difference among them.

[Chris]

Just walked through the NHS and viewed the adoptable dogs. Harriet and Lucy are still there. There were about a total of 7 or 8 "pit bulls" or "pit bull mixes". I was amazed at how some were deemed to have enough "pit bull" in them that they qualified for the restrictions, whereas another was "more boxer" or "more labrador" and didn't qualify for the restrictions. Not sure how they would enforce that out on the street. You can see many of these dogs on their website. Just ridiculous how they do breed identification for this BSL ordinance, but at least one good thing is that they are trying to adopt these dogs out.

[marksdorcel]

I wish they would think a little more like Lincoln subsequently is! Actually it would be awesome if more town would think in such a way.