Earlier this week, the city council of Worcester, MA unanimously passed the first round of an ordinance that would require all 'pit bulls' in the community to be muzzled when off the owner's property and for the owners to place a sign on their property declaring that they have a dangerous dog.
The ordinance has one more vote before becoming a law.
Apparently, not everyone agrees with the decision which may create more problems for the city.
Today, the Worcester Animal Rescue League announced that if the city passes the ordinance, the Animal Rescue League will no longer help save animals from the city:
"The Animal Rescue League values the long-term relastionship it has built with the City of Worcester, however, it is not currently help by a contract to accept impoundd dogs found in Worcester," said Allie Simone, the acting director of the League.
The Animal Rescue League is a 98 year old organization in the community that has grown to become the largest animal shelter in central Massachusetts. Each year, about 3500 animals are rescued by the shelter -- which is a limited admission, no kill shelter. The organization runs completely off of donations and receives no financial support from the city. The organization feels that the new ordinance would lead to a large increase of animals coming into the shelter and thus threaten their ability to remain no kill.
And if what has happened in other cities across the nation is any indication (as it should be) they are most likely right.
It remains a bit unclear to me if the city actually has its own shelter facilities -- there is no mention of it on their city website.
Without the organization working so closely with the city, it would be likely that the city would have to potentially fund some other form of animal sheltering -- and the without such an established organization working with them to adopt out animals, would likely greatly increase the number of animals killed in the city.
In passing the new law, it has become clear that the city hasn't been partnering with the actual animal experts in their community (whenever breed specific laws are passed, it is always done without the support of the local experts in the community who always oppose such laws).
The Animal Rescue League has decided that if they are going to be snubbed by the city council, they're going to snubb back -- which leaves the city council in a bit of a not-well-thought-out pickle.
Many organizations are fearful of taking such a stand and will continue to help the animals even though they are enabling the city to have irresponsible legislation. To them, controlling the final outcomes is more important. It's hard to criticize putting the animals first, but it is also refreshing to see an organization not willing to just enable bad legislation when their expertise is ignored.
Which do you think is the wiser choice?
Meanwhile,I love the picture that is chosen for the story -- of a new adopter of a 'pit bull' at the Animal Rescue League. Is there anything about this owner and this dog that makes anyone think targeting them with a law (and wasting animal control resources on it) is going to make anyone safer?
Once again, another city is finding itself in a situation where they are going to have a lot of difficulties if they decide to pass a law while ignoring the experts in their community. Why not just target the negligtent owners instead?
you know, it continues to perplex, annoy and infuriate me that these bloody city bureocrats keep jumping on the "all pit bulls are bad" wagon when ALL the evidence points to the exact opposite! that bite stats do NOT go down, that thousands of animals are subsequently abandoned, that there is NO support that banning ONE breed has any impact on ANYTHING other than targetting innocent dogs. Just WHAT do they base their decisions on??
Posted by: selkie | July 22, 2010 at 05:29 PM
Just WHAT do they base their decisions on?
Emotional fear. And the desire to "Do something quickly" -- which never translates into getting all of the details first.
What I never quite get is, if there was a bridge collapse, they would listen to highway engineers on prefered solutions - -and yet seem unwilling to listen to canine experts when making laws dealing with dogs...
Posted by: Brent | July 22, 2010 at 05:37 PM
I very much agree with the above statement .. not all pitbulls are bad dogs. I happen to own one and she's the biggest love bug you could ever imagine. People that fight these dogs or abuse them is what makes them mean so why not ban rotties and dobermans and every other dog on the aggressive dog list or make owners muzzle them also!!
Posted by: pit lover | April 01, 2011 at 01:56 PM