Breed Specific Law in Ohio is no more

Just a few minutes ago, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed HB 14 into law. HB 14 removes the designation of all "pit bulls' as being potentially aggressive and replaces the law with a breed-neutral, behavior based law.

A huge congrats goes out to the many people in Ohio, Representative Barbara Sears, as well as many national organizations, for their diligent work in making this happen. I've gotten the pleasure to meet many of the folks involved in this repeal over the years and am blown away by their knowledge and dedication. To everyone who worked for years to make this happen, congrats.

The repeal passed with 70% of the votes from the House of Representatives, 84% from the Senate, and a confirming approval of the Governor. Not only does the signing of the bill end the reign of the breed-specific law in Ohio, the decisiveness of the voting indicates the changing nature of attitudes about breed-specific laws among lawmakers who are continuing to note that breed-specific laws are not an effective solution to solving dog bites -- but that behavior-based ordinances are.

Ohio's Breed-Specific law has stood since 1987. At the time, the state legislature passed a bill through very quickly after a very well-publicized attack involving a physician who was attacked after visiting a prostitute. The law was passed as an act of Panic Policy-Making -- and stood for 25 years. In spite of knee jerk policy, the Ohio law has been used by breed ban advocates as a reason why breed-specific laws are a good idea (even though Ohio was the ONLY state with a law targeting breeds of dogs and 14 states actually forbid such legislation).

But the law is no more: signaling not only a change in laws but a change in attitudes, a change in perspectives, a change in the ideas of what constitutes effective canine legislation and a change in the lives of the owners of these types of dogs.

This is good for the dogs. And for the people.

Great news out of the state of Ohio today.  Great news indeed.

Comments

[Dani]

:-)

[Dan]

Awesome news!

[Joel]

This is great news, though your headline is a little bit misleading...the statewide designation has been removed, but communities are still free to implement/continue BSL at a local level.

Some people have mistakenly believed that passing HB 14 would remove any local breed-specific restrictions in Ohio. This is unfortunately not the case.

Still, it's a big step forward.

[Brent]

Good point Joel. I don't mean to mislead with the headline and you are correct, individual cities do have the ability to pass breed-bans on their own (and no doubt, many already have them and will keep them). I do think the large vote swing toward a breed-neutral law does show a changing attitude toward what does constitute effective canine legislation that will hopefully be noticed by the vast majority of municipalities in Ohio.

[Joel]

I hope so too.

I have just seen comments elsewhere saying that "finally, a state gets it" and "I wish my state would have a law like this", when in fact all this law does is bring Ohio up to the standards of the 36 states who do not ban breed-specific laws.

It's a great day for Ohio, but it only means that they have caught up to other states, not that they are somehow leading the pack. But hopefully things will continue to progress in Ohio.

[A Facebook User]

Finally,Kasich does something good.

[BigSister]

I tangled online with one of those pro-BSL folk.

She insisted Ohio's law had been repealed because of dog breeders and some mythical folk she referred to as "dogmen".

When I pointed out that the Netherlands and Italy had also repealed their BSL, she replied that was because it had been so successful.

It's nice to see some common sense for a change, and all dog owners, regardless of what type of dog they have, owe a huge "thank you" to the animal advocates who have fought so long and hard for this.