Enabling, empowerment and forcing change in Wilmington

A potential repeal of Wlimington, DE's breed-specific law is moving forward in the Wilmington City Council. While it's great news in its own right, I think the situation of how they got there is encouraging and should offer hope to anyone in a BSL city.

A few months ago, Wilmington lost their animal control provider.  Their search for a new provider was coming up empty, in large part due to their breed-specific laws which no potential provider was willing to enforce their law. 

I've long contended that in many ways the animal welfare community has long-enabled cities to get by with bad laws because in their efforts to save lives (with good intentions no doubt) they work to save animals from the city's bad laws. While obviously we need to work to save lives regardless of a city's laws, in many ways it only enables cities to continue on with their bad laws.

But given that there is almost no professional support for breed-specific laws, if all of the professional community would refuse to take on city animal control or sheltering contracts that were enforcing breed-specific laws, they would have little choice but to change them -- as evidenced by what is happening in Wilmington.

Even in my own community, a fairly large number of cities have breed bans and most of them have their sheltering contacts run by private organizations that disagree with the laws. The internal debate at these organizations has often been that if they have the contracts, they can at least create positive outcomes for the dogs that are victims of the laws (which isn't altogether wrong). But I think what is happening in Wilmington shows that if the entire professional community bands together, we have more power than we sometimes use.

And I think if we use that power, we can force more communities to repeal their laws simply because there won't be any options for them to have their animal control or sheltering contracts.

While there is some risk associated with this approach, I do think Wilmington sends us a positive sign of what can happen if we use that power, and quit enabling cities to get by with ridiculous and ill-conceived laws.

Thoughts?

Comments

[J.M.]

I so agree with this approach.
If no one will take part in enforcing these laws,what do you have?
Simply a law on the books.
The people who pass these laws aren`t going to round up dogs and kill them.
It`s so easy to put your hand up and vote yes to Breed Specific laws when your part ends there.
It`s an entirely different matter to go door to door,seize them and kill them.
I`m sure individual people are afraid to lose their jobs if they refuse to take part in these laws but that`s why it`s so important for everyone(opposed to BSL) to stand together in opposition.

[Erich]

Is there something unique about their BSL which makes it harder to enforce? Ours requires $100,000 liability insurance with the dog specifically named.

[Brent]

Erich,

It's all hard to enforce -- and I think no one WANTED to enforce it because they disagreed with it.

J.M. -- agreed. I guess the tougher question may be on the shelter contracts - -where I can see the benefit to controlling the shelter regardless so you can at least control outcomes. But, if no one will work with a city because of a law, the idea that we can force their hands on repealing the laws (at least in some cases) is intriguing.

[Becca]

Hello,
I'm a Delaware resident, I found your blog while looking up information on Wilmington's BSL. My family has a pit bull, my friends, almost all of them, have pit bulls and everyone of them a rescue dog. I love the breed, I would go so far to say, I'm partial to pit bulls above other breeds. The fact that other people can't see them like I do is incredibly frustrating, but with something like BSL, my frustration turns to fury and disgust.

A united front of professionals against such legislation is amazing, but the fact that it is ever even considered is disgusting. We dare call ourselves a modern society, a civilized people, but we so readily blame dogs because humans turn them into monsters. We need to take responsibility for the disdainful actions of humans and enforce stricter regulations to deal with perpetrators of animal cruelty. But, of course not, we're not to blame. No, all pit bulls are born bad, they're evil creatures that will eat your babies and it's by our good, virtuous training that they become domesticated family animals.

I'm sorry to rant, but in this day and age, citizens have so little
power over their government, that I feel relatively helpless in this situation.