KC DOG BLOG

Stoking fear and hysteria in Aurora

I've worked several jobs in my life. In each of those jobs, I learned from other experts in my field. 

When I worked at an advertising agency, I followed the work of the leading agencies and looked for mentors in my field. Now that I work mostly in sales, I read and watch online training programs designed by people with a track record of success.  When we began running the KC Pet Project, I immediately sought out advice on medical best practices from the University of California Davis shelter medicine program, and the Maddies Fund Shelter medicine program, and advice about best practices in life-saving from shelter directors that had been successful at life-saving in their own shelters.

This seems like the natural course of action to take -- if you are in a field, learn about what the experts in your field are saying and doing and build on best practices. 

Unfortunately, it appears that animal control in Aurora, CO has taken a different approach.

Earlier this month I noted tha the city of Aurora was considering a possible repeal of its 8 year old ban on pit bulls. In that blog posting, I noted that there was a memo written by the Aurora Animal Control that specifically stated that the current "ban on pit bulls continues to effectively work as intended," and they recommended the city keep the ban. This statement was made in spite of the reality that dog bites have gone up in the community, and more than 1,100 dogs have been killed at taxpayer expense. If this is "effective" and "as intended" it seems like maybe someone is missing the point.

Well, Aurora Animal Control has missed a lot of points it turns out. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, I was able to obtain a full copy of the of the memo crafted by animal control and it is, well, embarrassing.  

It leads me to question not only where they get their knowledge base of information, but also if they've actually ever interacted with a pit bull beyond sticking a needle in it to kill it.

First of all, let's think for a minute about who you would look to for knowledge and advice if you were the head of an animal control department.

If it were me, I might first check in with the National Animal Control Association -- an association that if they are not a part of, they should be. NACA of course thinks dangerous or vicious dogs should be labeled as a result of their actions or behavior and not because of their breed.

Or, maybe they would seek out the advice of the veterinary community. The Veterinary Community understands how health and behavior work together, and their members have millions of hours of hands-on experience with dogs, so they would have a good point of view. Here too, the AVMA notes that "by generalizing the behaviors of dogs that look a certain way, innocent dogs suffer and may even be euthanized without evidence they pose a threat." The AVMA also has a well-written document that is a decade old about a community approach to dog bite prevention that also recommends a behavior-based approach. 

Or maybe, they might check with the Center for Disease Control. The CDC has long been established to help governing bodies deal with disease and health issues across the US and has taken an interested in protection from dog bites. The CDC is also against targeting breeds of dogs. The CDC recommends the AVMA papper mentioned above as a best approach for dog bite prevention.

Or, maybe they could have looked to the dog training community. Obviously dog training community has a strong understanding of dog behavior, and breed traits, and would be a good resource. Here too, the National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors, International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, Association of Professional Dog Trainers, and the International Association of Canine Professionals all unanimously agree that targeting breeds is an ineffective approach.

Or maybe they would have looked to the sheltering community, who also handles millions of animals per year, and would know how to end the mass slaughter of the dogs in their shelter. And here too, the Humane Society of the United States, ASPCA, Best Friends Animal Society and others all agree that targeting breeds is ineffective.

But strangely, none of these resources were included in the memo written by Aurora Animal Control to the city officials.  In their six page memo to the city council, the Animal Control Department included NINE citations from THREE different resources.  The resources were:

1) A website created by a web developer who's sole experience with dogs is having been bitten by one

2) An article written by a city attorney

3) An article written in the 90s in a trade magazine for city officials. 

So in a six page article, the animal control division for Aurora cited three sources with zero of them having any expertise in canine health or behavior, and one of them an article that was written more than 15 years ago. So the information contained in it is neither current, nor credible.

I wish I was joking, but I'm not.

And worse, there are many statements that were made without attribution that are designed solely to scare people into trying to keep the ban, and a few that make you scratch your head and wonder -- have the people who have written this even handled dogs before? 

The Memo

The is a lot in the memo, but here are a few of the highlights lowlights:

"The number of pit bulls euthanized continues to decline. The number of dogs released due to DNA Testing or by court order....remains relatively steady and has even increased over the past two years."

I think this was intended to be a positive, but really, after killing 650 dogs in 2006, and another 200 in 2007, of course the number killed will go down because you've already killed them all. Meanwhile, this also acknowledges the amount of taxpayer resources getting tied up in court orders for dogs that shouldn't have been prosecuted is increasing, and that their ability to  breed ID dogs isn't very reliable. 

"To date, the number of issues stemming from Pit Bulls has not increased, and the intent of the ordinance remains effective."

The number of dog bites are up. The number of animals killed has increased. And the amount of money being spent in court that are being overthrown due to DNA and false breed IDs is going up. "Effective" seems like not the right word.

"Staff is concerned that if Aurora's ban is repealed, it is liekly the pit bulls banned in Denver, Commerce City, Lone Tree, Castle Rock, Louisville, & Fort Lupton will move into our city and the serious injuries might resurface."

Fear mongering much? Over the past 3 years more than 50 communities have repealed their breed-bans and guess how many have reported this issue?  Zero.

If this were true, surely a city like Boulder, CO, which has never had a breed ban, would have seen an influx of aggressive dogs coming into their city from the same cities mentioned and yet their number of dog bites per capita in Boulder  is 1/3 of that of Denver (which has a ban). Heck, Aurora itself repealed a ban on 7 breeds of dogs 2 years ago and is not seeing any influx of those breeds taking over the streets of Aurora. This has never been documented to have happened, even in their own city.

And then, more fear-mongering recalling back to when the ordinance was enacted:

"At that time, pit bulls were the dogs of choice for gang members....breeding them, fighting them and abandoning them....For safety reasons, Animal Care Officers could not respond to service requests at addresses for known gang members or in areas heavily frequented by gang members withou an accompanying police officer."

Wow. But now animal control officers feel safe around gang activity now? 

Here's the thing folks, if someone is involved in gang activity, which usually involves felony gun and drug activity, your misdemeanor dog law isn't going to solve it. Nor should animal control be the ones to take the lead. Leave that to the SWAT team. 

"At any given time, 70% of the kennels in the Aurora Animal Shelter were occupied by pit bulls with pending court disposition dates or with no known owner. That number has dropped significantly and now only 10-20% are occupied at any given time by pit bulls."

This is because you've killed 1100 of them in the past 6 years and are making no attempt to save them. Killing them instead of them being in kennels looking for homes isn't a success story.

There is more there, including some strange behavioral information that anyone with any dog handling experience (at all) would just laugh at...including:

"Pit bull breeds, unlike other dogs, often give no warning before they attack" - This myth has been around since the early 80s and continues to get perpetuated even though no dog trainer/handler would agree with this sentiment.

"Pit bulls, compared with other breeds, generally have a higher propensity to exhibit unique behavioral traits during an attack". -- Aggressively being attacked by a Germand Shepherd, or Akita, or Rottweiler, or a pit bull, all are the same unsocial, not normal behavior. 

"In the legal case against Denver, the court cited one study which reported that over 13% of pit bulls attacked their owners, as compared to just over 2% for other dog breeds."  Cory Nelson was the source for this one (go figure). I don't know where this study comes from, but it is a direct contradiction to peer reviewed studies that show much less owner-aggressive response from pit bulls than most other breeds such at this study and this one. But hey, don't let peer-reviewed science get in the way.

It's a really frustrating memo because they have abandoned listening to any actual expertise and instead have relied on an old article, a propaganda website and a city attorney as their basis for information. It's now up to the council in Aurora to actually dive into the sources used to cut through the utter BS that is this memo.

I'd also hope they'd ask their animal control who they look to for training to do their jobs and best practices.  I wonder if they'll answer the expert sources but then get questioned or why they didn't get feedback from those sources on their stance on breed bans? Or maybe they do get their professional advice from an attorney and a non-professional website...which would dramatically decrease any credibility they might have.

It's a lot to ask a city official to challenge their paid staff on something like this....but given their research and choice of sources, now seems like a really great time to do so.

More research on health impacts of spay/neuter -- where should we go from here?

Last week, more research came out about the health impacts of Spay/Neuter.

The newest paper specifically studies Vizslas -- and the health impacts of spay/neuter, and particularly juvenile spay/neuter on this breed of dogs.

You can read the paper in its entirety here, or the Reader's Digest Version with great commentary here. In a nutshell, the paper showed the following correlations:

-- 3.5x higher incidences of Mast Cell cancer in male & female dogs, regardless of age of neuter.

-- 9x greater incidence of Hamangiosarcoma in neutered females, regardless of age of dog at the time of neuter.

- 4.3x higher incidence in Lymphoma in both neutered males and females, indpendent of age at the time of neuter.

- 6.5x higher incidence of all cancers combined in neutered femal3, 3.6x higher incidence of all cancers in neutered males. Typically, the younger the age at which the dog was altered, the young the age at which the dog was diagnosed with cancer.

Also, the study notes that dogs altered before the age of 6 months had a higher-likelihood of developing a variety of behavioral issues including: separation anxiety, fear of noises, timidity and fear biting.  Altering after 6 months did not appear to create increased risk.

This study adds to the growing list of research on the negative health impacts of spay/neuter in large-breed dogs. The studies have specifically found similar results plus increased incidence of hip dysplasia and Cranial Cruciate Ligament Tears in Golden Retrievers, and osteosarcoma (bone cancer) in Rottweilers.  It also follows similar issues found in previous behavioral studies on the impacts of spay/neuter.

The results have been very consistent, and show that not only is spay/neuter more likely to cause negative health impacts long-term, but that juvenile spay/neuter (before 6 months) heightens the risk.

When Science gets in the way

For several decades, rescues and shelters have been reliant on spay/neuter to decrease the number of unwanted pets as a way of controlling animal populations, and thus the number of animals that end up in animals shelters. By decreasing total populations, the goal is to minimize the number of animals killed in shelters. 

However, if we are to really consider ourselves "animal welfare" professionals, we need to understand what science is telling us and to consider the trade-offs of the short-term and long-term impacts on our decisions on the pets we are responsible for.

Unfortuantely, in this case, it appears that the long-term health impact of spay neuter, particularly juvenile spay/neuter, is at odds with the short term goal of slowing pet population growth and minimizing the number of animals killed in our shelters every year. 

The two are seemingly at odds with each other. Certainly I've read the arguments that in spite of the potential health impacts of spay/neuter, the greater good of decreasing the number of pets killed at very young ages in shelters outweighs the pet-longevity issues that may exist by spaying/neutering early. I can certainly see this point, and in many cases completely agree. 

However, just because that is the case today, doesn't mean that we have to accept the status quo as the only solution and not be actively seeking out more viable alternatives. It seems clear that there is room for some middle ground here -- and I think it's up to the animal welfare community to acknowledge the issues and actively seek out that  middle ground.

There are a lot of different stakeholders to this -- and I think everyone has a role in trying to do what is best for the animals that are in our care. First and foremost, it means acknowledging that the science exists. We cannot afford to bury our heads in the sand - that's how you get to let other people address the issue for you.  And it's more than just the science that shows correlations -- but it makes biological sense that removal of growth hormone-producing gonads (especially at a very young age) would lead to long term growth and development issues.  This completely passes the sniff tests, and we should take it seriously.

Where do we go from here?

It's a complex problem to be sure, and there are a lot of people with a vested interest in coming to the table with their part of the solution. 

-- For the breeding community, I've seen a fair amount of talk about calling for the end of spay/neuter. Obviously this is self-serving to their needs. This community MUST acknowledge the sheltering realities that exist and that some form of population control is currently necessary in order to help maintain the drops in shelter euthanasia that have taken place over the last 2 decades.

-- For the lawmaking community, stop making laws mandating spay/neuter. It was never a good idea, but especially in light of the current research, there are many good experts in the field that are in disagreement with what the right solutions are. Please leave spay/neuter to the veterinary community so they may make judgment calls based on the best science available. Mandating spay/neuter does not do that. I've seen many a law that is requiring sterilization at very young ages and it seems evident that this is not in the best interests of the pets we claim to be protecting.

-- For the science community, we now have 3 studies that examine the impacts on dogs. All three have been on large-breed dogs. We need more research to also include small dogs, and cats, to determine if the risks are as severe with those as well. The more we understand about the scale and scope of the problem the better.

-- For the veterinary community, let's begin teaching other methods of sterilization. Zeuterin certainly seems to have its proponents and is one solution. But an even simpler one may be to begin performing vasectomies and tubal ligations instead of neuters & spays so that growth hormones can remain in place. However, most vets do not currently perform these proceedures. That needs to change and quickly.

-- For the shelter/rescue community, maybe we need to start waiting to alter puppies until they are older? Do we really need to alter 2 month old puppies? Would we be better off waiting until they were at least 6 months of age?  The same purpose would be served, but for every month you wait, the less of an increase in many of the health risks you have -- especially for large breed and giant puppies. It certainly seems like there is a happy medium here. 

This is a gnarly and complex issue -- and definitely a lot that is still unknown. But if all parties are willing to come together to acknowledge the risks, on all sides, I think a viable solution is out there. But it must first start with acknowledgment and open communication. 

Fatal Dog Attack in Dayton, OH - on breed, the media, common denomenators, reckless owners and ineffective animal control

Yesterday morning, 57 year old Klonda Richey was killed by her neighbor's two dogs. 

Richey was outside her home when the dogs attacked, and her body was discovered on the sidewalk in front of her home. 

Mark Kumpf, the Animal Resource Center director, says the dogs were mixed breed dogs that he believes are part Cane Corso. Photo evidence would indicate that this is true of at least one of the dogs.

The owners of the two dogs, Andrew Nason and Julie Custer were taken into custody and are being held pending charges of reckless homicide. This is good of course, to hold the owners accountable. It's bad, of course, that it had to get to the point of someone being dead before something was done. 

Turns out that the victim called the authorities many times on these dogs. Authorities have noted that there have been at least 9 complaint calls about the dogs responsible for the woman's death -- at least 5 of those complaints were made by the victim. Several of the complaints are abotu the dogs roaming at large, and one specifically from Richey notes that the "dog is straining to get to water and food that are empty, advised is ongoing". This would indicate ongoing problems, and from the sound of it, a significant amount of time being tethered.

Unfortunately, in none of the cases did animal control do anything and now the dogs are responsible for killing the woman.

This is the 3rd fatal dog attack in just the past 18 months in Dayton. One other also involved a Cane Corso, and another involved the mauling of a 93 year old woman, Elizabeth Hirt, by two Boston Terriers. Of significant note here is that in the incident involving Ms. Hirt in 2012, the media never covered her death, and thus, this incident never showed up in any dog attack fatality reports for the year. I've now added it to mine.

This story is amazingly tragic, and highlights a whole lot of reasons the way we currently look at dangerous dog issues is tragically flawed.

-- A strong, proactive, breed-neutral dangerous dog law would have had a strong likelihood of helping save Ms Richey. The dogs were a known problem. The owners were known to let their dogs roam at-large. These dogs and owners were known problems, and yet, there was nothing that was done to intervene. This is why good, proactive, breed-neutral laws are essential.

-- This incident further reinforces that dogs just don't decide to attack one day. Attacks like this usually follow a series of undesirable and aggressive behaviors over time.

-- This should go without saying, but, competent animal control is also important.

-- Dayton, as a community, has had 3 dog attack fatalities in the past 18 months. There have only been around 50 in that time in the entire nation, so three happening in one relatively small community is pretty amazing. Dayton has a very high poverty level (39%) that is nearly triple the national average. The Crime rate is also nearly double the national average. Dangerous dog issues tend to follow other socio-economic problems and to see a cluster here is not terribly surprising. Treating dangerous dog issues as if they are a dog issue, and not a part of a larger socioeconomic issue is missing a major factor.

-- Since 2008, there have been only 3 fatal dog attacks involving Cane Corsos in the entire US. It's interesting that two of these attacks happened in Ohio - a place that until recently had targeted "pit bulls" as being inherently aggressive. For years, experts have said that if you focus on breeds, or types of dogs, that irresponsible owners, or people who want aggressive dogs, will turn to other breeds. It's a small sample size, but it seems that that is what happened in Ohio when they targeted specific breeds.

-- It's also interesting to note that the tragic death of Elizabeth Hirt went virtually unnoticed by the media until it was mentioned briefly in one of the articles yesterday. It shows exactly how some of these "studies" based solely on media reports are not comprehensive, nor statistically relevant. This is why listening to experts on the topic of dangerous dog issues is essentialy instead of basing information off of the ramblings a of a handful of non-experts with webpages. 

 

 

Garden City, KS joins growing list of cities to repeal breed-specific law

Last night, Garden City, KS (population 27,000) became the latest community to repeal it's breed specific law. The law had previously designated American Pit Bull Terrers, Staffordshire Bull Terriers and American Staffordshire Terriers as being "vicious".  

The mention of breeds has been removed from the ordinance and now the definition of vicious is based solely on the behavior of dogs -- including dogs that have a propensity to attack or have bitten. 

"Pit Bull" owners will no longer have to post "vicious dog" signs and can now walk their dogs without muzzles.

Congrats to Garden City on their wise decision and in joining 5 other cities so far this year in repealing their breed-specific laws. The tide really is turning.

 

Public Safety, Stat Tracking, and errors of Omission

More news from out of Aurora, CO, where they are now officially considering repealing its 8 year old ban on "pit bulls". 

Many cities have already recently repealed their long-standing breed bans in favor of breed neutral, behavior-based, dangerous dog ordinances  -- including five communities already this year. 

So far, at least 2 of the city's 10 city council members (Barb Cleland and Renie Peterson) have spoken out in favor of a repeal.

In response to the movement to repeal, the Denver Post wrote an editorial speaking out against the move to repeal. In it they note:

"Since Aurora instituted a pit bull ban in 2006, the number of bites attributed to restricted breeds has gone down from several dozen to just a few a year.  So the logical move would be to....recind the city's breed bans? No, it doesn't make sense to us either."

Errors of omission are common. It's a way to provide an accurate data-point to support your point of view and then brush past all of the data that completely opposes your viewpoint. 

In this case, there is a pretty major error of omission. 

Here is the reason Aurora is considering a repeal of its breed ban:  It's failing.

If you look at the TOTAL number of dog bites in the community, they are actually INCREASING. And increasing at an alarming rate. From 2006 (when the ban was passed) to 2010, Aurora actually saw a 67% increaese in the total number of dog bites -- a number that based on news reports continues to grow.  While the number of bites by "restricted" breeds has decreased, it has come at the expense of a 71% increase in bites by non-restricted breeds (which always made up 80-85% of bites in the community in the first place).

Meanwhile,  the city has systematically rounded up and killed more than 1158 dogs at  the shelter simply because of the way they looked. 

That's right. 1158 dogs killed and an increase in dog bites. Everyone should be livid that this has gone on for as long as it has.

So it is this error of omission that the Denver Post is guilty of in trying to persuade public opinion that the ban in Aurora is a good idea. It's such a major error that might make one ask: why would they make such a glaring omission?

My guess is that they realize that Aurora repealing its ban would put even more pressure on Denver to repeal its ban. Denver continues to stubbornly holds onto even though they have a higher a hospitalization rate (per capita) from dog bites than other communities in Colorado, they've suffered a long series of court legal battles over the ban at taxpayer expense, and overall have seen their pit bull ban fail also.

 

Of concern of course is that apparently, animal care staffers with city animal control wrote a memo to the city council that "The ban on pit bulls continues to effectively work as intended."

Um, what?

Was the intent to raise dog bites in the city? Was the intent to wholesale slaughter more than 1100 dogs at taxpayer expense? If that's their intent, they should all be fired. 

People defending them might note that the law was only intended to impact pit bulls, and not the other 85% of the bites in the community. And of course, if you wholesale slaughter ever pit bull in a community, you'll have fewer bites by pit bulls because you'd killed them all.

But here's the deal: there are opportunity costs for enforcement. Every time an animal control officer spends time, money and effort to round up and kill an innocent pit bull, that same officer is not spending that same time on stray or aggressive dogs of other breeds. Meanwhile, as negligent dog owners replace their pit bulls with another type of dog, bites by those breeds go up because you didn't solve the actual problem of irresponsible and reckless dog ownership. This happens EVERY.SINGLE. TIME. a city passes a breed ban: see Sioux City, Council Bluffs & Omaha as prime examples.

It's a failed law. Based on a failed concept. That is opposed by every organization of experts in canine behavior in the nation. 

Telling half truths through omission doesn't change that. And defining success as a decrease in one type of dog bites but an increase in all others doesn't change it either.