Last night, the full city council in the city of Cleveland, OH repealed the breed specific regulations that have been on the books in the city since 1999.
The city has replaced the breed-specific provisions with two behavior-based classifications.
Level 1 Threat Dogs -- ie Dangerous Dogs - is any dog that has been impounded 3 times in a 12 month period or has menaced other people.
Level 2 Threat Dogs -- ie Vicious Dogs - have attacked or bitten an individual or other animal.
Owners of dogs at each level have different requirements to meet - -and if they do meet the requirements, they can get the designations lifted over time. You can get a lot of details on the ordinance here.
More and more cities are continuing to look at ordinances like the one in Cleveland because it allows the city to more efficiently use resources by targeted dogs (and dog owners) who have shown signs of being a threat to citizens and not focusing any resources on people who's dogs are not a threat.
Cleveland is now the 2nd city in Ohio to repeal their breed-specific rules -- following Toledo doing a repeal about a year ago. With two of the state's largest four cities having now repealed their breed-specific laws, it should send a strong message to the state of Ohio that there is support for eliminating these archaic regulations -- just in time for their hearing on HB 14 tomorrow which will repeal the state-wide breed restrictions.
Congrats to the city council, dog warden and advocates in Ohio for their work in repealing the law -- and hopefully we'll have more good news coming out of Ohio tomorrow with the state House of Representatives hearing.
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