KC DOG BLOG

Late Night Musings: Leading by example and the changing image of pit bulls (and cats!) in communities

Last week, Kansas City, Kansas repealed its 29 year old ban on pit bulls. In the process, KCK joined 27 other cities in Kansas, and 25 in Missouri in repealing its laws. One of the more recent repeals was Liberty, MO, which became the first community in the United States (to the best that I can tell) to repeal a ban by popular vote of its citizens. Liberty joined 24 other Missouri Communities who have repealed their decades-old breed bans. 

This type of progress would have been almost impossible to have imagined just 12 years ago. 

So what's changed? 

I'm convinced that the changing views of animal sheltering and the animal welfare community have been a key driver.

In Kansas City, MO for example, prior to 2009 pit bulls were never put up for adoption at the city shelter. They were killed as a matter of shelter policy unless they were pulled by one of the handful of rescues that rescued pit bull type dogs.

This changed dramatically in 2012, when Kansas City Pet Project took over the operations of the shelter. Since that time, Kansas City Pet Project has saved and adopted out more than 6,000 pit bulls into the community. Other shelters, including the shelter in Independence, MO began doing the same type of adoptions under the leadership of the Great Plains SPCA.

This has had a tremendous impact on the perceptions of pit bulls in the community. The volume of adoptions has increased the number of owners of pit bulls substantially. These owners impact perceptions of their neighbors with their daily interactions. It's also impacted volunteers. Theses shelters now welcome hundreds of volunteers annually who interact with the dogs at the shelters -- many of them pit bulls. And this forever changes these volunteer's perceptions as well. 

And their perception becomes what is real -- that pit bulls are just dogs. They aren't "other". They play, and romp, and rest and do all of the things dogs do. And people love them for that. And it's changing perceptions -- at the public level first, then within city leadership. But it has been the animal welfare community's leadership and commitment to saving these dogs that has driven the change. And we're seeing it around the nation -- not only in increasing shelter save rates, but in how their communities also view pit bull type dogs.

And this is a very good thing. 

Kansas City, Kansas was led by its own animal welfare organization. In 2014, Kansas City, KS passed a law allowing for the trap, neuter, release of community cats. Several local organizations stepped up to do the TNR work -- led by the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City, The Rescue Project, Spay & Neuter Kansas City, and others. The end result was a better relationship with the community they served, and their local government. The Kansas City Kansas Animal Shelter was also doing its part by working to save pit bulls that entered their shelter in spite of the ban. The increased average length of stay for pit bulls (71 days) and the added costs of valuing their lives was a driver in the decision to repeal the ban.

In these cases, it's been the leadership of the animal welfare community that has helped drive the change in their communities. Most people are not terribly familiar with animal welfare issues, so they look to the professionals in animal welfare to provide leadership. And when we do our jobs well, and lead our communities through both our words and actions, good things happen, policies get changed, and lives get saved. And that's something worth working for.

Two New York anti-discrimination bills would curb biggest barrier to pet retention

In animal welfare and sheltering circles, it doesn't take long into most conversations for the topic to come up about the sheer number of pit bulls in shelters. Even within no kill shelters, 'pit bull-like' dogs are often the most common type of dogs in the shelter, and are usually there longer, providing particular challenges.

Such numbers have caused some communities to take breed-specific steps to trying to "solve" the problem such as breed-specific spay/neuter laws or other breed-targeting solution -- usually with poor results. 

However, New York appears primed to tackle this issue from the source by with two bills targeting a solution that would address one of the primary reasons the dogs are ending up in the shelter in the first place -- the issue of housing

In New York there are two bills that are moving through their general assembly that would address one of the biggest issues surrounding pit bull-like dogs entering shelters -- and that's the issue of housing.

NY A02065 is a bill that would prohibit landlords from discriminating against owners based on the breed or size of dog. 

NY A03696 would prohibit insurance companies for refusing to insure people based on the type of dog owned.

According to the ASPCA Pro research, 20% of all pets that end up needing to be rehome, are rehomed due to housing issues.  That's already a lot, but housing issues are THE top reason pets need to be rehomed for people who rent -- which is now 37% of the people in the US -- the highest rate of renters vs homeowners since the 60s (35.4% of people in the Kansas City Metro rent, so very near this national average)

So, if the rate of renters is at a 50 year high.

And pet ownership is at an all-time high.

And the biggest reason pets into a shelter is because of housing issues (particularly for renters).

And many landlords and insurance companies discriminate against certain types/sizes of dogs.

Based on this data, is it any wonder that these types of dogs are entering shelters in large numbers?  It shouldn't be a surprise.

What makes this potentially even more interesting is that this discrimination isn't based on research, but, instead, a form of race/culture based redlining that stems back decades. In Bronwen Dickey's amazing book Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon she laid out how the insurance industry and landlords turned to a form of "moral hazards" to replace racial ones as a way of denying people of different race and class from getting insurance. 

"As overt race and class discrimination became less socially acceptable [Scholar and former insurance underwriter] Brian Glenn explains, 'The rhetoric of insurance exclusion changed to appear more scientifically based, keeping the underylying narratives about groups buried and undisclosed.' Even today, he says, "the numbers, data, and forms merely hide the fact that applicants are still judged according to their standing in society."

My own personal experience with insurance would reflect this type of discrimination, having our  insurance rates increase dramatically when we moved into a zip code that is only 29% white and then having lost the insurance provider permanently based on the type of dog we decided to adopt in our new home (we've not filed a single claim in 11 years at this location). 

So what New York is making progress in doing is instead of trying to create a breed-specific solution -- it's trying to undo the breed-specific discrimination that is causing much of the problem in the first place. Not only is it hurting the dogs and causing them to enter shelters, it is also negatively impacting their families -- who are most often lower income and minority. 

While some have expressed concern that this will simply lead landlords and insurance companies to deny coverage to all pet owners, I'm not as concerned about that. Roughly 65% of American own a pet -- and that's a lot of potential revenue for both sides to turn down by discriminating entirely. And most places will make the decision that gives them the largest audience, and thus, the largest potential revenue opportunity. I think ultimately this will be a win/win for everyone and we will see legislation like this spread throughout the US. We'll be watching closely.

On a related note, Bad Rap has been working hard to try to tackle the landlord issue in the San Francisco Bay Area -- and have found that a few bad apples have definitely made things harder for pet owners. They have recommended the idea of a "pet resume" for a potential landlord and I really like the idea to help people work through the challenge of finding rental housing when they have a pet. It's worth a read (and watching the 90 second video). 

 

The long-term impact of Hurricane Katrina for pit bulls - Part 4

A few months ago marked the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's devastating impact on New Orleans and much of the rest of the Gulf Coast. At the time, I shared my trip journal from 10 years ago detailing our experience volunteering for 5 days in the wake of the Hurricane, I shared the memories that have stayed with me most, and the long term impact of Hurricane Katrina of the PETS Act -- which recognized pets as part of the family in evacuation scenarios.

And while there has of course been a substantial long-term impact following Hurricane Katrina for the families impacted by the storm, and for the communities that continue to rebuild, there is another long term impact for animals that has gone virtually unnoticed-- and that's the impact on pit bull-like dogs in this country.

But to understand the impact, we need to take a little trip back -- to what feels like forever ago.

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In 2005, sheltering looked much different than it does today -- at least in many places. No kill, as a movement, was pretty new and the impact was not felt in most places and many/most public shelters were very high kill. Many also had strong prejudices against certain types of dogs.

I'll use Kansas City as an example -- because I'm most familiar with the situation -- but also because its story is pretty typical of the situation in 2005. 

In Kansas City, the shelter was high-kill -- with roughly 65% of the animals being killed in the shelter each year. The shelter's policy for pit bull-like dogs was that if they came to the shelter, they would return them to owners and there was one pit bull rescue group in town that was allowed to pull pit bulls from the shelter. The rest were killed and never given a chance for adoption.

These polices, combined with a lot of negative media attention led to a simple reality - -unless you were a volunteer for the pit bull rescue group in our community, or owned a pit bull, you had little to no exposure to them. The lack of exposure led a LOT of people to believe only what they heard, or read about pit bulls because they had no other basis for their opinion. Which meant, that even in the animal welfare community, pit bulls didn't necessarily have a great reputation. Indeed, many of the major national groups at the time had policy papers that were disparaging against pit bulls. 

They had a bad rap -- even among many in animal welfare.  Which made the group of people who knew that pit bulls were indeed good dogs fairly small. 

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In the days following Hurricane Katrina, we began to get word of all the animals that needed help in the Gulf Coast region. Our friend got a text from a friend of hers that said "almost all the dogs are pit bulls, and a lot of people here are afraid to work with them."  Well, I definitely wouldn't have considered myself an expert on pit bulls - but I wasn't scared of them. And that was motivation we needed to head to Gonzales, LA to help at the Lamar Dixon staging camp. 

In the days that followed, our experience was like that of many others. We worked with the dogs. And, a significant majority of the dogs were pit bull-like dogs. And if you were helping at Lamar Dixon, or many of the other staging sites, you were helping with pit bulls. If you were afraid to work with pit bulls you weren't going to be a lot of help.

And the end result was that hundreds, maybe thousands of volunteers from around the country, many of whom had had very little interaction with pit bulls in their years of working in animal welfare, began working with the dogs for the first time. I've seen a lot of comments that verify that this was, indeed, their experience.

And nothing creates a more positive image of pit bulls than working with the dogs. Because in spite of this being a challenging situation for the dogs and the people, the dogs were....amazing. 

As the months that followed, these volunteers went back to their communities and began talking about their experiences -- and talking about the dogs. In addition to the stories, many iconic photoes of the historic rescue efforts from the Gulf Coast were published (some of them are posted in this blog post) and a huge number these pictures included pit bull-like dogs.

The experience of working with the dogs, the stories about the rescue efforts,and the images started to change the attitudes of people WITHIN animal welfare about pit bulls. And this change in attitudes among animal welfare groups led to some significant changes in the years that followed. 

Two years later, in an historic case, a judge allowed the dogs seized from Mike Vick's dog fighting operation the opportunity to be evaluated and adopted out. While this was through a lot of work by some key folks working directly with authorities in this case, I don't think that it's any coincidence that for the first time ever dogs from a fighting case were allowed to live when now, it wasn't just "pit bull people" fighting for the dogs, it was the entire animal welfare community.

It was the animal welfare community again that put HSUS on blast after HSUS supported the killing of 127 pit bulls that were seized from a potential dog fighting ring in Wilkes County, NC in 2009 -- and the animal welfare community began to bring some of the national animal welfare groups along with them on their improved attitudes about pit bulls. 

Best Friends Animal Society was relatively quiet on the topic of pit bulls prior to Katrina. But following their experience at their own temporary shelter in Tylertown, they took an active role in helping many of the dogs from the Vick case and have become the most active national organization in affecting policy toward pit bulls in the years since.

In the time that has followed, the attitudes have continued to improve and progress is being made for pit bulls. Long-time anti-pit bull people were forced out of high-profile positions because of their insistence on killing the dogs. Ohio, which was the only state to have state-wide breed-specific laws, repealed it's breed-specific law. 19 states now prohibit breed-discrimination from government entities.

And now, many, many communities, like here in Kansas City, shelters have not only begun giving pit bulls a chance to be adopted, but adopters, and volunteers are falling in love with the dogs -- because, the dogs are....amazing.  

And it's with that experience with the dogs that more lives and attitudes will continue to change....for the better.

 

Some interesting data on pit bull intake & adoptions in shelters

Last week, Dr. Emily Weiss wrote a really interesting blog about pit bull adoptions and shelters.

Before I go into the details of the post, I will note that Dr. Weiss has been doing a great job of writing for ASPCA Pro over the last several months including a lot of data-driven information and I would recommend putting the ASPCA Pro blog in your "must read" list if it's not already. 

But last week, Dr. Weiss wrote an article entitle "Filling up the Pit" -- talking about pit bulls, which according to most shelters are the dogs that are most likely to be "at risk" in their shelter.

In the article, she pulls data from 30 shelters (she does not say which shelters, or even what region the shelters are in).  

Based on the data she collected, Pit bulls were the 3rd most popular breed of dog adopted from these 30 shelters (Chihauhuas were #1, Labrador Retrievers #2). In total, 11,376 pit bulls were adopted from these 30 shelters, which is nearly 7,000 more than German Shepherd/Shepherd mixes which were #4 on the list. 

This isn't really surprising. All three of these breeds are extremely popular and as such, are very common in shelters. It would make sense that more would be adopted from shelters because that is what is most commonly available. It's not like shelters are overflowing with Wheaton Terriers. 

What I do think is interesting is that it factually debunks a common mantra about pit bulls in shelters in that they are somehow unwanted or not desireable. It's simply not true. We've known that pit bulls are one of the most popular types of dog throughout the United States, now we also have the data to show people want to adopt them from shelters also.

She then pulls the information for intake of those shelters. I this case, it turns out that pit bulls are also the most popular dog to come into the shelter with nearly 53,000 intakes.. The combination of being #1 in intake (by a large margin), and #3 in adoptions, pit bulls ended up unfortunately being the most commonly euthanized breed/type by a very large margin. In total 25,142 pit bulls were euthanized, compared to 7,837 Labrador Retreivers. 

 

 Based on Dr. Weiss's research on reasons people surrender their pets to the shelter, she hypothesizes that we don't necessarily have a pit bull adoption problem (I agree, to a point) but that we have a pit bull intake problem -- much of which is being driven by the difficulty in finding housing for pit bull-like dogs. 

I know from our shelter experience, housing issues are a leading driver in why owners surrender their pets. Sometimes it's due to size, breed requirements for renters, but also by a person's own insurance company denying coverage. 

This becomes even more problematic in many areas of the country where breed-specific legislation further causes pit bulls to enter shelters in spite of having owners who care about them and want to keep them.

But the problem doesn't just stop with the high intake of pit bulls at shelters. The same housing/insurance/breed ban issues that cause pit bulls to come into shelters at a greater clip than other types of dogs also impact a shelter's ability to adopt them back out on the back side -- as many potential adopters will not be able to adopt a pit bull for the same reason the dogs ended up in the shelter in the first place.

In that way, I also believe that we also have a major pit bull adoption problem as well. Then tack on some shelter-specific policies that may preclude pit bulls from adoption, or a false belief by a shelter that adopters aren't looking for them (which often results in really bad profile descriptions).

It's a complex circle to be sure, but one that is infinitely solveable if we focus on what the data tells us, which is this:

1) Pit bulls are very popular dogs. People want them. People will adopt them. We should treat them accordingly.

2) Pit bulls enter shelters at a higher rate than other dogs. Obviously pet retention programs are a must, but what breed specific things cause pit bulls to enter shelters at a higher rate? 

Just raw numbers would be one factor - -the high number of pit bulls in general would be why there are so many in shelters (the same is also true for Labs & Chihuahuas). Restrictive housing  & insurance policies, laws targeting breeds, etc would also be a factor. 

This would call for eliminating breed bans and other breed specific policies. It would call for the blanket removal of breed-specific landlord policies, insurance requirements and home owners association rules.

And it would call for elimination of breed-specific adoption policies that make pit bulls harder to adopt and artificially prevent pit bulls from finding homes when they inevitably do make it to the shelter.

So in many ways, we still have a pit bull adoption issue as well. Because as long as there are more coming in, than going out safely,  there is the need for us to come up with innovative solutions to finding more of them homes. Many shelters are doing this already, but many are not which is helping contribute to the problem.

It's all inherently manageable, but it takes focusing on the data to help drive our decision-making practices. 

Love to get your thoughts. 

 

 

 

Equal time

On Monday, our local NPR station ran a little feature on their daily radio program "Central Standard" about Breed Specific Legislation entitled "Bully Breeds in the Kansas City Metro". It's about a 40 minute long segment.

As a part of the program, they brought on two 'experts' -- each representing a different side of the argument for and against pit bulls and breed bans.

For the "Pro ban" argument, they interviewed Don Bauermeister -- the Assistant City Attorney from Council Bluffs, IA who has been involved with dogsbite.org for quite some time. For the other side, they interviewed Anthony Barnett. I'm not going to begin to go over Anthony's resume, and in full disclosure, Anthony and I are good friends, but I will note that through a variety of Anthony's experiences in working with school kids on dog safety, with service dogs, shelter dogs, and doing police work with SWAT, I have found Anthony to be one of the more knowledgable people out there in terms of canine behavior.

One of the things that continued to strike me over the course of this segment was how annoying it is that the two sides on this conversation got equal time. One of the common misnomers of  journalism is that it should provide "equal time" to "both sides" of a debate. While it is true, Journalists should always seek different points of view, or angles of a story, it also has a moral obligation to seek truth. And sometimes the two "sides" are not equally represented. Thus is the case with Breed-Specific Laws.

I think we can start with this reality. On the "BSL is not the right approach" side, KCUR was able to find a local expert. There are a lot of folks here that could have done a very good job with this interview, and would have shared much of the same information that Anthony shared on the radio -- and all would have had a fairly similar point of view.

Meanwhile, for the ban pit bulls side, they had to go to Iowa to find someone to speak. Kansas City straddles a state line, you'd think somehow they'd find a leading "expert" in a two state area to speak on that side, but there weren't any. So they had to go to Iowa to find someone to speak on the matter. That should be your first clue. Bauermeister's arguments seemed indicative of someone who got their canine behavior knowledge off the internet instead of having actually worked with dogs. 

The interview took a lot of interesting turns. So in this post, I'm going to give a few highlights from the interview, clarify a few mistruths spoken by Mr. Bauermeister, and add onto a couple of the things I wish had gotten said.

Don Bauermeister

  - Bauermeister starts off by trying to articulate what a "bully breed" is. It's important that he notes that the definition of bully breeds varies from city to city and jurisdiction to jurisdiction based on whoever is writing it. This is part of the reason the laws are nearly impossible to enforce because the definition is very vague. He notes that in his own community it is a "majority of the characteristics" of being a pit bull as designated by 3 different sets of breed standards by the AKC and UKC. I think the ability to determine "majority" based on three different sets of breed standards is setting up virutally any type of dog to being included. Anthony did a nice job of pointing out that they seem to only recognize the breed standards based on appearances, but completely ignored the behavior standards which is contradictory.

- The host noted that according to the KC Police Department, the breed they most encounter in their bite reports were German Shepherds (actually the type of dog Bauermeister owns) and not pit bulls. Bauermeister then decided he'd "go out on a limb and guess" that it was because there were more German Shepherds in Kansas City, MO than pit bulls and that higher number of bites happen with breeds that are most common.  It's pretty clear from this statement that Bauermeister has never been to Kansas City. As someone who lives in KC, and helps manage the KC shelter, it is pretty obvious that Pit Bulls outnumber German Shepherds, based on what I see on the streets and in the shelter by at least 5 to 1. I mean, it's not close.  But Bauermeister ventures a completely uneducated guess to try to justify his position. This is what happens when you have to rely on out-of-state "experts" -- who seem completely content making up data to support their pre-conceived opinion.

I also think it's interesting that Bauermeister used the term "proportionality" in noting that certain types of dogs have higher number of bites than others because they're more popular, and yet completely dismisses how this plays a role in 'pit bulls' being attributed to bite incidents given that the popularity of pit bulls in the US has grown 47% over the past 10 years, and one of the top 3 breeds in 47 of the 50 US States (and this gets even larger if you cast a very wide definition of pit bull like Bauermeister does). In his statements, Bauermeister continued to cling to the myth that 'pit bulls' make up less than 5% of all dogs -- a statement that hasn't resembled truth for more than a decade.

-- Bauermeister also noted that a lot of cities were currently looking toward Mandatory Spay/Neuter laws for pit bulls. It's interesting that he'd mention that as Kansas City was one of the first places to pass Breed-specific Mandatory Spay/Neuter. The law has had zero impact on public safety in our community.

-- Then, in a truly bizarre exchange, Bauermeister went into considerable detail about how his German Shepherds would go about protecting his property and the series of warning signals they would give before they bite. Instead of using this as an opportunity to educate people on dog behavior, dog warning signals and reading behavior, Bauermeister then went on to say that 'pit bulls" don't exhibit these warnings signs and attack without warning noting that "this is second nature, everybody knows this. It's documented in the writings."

The quote here, to the best I can tell, is originally attributed to Randall Lockwood -- who made the statement in 1986 or 1987 during the height of the dog fighting controversy when he worked for HSUS. At the time, HSUS was trying to create additional fear about pit bulls and dog fighting in order to help them in their fundraising efforts to help combat dog fighting. The statement has been recirculated "in all the writings" of people like Bauermeister, Dogsbite.org and Kory Nelson for decades. However, the factual accuracy of the statement has been  debunked by virtually every dog traininer, handler and behaviorist in the nation in the 25 years since, and even Lockwood himself has noted that he wished he'd never said it because it was untrue and had been misused. 

- Then, in maybe the most bizarre part of the show, the host of the show goes on to ask Buaermeister why he thinks it is that 17 states have now PROHIBITED breed specific laws. Bauermeister then goes onto talk about what he calls "The pit bull propaganda machine" and about how this "well-oiled machine" which is "possibly funded by dog fighters" is responsible for this. He even specifically implicated the AKC as being funded by dogfighters. 

Um, ok. Hysterical much?

In Anthony's commentary, he notes the famous line by Menken "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong".

In this case, the 'solution' to combat the problem of dog bites by targeting specific breeds is simple-minded, and wrong.

 Breed specific laws are opposed by virtually every one involved in a professional field associated with canines. The National Animal Control Association, AVMA, multiple dog training groups, HSUS, ASPCA, Best Friends Animal Society, No Kill Advocacy Center, American Kennel Club etc ALL oppose breed-specific laws. It's important to note that many of these organizations spend a fair amount of time disagreeing with each other, but the fact that they all agree that targeting breeds is ineffective is notable. And the idea that dog fighters are funding their efforts (particularly when several of the groups actively seek out opportunities to fight against dog fighting) is, well, just laughable. If you have to make up a conspiracy theory (based on absolutely zero evidence) to support your viewpoint, maybe you should change your opinion.

- Later in the show, the host asked Bauermeister if he thought breed bans created a false sense of security. Bauermeister of course disagreed and pointed to how his own community, Council Bluffs, IA had virtually eliminated pit bull bites. Yes, if you exterminate an entire type of dog in your community, you will be fairly successful in eliminating bites by that type of dog.

However, if Bauermeister were being honest, he would note that overall public safety has not improved in the communities he's impacted. In Council Bluffs, total dog bites increased when they passed their ban in 2004 -- what changed was the breeds involved and all of a sudden people were getting bitten more by "Labs" and "Boxers" than "pit bulls". In Omaha(a neighboring community to Council Bluffs), dog bites have also gone up considerably after passing their breed-specific restrictions -- and the flippant "but they're bites and not attacks" argument has also been exposed as severe bites have not declined. Bauermeister has also acknowledged online that he is in contact with city officials in Sioux City, IA (who also has a ban), and was even laughing "lol" when a story came out about Sioux City's bite numbers increasing when they passed a ban also.

Let's set the record straight. Breed bans are an ineffective means of trying to control dog bites. All three communities Bauermeister has been involved with have proven that. Behavior based laws CAN be proactive when they allow authorities to put restrictions on dogs (and dog owners) who show themselves (through behavior) to need these restrictions -- such as their dog acting aggressively, roaming at large consistently, etc. These are, in fact, the type of laws that all of the national organizations with expertise support. 

It is important for the media, and for politicians, to consider their sources. It only makes sense that when it comes to dog laws, that you would consult the experts in the canine training field, veterinary field, shelters, breeders, animal control officers etc. Why would you not?  And when it comes to the media, they have an obligation to seek truth -- which does not mean giving equal time to people who are pushing fringe agendas just beause they're the only ones out there supporting another side. 

 

Rethinking shelter dogs and social influences -- Thoughts from the Best Friends No More Homeless Pets Conference

Reshaping the expected outcome for animals in shelters in this country includes rethinking "conventional wisdom". We're not going to reshape a nation that has spent decades killing animals in shelters by thinking about things exactly the same way.

And Kim Wolf's presentation at the Best Friends No More Homeless Pets Conference created a different perspective for which to view "at risk" animals for shelters. For anyone not familiar with some of Kim's work, you can see many of her thoughts on her website/blog: Beyond Breed.

In Kim's presentation, she took a look at animals that are "at risk" in our shelters, and the societal factors that are leading to them being at risk. Many of these thoughts are Kim's, with a few of my thoughts sprinkled in. I'm going to do my best to differentiate between to the two as to not try to put words in Kim's mouth (or to take credit for her thoughts).

Kim's presentation started by noting that the single most dangerous place for a pet in this country is sadly, in an animal shelter. And what is it that drives shelter euthanasia?  Shelter intake. In order to save animal lives, you need help in not only keeping animals from coming into the shelter, but also in not doing things to prevent them from getting out.

So Kim highlighted 7 key factors that in her opinion was a risk for pets in today's society:

#1) Prevelence in the community. One of the key reasons pit bull terriers are at risk in shelters is in part because of their prevelence. According to Banfield Pet Hospitals, the popularity of pit bull terriers increased by 47% from 2000-2010 based on breed information collected in their nationwide veterinary clinics. According to Vet Street, Pit Bull Terriers are among the top 5 most popular dogs in 33 of the 50 states, and in the top 10 in 46 of them.  Pit bulls are at risk in shelters in part because there are so many of them. This is the same factor that puts cats and big black dogs at risk also.

#2) The second factor highlighted by Kim is poverty. In the US today, 1 in 6 people live in poverty. This isn't "struggling to get by" or "living paycheck to paycheck" -- it's pure poverty as in, I'm not sure where my next meal is coming from.  To give you a gauge of this, if you are a single person in the continental US, to be considered living in poverty you must make less than $11,490. If you're a part of a family of 4, it's $23,550. That's $23,550, for an entire family of four. For a year. I have no idea how someone lives on that. Let alone, 1 in 6 people in the US. 

Those most at risk of living in poverty in this country are minorities, women and children, and those in very urban and very rural environments. Not coincidentally, states with the highest poverty rates tend to coincide with states that are still killing the most animals in their shelter systems.

#3) Factor #3 is lack of housing.  First of all, living in poverty can make housing difficult to find. Secondly, 1 in 3 people in the US rents. And the availability of pet-friendly rentals is very limited -- particularly if you own a large dog, or one of a targeted breed. Renters are also likely to be lower income, minorities, young adults, and singles. Many shelter workers will tell you that people who rent tend to make up a high number of people surrender pets to shelters, often because a change in living situation causes them to not be able to find a place to live where they can keep their pet. For the most part, I don't think people don't seem to realize just how hard it is to find pet-friendly, affordable rentals. 

Interestingly, last week Bad Rap had an example of someone that they began helping that was about to become homeless and begin living in their car because of the challenge of not being able to find a place to rent with their dogs, and an unwillingness to part with their pets. I know a lot of people say they would live in their car to keep from giving up their pets -- but would you really? Being homeless is a tough pill to swallow.

#4) Resource Deserts --  The USDA started using the term "Food Deserts" several years ago to describe areas where people had little access to fresh foods. Resource Deserts for pets are areas where people lack access to affordable veterinary care (or any veterinary care for that matter). This is most common in urban and rural areas.  

Interestingly, awhile back a Kansas City city council member noted that there were very few veternary clinics in some of the neighborhoods he represented that were selling city licenses -- and was shocked to find out that the reason why was that there weren't any vets in those areas. Recently Kansas City received a grant to help with the spay/neuter of pit bulls in two specific zip codes. Interestingly, these two zip codes combined have only one veterinary clinic. 

When people of low incomes don't have cars, and cannot take pets on the bus system, and there are no veterinarians around, this lack of resources and animal care education takes its toll (it's also a primary reason why mandating spay/neuter always fails because the resources just simply aren't readily available for the people who are in most of need of help to get the services they need).

#5) Lack of adoption diversification -- According to data gathered by HSUS's Pets for Life program, in the underserved neighborhood they reach out to, 2 out of 3 pet owners got their pet from an acquaintance, as a stray, or pets from their own litter. Only 1 in 3 got their pet from a breeder, pet store or online.  

In talking with people I know and respect in Kansas City, many of the people they see in their inner-city outreach programs got their pets through informal networks -- ie, they adopted a stray, or took in a pet from a family member or friend who could no longer keep them, or when a neighbor left a pet behind. 

One place they didn't tend to get pets was through adoptions. Many people in low-income communities were unable to make it to a shelter to adopt (and couldn't get the pet home on a bus even if they wanted to). Many wouldn't be able to adopt because they would be denied due to race, income, neighborhood or living arrangement that would be seen as "undesireable" by a rescue group. Thus, many rescues don't seek out these neighborhoods as a place to do off-site adoptions.

I understand why rescues or shelters may have concerns about adopting to people with very low incomes, but I believe they need to overcome those fears.

Kim would say that whether or not you think low-income people should own pets is irrelevant -- because the fact is they ARE owning pets. So your decision is whether or not you want the pets to come from you or not.

I'll take it a step further. In most communities in the US, literally hundreds, or thousands, or sometimes 10s of thousands of lives are being lost in area animal shelters. If pets are dying in your local shelter while you cling to a moral high ground by not allowing people who live below a certain income threshold the opportunity to adopt (most of whom will end up with a pet anyway), then it's time to reconsider what problem you think you're solving.  And yes, these adopters may not have the resources for the worst case scenario when it comes to a pet's health -- but why not be a resource for them IF this situation arises instead of denying a pet a chance for a loving home because of what MIGHT happen?  Not only can you find a pet a home, but you can also become a resource to help overcome the "resource dessert" problem they face. You can be that resource.

#6) Barriers to Length of Stay -- far too may shelters are still denying the ability of pit bull terriers to leave the shelter, or are putting more challenging requirements on those that seek to save them. This is getting better, but it is still far too prevelent. If your shelter is making it harder for pets of certain types to get out, they need to re-look at that policy. Yesterday. 

#7) Ineffective Messaging -- I'm not going to get into a lot of this for the purpose of this post, but suffice it to say, many of our messaging tactics regarding bullies  pit bull terriers is not helping. Marketing dogs in a way such as "pit bulls are harder to adopt because no one wants them" are not only inaccurate (see point #1), but actually help create the situation where people think they shouldn't adopt them. 

According to Kim, the biggest issue facing pit bull terriers in this country is not breed-descriminatory laws, it's poverty. And lack of resources. It is a driving factor for how the dogs end up in shelters in the first place, and keeping them out is certainly easier than trying to save them once they're there. But even then, we have a lot more outlets for them as shelters/rescues than we allow ourselves to access.

I really enjoyed this presentation and it was a different perspective than is usually provided at animal welfare conferences. And it's a story that badly needs to be told.

For further reading: 

Very Good Sentences - thoughts on poverty and animals -- KC Dog Blog

The Revolving Door: A poverty problem, not a pet problem - Beyond Breed

A look at how far we've come -- Anderson Cooper edition

In 2009, officials ordered that 127 'pit bulls" be killed after they were seized from a dog fighting bust in North Carolina. Ed Faron was given 8-10 months in prison for his 14 counts of felony dog fighting. His dogs, including many puppies, were sentenced to death. It was certainly a high cost for being a victim.

At the time, HSUS's John Goodwin supported the measure noting that the dogs had been bred for fighting and it was expensive and difficult to "retrain" them. This followed reports that just 30 months earlier, HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle recommended that all of the dogs seized from Mike Vick's Bad Newz kennels be killed because they were "the most aggressive dogs they've ever seen." However, after proper evaluations, experts declared that 49 of the 51 dogs would be given an opportunity to live.

This was only 4 years ago -- that scores of dogs were killed, without evaluation, merely for being the victims of someone else's cruelty.

Skip ahead a few months, and Time Magazine featured 500 dogs rescued from a major dog fighting bust in Missouri. The dogs were given the opportunity to live, and the magazine featured the dogs not as vicious dogs that were eager participants, but as victims to human crimes and creatures to be empathized with.

And the trend continues.

A few weeks ago, the ASPCA, HSUS and area authorities broke up yet another dog-fighting ring in the South. The dogs are being held by the ASPCA and being given evaluations and behavioral rehabilitation opportunities. In other words, a chance. CNN's Anderson Cooper covered the story - showing the dogs again as the victims of human cruelty that they are. Broken, but not unsalvagable. It's a really nice report, that you can view here:

 

 It's amazing to see the transformation in how the cruelty victims are being covered and viewed. And it's great to see. Thanks to Cooper and the CNN team for their report.

Related: 500 dogs, 3 magazines, and a look at how far we've come

Pit Bull Perceptions

Earlier today, a new study from Maddies Fund was released about how perceptions of dog handlers affected how people viewed an individual dog's behavior.

In the study, people were show pictures of 3 dogs and asked to rate them on a 6 point Likert scale their perceived friendliness, adoptability, approachability, intelligence, aggressiveness and difficulty to train.

People were also shown the same three dogs with different human handlers -- one with a rough looking adult male, one with a young boy and one with an elderly woman.

Not surprisingly, the results showed that people viewed the pit bull less favorably than they viewed the Labrador Retriever and the Border Collie -- giving it lower scores for friendliness, adoptability, approachability and intelligence -- and higher scores for aggressiveness and difficulty to train.

However, the scores for the pit bull jumped considerably when shown with the young boy and the elderly woman. From the study:

"The elderly woman and male child activated positive handler stereotypes, motivating participants to perceive the pit bull type dog as friendlier, more adoptable, more approachable and less aggressive while the rough male reinforced the dog's negative stereotype. These results suggest that a handler can serve as a primer for perceptions about a dog's characteristics."

Indeed.

The study results probably won't surprise most people much, but it does reinforce that overwhelmingly when people discuss ideas about restricting particular breeds of dogs, they are often talking about laws in place that target the types of people they PERCEIVE to be the typical owners of those types of dogs -- not necessarily the dogs themselves. This is why those that advocate for such laws are inclined to try to convince people that 'pit bulls' are the dog of choice for 'paraplegic drug dealers' and "gangbanger wannabe's."  It's very much about racism and stereotyping owners, and not focusing on the dogs, and the reality that most commonly owned by respected members of society.

This is one reason that education at programs that focus on the REAL owners of pit bulls  and showing the dogs as family members, are so effective in counter-acting this blatant, and incorrect, stereotyping.

While it should be about judging the dogs for what they are, I'm actually fine with people basing their predisposition off of the owners as well -- as long as they use the real owners and not the ones rooted in their fear-mongering imagination.  

Here's the link to the info graphic posted below (you can click to enlarge): 

Scale

Last Saturday was Pit Bull Awareness Day. According to Jodi Pries, who spearheads the efforts, there were more than 150 events around the country where pit bull owners came out to celebrate their family pets and expose the public to the reality that pit bulls are just dogs.

Events took place across the country -- and garnered a lot of media coverage.

Around 30 dogs and owners showed up to walk in the cold in Chesterton, IN.

More showed up in Lubbock, TX -- where the walk was coupled with 3 movie showings of a movie celebrating pit bull type dogs, Beyond the Myth.

Approximately 100 dogs and dog owners were expected to attend an event in New Bedford, MA.

"Hundreds" showed up for an event in Ansonia, CT.

"At least 300" people attended a screening of the pro-pit bull documentary "Guilty Til Proven Innocent" in Tucson, AZ.

Other events were held in Joplin, Mo; Waterloo, IA; Monterey, CA; Houston, TX; Austin, TX; Toledo, OH; Plattsburgh, NY; Cape May, NJ;  -- you get the idea.

These events were all widely attended, and drew professionals from all walks of life.

Meanwhile, in Tucson, a small group organized to do a "victims walk" that, I think was accurately defined by this author as a "hate walk". The event was organized by a couple of anti-pit bull activists, and it was no coincidence that they hosted the event to try to overshadow pit bull awareness day activities.

But they did anything but overshadow the events of the day. If anything, the reality that they had two dozen attendees at their one event, in one location, while advocates had dozens, and sometimes hundreds, across more than 150 locations, shows the scale of differential in the issue.

Consistently I have pointed out this differential -- and that there is a complete lack of professsional support for laws targeting pit bulls (or any other breeds of dogs for that matter).  And the poor attendence at their one hate event shows that there is little non-professional support either. Meanwhile, literally THOUSANDS of people showed up with their dogs to celebrate their pets in public spaces to help educate the public that pit bulls can be, and are, great pets. And the scale between those who realize that and those who continue to support the mythology of pit bulls as savage and dangerous dogs continues to grow wider and wider.

Congrats and thank you to everyone that showed up to rally events in your communities, and to Jodie Pries at Bless the Bullies who organized the events.

Book Review: I'm a Good Dog: Pit Bulls, America's Most Beautiful and Misunderstood Pet

Over the weekend, I got the opportunity to attend, and present at, Best Friends' No More Homeless Pets Conference in Las Vegas. I'll be posting some thoughts from the conference later in the week as I work through articulating the stream of thoughts that have come from the conference.

While I was there, I was very happy to get the opportunity to buy an early copy of Ken Foster's new book "I'm a good dog: Pit Bulls, America's Most Beautiful (and Misunderstood) Pet.

I had the pleasure of meeting Foster about 5 years ago -- when he was on tour for his book "The Dogs Who Found Me, what I've learned from the pets who were left behind". In the book, Foster lays out sometimes humorous, and sometimes sad, stories about the dogs that have found him in life. Over time, Foster has become a founder of the Sula Foundation, a pit bull advocacy (and sometimes rescue) group in New Orleans.

So, I was thrilled to be able to pick up a copy of Foster's new work.  And it didn't disappoint.

The book is a short read as it's only about 140 pages long and contains more than 80 photos. But I think the impact of the book will be pretty significant.

The book is broken into four chapters -- with many outstanding images along the way and often interupted with stories of pit bulls owned by celebrities, or in pop culture, or those that have influenced other advocates throughout the country.

In Chapter 1, Foster makes an attempt to define 'pit bull' -- not the easiest task in the world. Foster acknowledges that the definition changes depending on who you ask: from very narrow definitions from breed enthusiasts that refer to "pit bulls' as only purebred American Pit Bull Terriers to broader definitions that include 3 or four breeds of dogs and then on to very broad definitions, sometimes even used in a legal tense, of any dog that physically resembles a pit bull. He attempts to give the history of the breeds (again, something that has variable answers depending on your source) to help define the dogs.

In Chapter 2, Foster talks about Pit Bulls as family, and introduces us to several families he's met over the years whose dogs have very much become part of their family. Foster also notes that the ideas of pit bulls as family is not new -- and takes us through many historical photos depicting pit bull type dogs in family photos that would indicate that they were, even 150 years ago, often considered family.

Chapter 3, Foster entitles "The Comeback". Earlier in the book, Foster laments that this is a book he wanted to write many years earlier, but there was no interest from publishers to do so. However, I'm glad he had to wait, because much of this chapter largely wouldn't have existed 5 years ago. The chapter talks about dogs rescued from Hurricane Katrina -- and how the majority of all the animals saved in Katrina were pit bulls. In Foster's opinion (and it's one I tend to agree with), Katrina exposed pit bull typed dogs to rescuers from throughout the country who, up to that time, had had little to no exposure to the breed. He thinks it was then, that perceptions of the dogs among animal advocates began to change.

Then, a short time later, you had the dog fighting bust at Bad Newz Kennels. With Mike Vick's arrest putting the dogs in a higher profile, several organizations reached out to see if authorities would allow the dogs to be temperament tested to possibly allow for their release. The release of the dogs, and the reality that nearly all were allowed to go to rescue and many to re-enter public life, and the media publicity that followed, helped to elevate "pit bulls' back to the roll as a beloved dog in American Culture again.

Throughout the chapter, Foster focuses on several dogs that have been rescued from dog fighting rings across the country over the last 5 years.

In Chapter 4, Foster looks at pit bulls in the community. He discusses pit bulls as working dogs, both now, and historically. He looks at dogs that help children with their reading skills, as therapy dogs, as dogs that help soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Disc Dogs, Agility Dogs, show dogs, celebrity dogs and dogs that simply live in our communities and live their lives mostly on the couch.

For regular readers of this blog, you will probably not see a lot of new information in this book, but you'll likely love the stories he tells, and how he combines those stories into a larger narative of pit bulls. You'll definitely see familiar faces, like Wallace, and Leo, and hear from familiar voices. But while the book may have been written for the many of us that celebrate, and love, pit bulls, I don't know that that is where the book will have its biggest impact.

"Does the fact that people question our pit bull love make it that much more intense? Possibly -- because in the case of Sula, I know that I saved her life, and despite what some people say, saving an animal's life is never a selfless act; there are huge emotional rewards. Like all forbidden love, from Romeo and Juliet on down the line, each time anyone questions or disapproves of our love, we defiantly love each other even more than before." -- Ken Foster -- from the Forward.

So go out and get a copy of the book - and you may think about buying multiple copies as gifts for your pit bull loving friends, or your family that just doesn't understand why you love the dogs so much.