KC DOG BLOG

Sioux City, IA -- a 6 year look back at its breed-specific legislation

Sioux City, IA passed a ban on pit bulls in mid-year 2008 - -and over the past 6 years has been the source of a lot of embarrassing moments for the city, including:

1) Unconstitutional paperwork issues

2)  Law enforcement illegally targeting people who spoke up against the law

3) Breed identification issues due in part to the veterinary community refusing to work with the city to enforce the law

4) Civil suits about the arbitrary nature of the law

5) A situation where one of the council members who was instrumental in passing the ban in 2008, had his own Labrador Retreiver named Jake, seized for getting loose and attacking a man who was jogging, and then was stolen from the city pound the day before he was to be put down and was never seen again.

6) The embarrassing confrontation with a navy veteran who served 3 tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq for being a day late in regstering his pit bull. 

Last month, the Sioux City Journal (IA) ran an interesting, and fairly detailed article about the impact of the city's 6 year old ban on pit bulls -- noting in the headline that the impact of the ban was "unclear". There is some data provided in the news article, and some of it has been used by a handful of pro-BSL zealots to try to promote the "Success" of BSL in Sioux City.

For the past several weeks, I've been trying to track down some of the data referenced in article.  I've been in contact with the City Clerk, City Police, County health department and the Sioux City Journal reporter -- and let's just say, the data is even muddier than the article even alludes to. 

Data Sources

In the Siouxland area, there are two different primary sources for dog bite data. 

One is from the Sioux City police department.  The numbers collected by the police department reflect only incidents that involve the Sioux City Police Department and reflects a number of bites,  but is not tracked by breed. 

The second, is the County Health Department. The Siouxland District Health Department (SDHD) is responsible for keeping accurate information on dog bites in the community -- not just ones directly involving the policed department. According to SDHD Director Kevin Grieme, SDHD collects bite data from a variety of sources: including physicians offices, Emergency Departments and private citizens. 

Thus, SDHD has a higher number of bites included than the city of Sioux City, because the Sioux City numbers only represent the numbers of bites that involved the police -- which wouldn't be all of them. It also collects numbers from the entire county, not just the city of Sioux City -- although Sioux City residents  account for 81% f the residents of Woodbury County -- so it's a substantial number.

SDHD also tracks bites by breed, whereas the Sioux City Police Department does not. I find it interesting that Sioux City would decide to ban a particular breed of dog when they don't even track bites by breed.

So given that there are two different sources of the data for dog bites, and the data are collected in different ways, and the data tell a pretty different story, the story of the effectiveness of the Sioux City Pit Bull ban is extremely unclear. 

Siouxland District Health Department Data

According to SDHD, here are the bite totals for Woodbury County (obtained via multiple open records requests over the years) show the following. The first number is total bites for that year, the second is number by pit bulls, and the third is by non-pit bulls. 

2006 -- 88 

2007 -- 115

2008 -- 102 (20) (82)

2009 -- 107 (13) (94)

2010 - 134 (13) (121)

2011 - 117 (5) (112)

2012 - 104 (9) (95)

2013 - 121 (6) (115)

They're on pace for about 114 bites in 2014.

The two year average for the years prior to the ban was 102 bites (with the lowest of all the years being the pre-ban year of 2006).

They've averaged 117 since the ban was enacted in 2008 -- including the three highest bite total years.

And it's worth noting that Labs and Lab mixes were far and away the most commonly biting breed in 2013 with 26 bites. German Shepherds had 9. Labs were the leader in 2012 as well (20).

Sioux City Police Department Data

The news article, however, did not use the SDHD numbers, but instead, used numbers from the Sioux City Police Department When I spoke with the reporter, she said this was a conscious decision because the pit bull ban ONLY applied to Sioux City, and not the county.

Note that these are just total numbers (they don't track by breed) and they also will not be directly comparable to the SDHD numbers because the SDHD numbers are calender year numbers, where the Sioux City PD numbers are July-June numbers based on their fiscal year. Also, these numbers represent only bite incidents that involved the police department or animal control.

06-07 - 98

07-08 - 96

08-09 - 95

10-11 - 102

11-12 - 87

12-13  65

13-14 - 73

Based on these numbers, it appears tat there was an increase in bites shortly after the ban was initiated (early in the 08-09 fiscal year) and then after the 10-11 fiscal the numbers began to drop.

It  seems unlikey that such a sharp drop in Sioux City would not have a major impact in the country numbers with the city making up 81% of the total population of the county. 

It seems more likely that as the hysteria of the moment faded that people were LESS likely to get the police/animal control involved in bites and that the numbers just weren't being counted in the police department numbers.

This decrease in police involvement seems to also be reflected in the number of dogs that they label "high risk/vicious". The numbers of those are as follows:

2007 - 16

2008 - 59

2009 - 49

2010 - 31

2011 - 14

2012 - 21

2013 - 1

Again, it seems odd that there were only 16 "high risk" dogs in 2007, but then, coinciding with the passing of the new ordinance and likely an increase in enforcement as well, the number jumped tremendously for two years before settling back at pre-ban numbers. 

Additional Laws

To muddy this even further, there is one other factor that may have had an impact on numbers that was not even mentioned in the article. 

In July of 2010, Sioux City passed Ordinance 2010-0509 and then in September, 2012, passed ordinance 2012-0649. Both ordinances are fairly comprehensive, but there are several very notable changes including:

1) Regulation and impoundment of "high risk" animals. This was later defined in 2012-0649 as any animal that:

 a) chases or approahes a person or animal in an apparent attitude of attack

b) attacks a person or animal

c) bites or harms a person or animal

d) has been trained to fight other domestic animals

e) Is a trained guard dog

2) Defines the duties of the owners of "vicious" animals

3) Creates a definintion of an "irresponsible animal owner" as:

 a) Someone who has been convicted or plead guilty 3x in the past 12 months ofr animal at large, animal disturbing the peace, unlicensed animal, excessive number of animals, unsanitary premises due to animals

b) Someone who has been convicted or plead guilty 2x or more for: Animal neglect, keeping high-risk animals without a permit, having an animal declared as a vicious animal

c) Someone convicted or plead guilty to animal abuse or torture

4) Created a section that makes it the duty of animal owners to prevent animal attacks. As such, an animal owner must maintain control of such animal so to prevent biting, harming, chasing harrassing or worrying a person or other domestic animal. 

 Discussion

See. I told you this was muddy. There are two sources for bite data for the community, and the data from the two sources are pretty divergent.

My gut on this one tells me that the differential is primarily due to the levels of enforcement and lowering need/desire for animal control and the police to be involved in so many bite incidents after the hysteria of the moment died down. I just can't see much other explanation for why the city numbers would drop, but that drop not appear in the county numbers. It would require a more than doubling of bites in the non-city part of the county for that to happen and that doesn't seem logical.

Another explanation could be that the breed neutral "high risk" dog laws and the "irresponsible owner" laws (both, while not perfectly written, are solid conceptually) have actually led to a decrease in bites in Sioux City. Certainly, there is no evidence in either set of numbers that bites dropped dramatically from 2008-2011 -- and 2010 is the highest number of bites for both sources. However, post 2010, after some solid breed neutral ordinances started taking shape, it appears that bites dropped via either data source.

Regardless of your interpretation (and I'm curious to hear yours), it certainly doesn't appear that the breed specific law had any positive impact at all -- and mostly just led to a couple of years of major headaches and embarrassment along the way. 

I am, and continue to be, a strong proponent of breed-neutral, behavior (owner & dog) based dangerous dog laws -- as they continue to prove to be more effective than breed-specific laws, which are, by their definition, both over-inclusive (including dogs that are not dangerous) and under-inclusive (by not targeting dogs that are dangerous but not of the targeted breeds)  in their enforcement and ability to improve public safety. 

Sioux City appears to be yet another perfect example of this.

Adendum:

Interestingly, the day after the story about the city's pit bull ordinance ran, a Sioux City man was taken to the hospital after being bitten by two "Heeler/Akita" mixes that came out an open door from a home that also had two other adult dogs and nine puppies. The timing of the major bite involving two non-targeted breeds further highlights the poor idea of breed-targeted legislation.

 

Sioux City should repeal their breed ban; and celebrating decreases in public safety

A couple of weeks ago, at a mayoral breakfast, a Sioux City, IA couple brought up the conversation of repealing the city's 4 year old breed ban. The Sioux City Journal published an editorial encouraging the council to no "go there".  While the Journal opposed the ban back in 2008, and then again when it was discussed in 2010, but now says there has already been too much discussion over the subject and they should just move on.

There is little doubt that the city's ban has caused more than its share of embarrassing issues, including unconstitutional paperwork issues, targeting people who spoke out against the law, breed identification issues and civil suits about the arbitrary nature of the law and against the city councilman who pushed for the ban when his own Labrador Retreiver attacked a jogger and was later stolen from the shelter. The law has caused a lot of excess work for animal control and police officers who have even gone door to door looking for pit bulls. They even denied the licensing of a pit bull from a Navy Veteran who served 3 tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq who was 4 days late in registering his dog.

And to no surprise of anyone, the distraction of limited resources has had a negative affect on public safety as well. The city passed the ban in late 2008 (late October/early November) and began enforcing the law in March of 2009. 2006 and 2007 numbers come from this article, 2008-2011 numbers I obtained via FOI request this week (thanks to the helpful folks in Sioux City who were very nice in pulling the data together for me). I have no explanation for why the 2008, 2009 and 2010 data is different in the numbers I got from the city vs what is in the article.

Dog bites by year (numbers in parenths are those by "pit bulls" -- second parenths is "all other" dogs).

2006 - 88

2007 - 115

2008 - 102 (20) (82)

2009 - 107 (13) (94)

2010 - 134 (13) (121)

2011 - 117 (5) (112)

While it appears that 'pit bull' bites have gone down some since they enacted the ban (culling a huge amount of the population of one type of dog will do that).  However, the bites by all other breeds of dogs have increased pretty dramatically -- and some of the other breeds that have increased over that time are Boxers, American Bulldogs, German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers -- all bigger dogs that "pit bulls' typically are.

So in other words, the Sioux City Journal is wrong. The city council SHOULD revisit the breed ban, and repeal it; because they  have an obligation to fixt the failures of the prior administration in the name of public safety. The law has failed. Fix it.

Meanwhile, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that while the law has been failing, there are a couple of folks who are celebrating the Sioux City Journal Editorial.

Pictured, to the left (you can click on it for a larger view) is the thread from dogsbite.org celebrating the Sioux City Journal Editorial. Dogsbite.org celebrating the "victory" should come as no surprise as public safety has never been their goal -- having once named now fired Dog Warden Tom Skeldon "Dog Warden of the Year" in 2008 after his jurisdiction had a 23% increase in dog bites. At this point, I think most people are catching onto the truth about dogsbite.org -- they are a hate group (and by group, I mean essentially one person), not a group promoting public safety.

But maybe even more telling are the comments by Council Bluffs Assistant City Attorney Don Bauermeiester who is taking credit for having talked to an Assistant City Attorney in Sioux City. According to Don:

"When contacted recently by former intern, now assistant city attorney, I directed him to dogsbite.org. Beleive me when I say that the asst city attorney in Sioux City understands pit bulls must be treated differently. lol".

Yes, I'm sure all of the the residents in Sioux City who are paying for the enforcement of the law while it decreases their public safety are laughing hysterically.

I should also note, the Bauermeister should be very familiar with the results of breed bans -- as the number of bites in his own city went up dramatically after enacting their breed ban in 2004.

So add Bauermeister to the small list of bozos who have no interest in promoting public safety - only in using his position to promote the slaughter of dogs that look like 'pit bulls' - and lol-ing while the animals die and public safety is compromised.

Weekly Roundup - Abbreviated for Week of 8/29/10

I'm not going to have time to get to a complete Weekly Roundup this week. I'll get most of the stories up in next week's roundup, but there are a couple of stories I think are really important from this week that I want to make some comments on. 

CA SB 250 Fails

Last week, SB 250 -- a bill that would mandate the spay/neuter of all dogs and cats in the state of California - thankfully failed in the Senate.  This is great news given that the law is not based on what is good for animals when the state's largest city has tried the law and has failed miserably with it. The final vote was way closer than it should be -- 34 for, 40 against, 4 not voting. If you live in California, contact your Senator. If they voted against the bill, thank them for making a wise decision. If they voted for the bill, contact them and tell them to look at the failure of the law elsewhere and pursuade them to not repeat the mistakes of others.

The law could be resurrected at any time, so please keep and eye on this and work to educate your senator so they realize that even the majority of animal welfare groups oppose this law -- because it doesn't work.

More on the laws in a great blog post from the Pet Connection.

More on the Jerry Lee Southern Conviction

I posted the news about Southern's plea deal on Wednesday, but Donna has a follow  up that is better, and more detailed than mine (which makes sense, she was there after all).  It turns out that the DA accepted Southern's plea deal to a sentence of 90 days because the judge that was hearing the case has a track record of not giving harsh sentences -- and in fact, deferring sentences a lot -- and the DA thought it was worth getting SOME jail time vs no time at all (which sounds like a real possible option).

We must continue to push judges into realizing that harsh sentences are deserved for  severe cruelty cases like this so that abusers like Southern, who was a repeat offender with no remorse, should not be allowed to get free passes for their actions.

Sioux City BSL Continues to fail

Back in 2008, Sioux City, IA passed a ban on 'pit bull' type dogs. The ban has been nothing but headaches for them  since it's passing, including multiple lawsuits, and other problems.

Turns out dog bites are up too.

Last week, a 19 month old boy suffered severe puncture wounds, collapsed lungs, a bruised kidney, a bleeding spleen and stomach and pancreas damage after being attacked by a Husky-type dog that was chained up in the neighbor's yard.   This of course follows a year in which the city focused on breeds of dogs being responsible for attacks, not aggressive dogs regardless of breed, chaining dogs, and unsupervised toddlers wandering up to those dogs.  This story was actually on the front page of the Sioux City Journal on Thursday morning.

Bites are up in Sioux City this year.  The city is already at the same number of dog bites as they recorded in all of last year.  Here are the dog bites over the past several years:

2006 - 88

2007  - 115

2008 - 94

2009 - 81

2010 - 81 (pace 122)

So outside of a very crazy 2007 -- the city averaged 88 dog bites per year- and was on a downward trend. The 2009 numbers (about 2/3 of which had the BSL ordinance) numbers were pretty good -- but 2010 is shaping up to be a complete disaster in terms of dog bites -- in large part because of the ordinance. And as you can see, the severity of the injuries has not decreased.

When cities focus on the wrong things -- like breeds -- instead of the right things like promoting responsible dog ownership, bad things happen. Sioux City is continuing to show their failures with their breed ban - -even though they are stubbornly holding onto the ordinance. 

Denver re-evaluating their breed ban

Last month, the Department of Justice released an official statement about the Americans with Disabilities Act and how all service dogs are protected under the ADA - -and that cities with bans on particular breeds do not trump the ADA. Service dogs are to be welcomed under the ADA regardless of breed (and regardless of what the city thinks of that breed).

So, now  the city of Denver is re-evaluating their breed ban. Well, they have to. At the very least they're going to have to adjust the law to allow for service dogs in the city -- particularly since Denver is currently facing three lawsuits for harrassing people protected under the ADA with 'pit bull' type service dogs under the city's breed ban.

The city is looking for a quick end to the situation given in order to squash the lawsuits and stop the mounting legal fees in a time when the city is facing a major budget deficit.

The city will likely get rid of the breed bans for service dogs (they have to) -- but it is already causing some to ask the question  that if the Department of Justice suggests that breed bans for service dogs are overly broad, why not for all dogs?

At this point, I highly doubt that Denver will really consider a full-on repeal. There doesn't appear to be much support for a full-on repeal at city hall or in the city attorney's office (where the assistant city attorney build his career on the ban and refuses to acknowledge the ban's failure in spite of the numbers and in spite of the reality that the law is causing the city a huge amount of wasted funds).  But I think eventually the ridiculousness of banning dogs that are capable of being service dogs, the huge difficulty of enforcing the ban with the ADA guidelines now impacting Denver, and, well, the fact that the whole law is ignorant an ineffective, will lead to the law being repealed. But it may take some more time. Or not. But the law is crumbling....

Our pit bull ban isn't working, so let's keep it says Sioux City

Monday night, the Sioux City City Councilvoted 3-2 to keep their ban on 'pit bulls'. Even though City Attorney Andrew Mai had proposed a new bill that would have removed the ban that was passed in 2008, the council voted it down.

The ban has led to little but headaches for the council since it's passing. Last November, at least one of the council members that voted in favor of the ban was removed from office by popular vote.

In January, District Court Judge John Ackermund ruled that their enforcement of the law had violated due-process rights of six dog owners.

According to numbers obtained by the Sioux City Journal, prior to the ban, the city was averaging about 93 dog bites per year.  After the ban, 120 - a 29% increase. It's not little fluffy dogs that have led to the increase -- with Labrador Retrievers (including councilman Aaron Rochester's dog Jake) and German Shepherds being two of the breeds seeing an uptick in bites.

All of the issues have led to various complaints by residents that the city is spending far too much time on animal issues and ignoring the rest of the city's needs. The too much time also includesofficers in the city going door-to-door looking for unlicensed 'pit bulls' during one stretch this spring.

In spite of this, Councilmen Keith Radig and Aaron Rochester (who proposed the ban in 2008) voted to keep the ban because they thought it was working. Apparently they define "success" differently than most. Councilman John Fitch said he wasn't going to change what the previous council had done and thought that a change would be confusing.Radig has previously been quoted as wanting to potentially add more types of dogs to the banned list.

Mayor Mike Hobart (who supported the ban in 2008) and councilman Tom Padget voted to repeal the ban.

The decision drew the ire of the Sioux City Journal - which noted that Logic was the loser in the 'pit bull' debate:

"In fact, the council’s actions on Monday night are a failure on two fronts. Not only did they fail (again) to understand the inherent problem with any kind of breed-specific legislation, they failed to act on a measure that would have a significant impact – harsher penalties for owners whose actions jeopardize public safety...."

If anything, since the pit-bull ban was enacted, we’ve had more – not fewer -- problems with dog bites. Data that once again supports the argument that bad owners are quite simply bad owners. If they can’t have a pit bull, they will simply turn to another breed.

But perhaps our favorite bit of council logic came from councilman John Fitch, who decided to uphold the ban because he was worried owners “would get confused on what they were supposed to do.

"The only people who appear confused about the best way to protect our community from vicious animals are the three councilmen who once again refused to use logic and instead voted with emotion not based in fact. And the fact is we’re not any safer for it."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

The ban initially had the full support of the council...but after 2 years, it narrowly survives with 3-2 vote. It seems as if time is on the side of those pushing for the repeal.

BSL Failures in Toledo, Denver and Sioux City -- and city "leaders" hiding behind constituents

The struggles cities are having with their breed bans were front and center in today's news. And it's becoming increasingly evident that enforcing breed bans is costly and ineffective.  There are better ways of doing this (suggestions coming tomorrow), but for today, let's focus on three cities that were in the news today for the failures of their BSL -- including one story of a city council person who has forgotten what her actual job is as a city leader.

Sioux City

I don't usually link to a lot of editorials here, but I thought this one from the Sioux City Journal summed up the mess they've created in Sioux City pretty well. Two years after beginning talks of banning 'pit bulls', and 18 months after actually passing the ordinance, the city has reached a potentially ugly crossroads. 

The city has undergone a series of embarrassments following the law: including unconstitutional paperworks issues, breed identification issues, civils suits and the man who pushed for the ban on pit bulls having his Labrador attack a jogger, then get sentenced to death, and then stolen from the shelter.  However, things have come to a head now that a deadline has passed for 'pit bull' owners whose dogs were grandfathered in under the ban had to renew their licenses, and approximately 100 dogs are left unlicensed. The cityjust denied the appeal of a military veteran who tried to license his dog 4 days late -- apparently deciding the dog was better off dead than licensed -- and may face the same scenerio 100 times over.  Meanwhile, at least 3 members of the council, and the mayor, have mentioned that they would be in favor of repealing the ban.

So while the council is delaying a conversation about possibly repealing the law, the police are talking about going around and rounding up unlicensed dogs to kill them.  The editorial wisely recommends to the council to take a step back before it "unnecessarily crosses a line it later wishes it hadn't."

It's good advice for a city that has seen nothing but headaches and struggle with their Breed Specific Ordinance.

Toledo

The members of the council's dog warden advisory group in Toledo continued its work on defining a dangerous dog in their community. The group was formed because the city leaders in Toledo recognized that dangerous dogs come in a variety of breeds and they are working on making recommendations to change the law so that ALL aggressive dogs can be included, and not just ones of a particular type. "We're trying to address behavior, not breed" said Chairman Steve Serchuk.

Denver

There is a new article in the Denver Daily News that talks about all of the legal bills that are piling up on the city of Denver.  There isn't a lot of new information here vs what I talked about last month, but it's worth noting that the mainstream media there is picking up on the issue. The city has already settled one payment for $5,000 in one lawsuit, and has at least $15,000 tied up in just two months  in paying a local lawfirm to deal with several other pending cases. Many locally are estimating that the city is spending a quarter of a million dollars in enforcing and defending their law -- at a time when the city is facinng a $120 million budget shortfall.

One thing of particular note in this story are the statements made by Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz who still supports the ban. Faatz says she sent out a survey to her constituents and 78% of them said they favored the ban. "That's the will of my voters, so if it takes defending it, I'm willing to defend it," said Faatz.

Faatz's response is indicitive of what many city council leaders have gotten absolutely wrong when it comes to leading cities.

City leaders are indeed, elected by getting the majority of the votes in their community. However, they still represent EVERYONE in their community, even the ones who didn't vote for them. And  they are elected to make decisions on what is best for the city, not necessarily based on the will of the majority. If over the course of history, our elected leaders only did what the MAJORITY of voters wanted, we wouldn't have gotten very far. It certainly would have set back the civil rights movement, and it's possible that women would have never been allowed to vote either -- or that Faatz herself would even have been allowed to hold her position.

No, city leaders are responsible for doing what is best for the city, and what is best for ALL constituents. Not just caving to the will of the majority. In fact, it means, in many cases, that they are responsible for protecting the minority from the majority. There is a difference between doing what is right, and what is best, than doing what people SAY they want.

People may say they want a 'pit bull' ban. But do they?  Or is it that they want to know that they are protected and safe from dangerous dogs?  Those aren't the same things. And if you asked them which of the two they wanted, most likely they'd choose the latter.

There are absolutely ways to protect people from dangerous dogs, while protecting the minority of people from the majority, and doing so in a way that is both effective and is not a drain on the taxpayer's dollars which are now being diverted to pay for city legal fees. Hiding behind your consitutents is the lazy way out Ms. Faatz. What 1400 people say in a survey does not give you the right to fight for ineffective ordinances that are wasting hundeds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money. It is your job to find effective ordinances and then explain to your constituents why that is a better option to solve their need (being protected from aggressive dogs) and their stated desire (to ban "pit bulls").  Don't hide behind your votes.

Tomorrow, I'll provide recommendations for fair laws that do a better job of addressing dangerous dogs -- so cities can avoid the costliness of what is going on in Denver, the enforcement problems in Sioux City, and the lack of protetion from aggressive non-'pit bull' type dogs that is going on in Toledo. Because really, who wants to dive into the problems listed above?

See also: For the Pits -Denver continues to spend thousands on ineffective pit bull ban

When laws lose their original purpose & we choose to punish instead

Laws are designed as a framework to get everyone in a society to act a certain way. They are important to providing structure to a society -- and to prevent people from creating an undue burden on the rest of society.  But at what point do laws get away from their original purpose, and only become used to punish people that don't abide by them?

And unfortunately, when it comes to animal welfare laws, our form of punishment always leaves the animals paying the price.

Back in 2008, Sioux City, IA passed a ban on 'pit bull' type dogs.  Dogs of this type currently in the city could be licensed and kept with a strict set of guidelines until the animal died - -at which time the owner could only replace the animal with a different type of dog.

So, let's assume for a minute that the city passed this law with the best set of intentions* and passed the law for the sake of improving pubic safety. That by mandating that people license their dogs, they are able to better keep track of the dogs to improve public safety -- and, if the dog is responsible for a bite or attack, can hold the owner accountable for the incident.

That could make sense. So the goal is to get people to license their 'pit bulls' in the short term.

Well, last week, the deadline in Sioux City passed for re-licensing pit bulls. So now, anyone who licensed their pit bulls before, but failed to in year two, will have their 'pit bulls' confiscated by the city and killed. The police are even going door to door looking for the dogs.

Well, one could easily argue that using police resources to look for dogs is a poor use of public resources -- and that rounding up dogs actually makes the city less safe, vs more safe -- especially in a city that has higher than average numbers in virtually all property crimes (although very low in most violent crimes). And if the goal was public safetywas the goal of the law, using police resources on dogs that are not posing safety threats doesn't seem like it meets the intent.

But it goes further than that.

Last night, Gerald Robbins, a Navy Veteran who served 3 tours of duty in Afghanisatan and Iraq, and is now attending college at Morningside College in Sioux City, approached the city council about re-licensing his 'pit bull'. He claims that he had been so busy studying that he forgot to licence his dog and that he doesn't watch TV or read the newspaper (many younger people don't), so he was approaching the council 4 days after the deadline to license his dog after a couple of friends mentioned it to him.

Now, is the goal of the licensing program to ensure that the dogs are licensed?  In which case, the city should take Robbins' money and let him keep his dog. Or is it to punish him (and kill his dog) for missing the deadline?

Sioux City decided it was punishment, and denied his appeal.  It doesn't matter that the man WANTS to abide by the law -- or for that matter that his dog has not reportedly shown any signs of aggression or being an actual threat to society (there's that safety issue again). Nope, it matters only that he missed the deadline by four days, and now, the city says his dog must die. "You're still in violation of the law" said City Attorney Andrew Mai.

*I think one could easily argue that the law was never REALLY about public safety and has always been about punishment. There is no evidence that BSL actually improves public safety. However, a six year old girl was bitten by one of the over 500 'pit bulls' in the city -- and because of it, the city decided that ALL 'pit bull' owners should be punished for the offense. Never mind that 99.8% of them did nothing wrong.

Whatever the law may have been about before (public safety, holding owners accountable if the dog is a probelm), the law is now about punishing someone they wish to punish. And sadly, that often seems like the case.

And this is how it goes with Mandatory spay/neuter ordinances as well. While many well-meaning animal welfare people often push for laws that require people to alter their pets -- the intent of the law ends up getting lost and is replaced by punishment -- and usually, it is the dog that loses.

People push for MSN laws because they want to use them to encourage/force people to alter their pets. They think that by doing so, they can end unintentional litters and keep shelters from filling up. And spay/neuter is a good thing, right?

But what happens when someone violates the law? What if they are new to town and don't realize it's a law (it is still, fortunately, a very uncommon law)? What if they can't afford the surgery? What if for legitimate health reasons they choose to not alter their pet (at least at this time)?

Instead of working with the owner to get them to just alter the pet (the supposed purpose of the ordinance), the law becomes about punishing them for not following the ordinance in the first place -- regardless of the reason. So just like the man who was four days late in licensing his dog, they are  found to be "in violation of the law".  The dog is confiscated and then either becomes part of the shelter system OR take up a kennel in the shelter that a homeless animal would have had access to (vs the animal that actually HAD a home). Either way, shelter killing goes up. Which is exactly what has happened in Los Angeles, Kansas City, and Little Rock.

At what point did we just forget the entire intent of the law, and just decide that punishing (and killing animals) was the final goal?

Sioux City. Let the man keep his dog. In fact, anyone you find that has a dog should get to keep their dog if the dog is well cared for. Rounding up and killing animals that are not causing problems is not improving public safety, it's wasting taxpayer dollars and police resources rounding up and killing people's pets that have not shown themselves to be problems. That's not public safety. That's seeking to punish.

Sioux City Shelter Could face be "overwhelmed" next week

More problems in Sioux City.

Last year, 152 'pit bulls' were grandfathered into the city's breed ban -- allowed to stay in the city as long as they had an annual license.

However, the due date for renewal passed on March 1 with 200 dogs still unlicensed (I have no idea how 200 dogs are still unlicensed if the starting point was 152).  So the city extended the deadline until April 1 -- but now, less than a week away, many dogs remain unlicensed.

The police plan to call all of the owners who haven't complied to remind them of the deadline. If that fails, the animal control division will impound the dogs. Cindy Rarrat of the Sioux City Animal Control says that impounding more than 100 animals in a day would "overwhelm" the city's shelter.

Ya think?

The end result would be the slaughter of dozens of dogs. None of them did anything wrong mind you. None were homeless. None were aggressive. But all contain a certain "look" that is no longer welcome in Sioux City.

This is among the reasons that the ban is losing support at city hall.

If you live in Sioux City, and own a 'pit bull', PLEASE go register it and save your dog's life. And please, if you work at city hall, get rid of this stupid law so the city doesn't end up slaughter dozens of dogs that have done nothing at all wrong.

It's ignorant, inhumane and just plain wrong.

Further Updates on Sioux City possible breed ban repeal

Yesterday, the city council in Sioux City discussed the possibility of repealing the city's breed ban - -and instead, moving to an ordinance that that just required restrictions on 'pit bull' type dogs -- including mandatory microchipping and muzzling.

"But I'm just saying, I think the system is broken. I think we do need to fix it because I think that the things that are happening right now aren't consistent and I think there are some things that were not done well," says Aaron Rochester, Sioux City City Council."

In all honesty, the current "solution" is still based on the broken model that is causing the problems in the first place. And the problems in Sioux City have been numerous -- including breed identification issues, forced signing of paperwork that violated due process and a civil suit against the city.

Acknowledging that the ordinance is failing is a good first step. Coming up with a workable solution is at least now possible. Hopefully the council and the mayor will listen the the people in the rescue and veterinary communities in Sioux City and come to a workable solution.

Sioux City, IA to investigate eliminating its breed ban

This afternoon at 4:00,the city council in Sioux City, IA will be meeting to discuss possible solutions to ending the city's breed ban. The two proposals on the table allow are proposed changes to the current 'pit bull' ban and the current dangerous dog law. 

The two proposals include:

1) Repealing the 'pit bull' ban and instead, add 'pit bulls' to the high-risk animal category. This would require 'pit bulls' to be muzzled, leashed with a chest collar, microchipped, and a "Dangerous Dog" sign posted on the property. Licensing fees would be increased to $50 per animal.

2) Changing the vicious animal law to a complaint-driven system or to where Animal control could pursue charges with an an appeal process in place. This would also allow 'high risk" animals to be relocated outside of the city instead of having to be euthanized.

For the life of me, I don't know how #1 works, because if you declare all 'pit bulls' 'high risk" under proposal #1, then they have to be relocated out of the city under proposal #2 (or euthanized if proposal #2 fails).  So I'm not sure that helps.

I also don't know why if you have a comprehensive breed-neutral policy that you would ever need a breed-specific one, because if you can get all aggressive-behaving dogs under your dangerous dog ordinance, the only ones impacted by the the breed -specific one are ones that do not behave aggressively -- and I have no idea why you would want to waste animal control resources on non-aggressive dogs.

The city's breed ban and dangerous dog laws have been a source of constant headaches for the city since being passed 18 months ago -- breed idenfication issues, targeting owners who were exercising rights fo free speech, due process issues from forced paperwork signing and a couple of civil suits have all been part of the equation.

At least realizing the law needs to be fixed is a good first step. If you live in Sioux City and can attend the meeting today, then please do.

H/T: Stop BSL

Sioux City Mayor about BSL: I would vote to recind it tomorrow

 A little more than a year after passing breed specific legislation in Sioux City, IA; Mayor Mike Hobart has his regrets. Although he voted to pass the legislation at the time, he now has second thoughts.   He told the Sioux City Journal that he has heard "some heart-wrenching stories....I would vote to recind it tomorrow. I was never a strong proponent of it. I though we would give some exceptions and found out too late we didn't."

Sioux City, which has three new city council members that didn't vote on the initial ban -- 2 of them appear to be opposed to the breed specific ordinance, 1 appears in favor. The city plans to re-address the breed specific legislation in an upcoming session.

From the beginning, Sioux City has had struggles with their BSL. After the first set of meetings, their animal control officers targeted people who spoke out against the ban in their meeting, causing a rash of complaints for violating certain freedoms of speech.

Later,the Veterinarian community opted to no longer cooperate with the city by helping them get dogs licensed because they didn't want to be held accountable for the breed identification.

Then, the paperwork that animal control was using to confiscate 'pit bulls' for violations violated the 5th Amendment by forcing people to admit guilt by signing over that their dog was a 'pit bull'.

Then, the primary councilmember who pushed for the breed ban, Aaron Rochester, had his Labrador Retriever get free and aggressively bite a jogger in the neighborhood. The dog was put on doggie death row, but was then stolen from the shelter (a felony) the night before he was to be euthanized. No one was ever found or arrested in the case.

Over the course of the year, the law has led to their shelter being filled up with 'pit bulls', and the city facing several civil suits against the city for arbitrary decision-making on which dogs were affected. 

Then, in November, one council member who voted for the ban, Rixner, was voted out of office in favor of a dog-friendly candidate.

It sounds as if a lot of the city leaders in Sioux City have found out exactly how bad of legislation their breed ban is and it sounds like some changes may be coming down the pike in the near future.