Breed Specific Legislation Accomplishes Nothing
Here’s a great opinion piece on why Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) is sooo wrong!
Thanks Karen and the gang for barking in!
Karen wrote:
Hi Joy
I found this on Fox this morning. As many Dogster as possible need to comment and thank this writer for saying what we Dog Lovers have been saying all along.NO BAD DOG-BAD HUMAN.
Pit Bull Ban Punishes Dogs for Bad Owners
By Radley Balko
This is Rufus. Last February, Rufus was named best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club.
With his football-shaped head, muscular haunches, and powerful jaws, Rufus might, under the right circumstances, look pretty intimidating. He’s harmless, of course, as are the vast majority of bull terriers with responsible owners.
Unfortunately, there are a growing number of cities in North American that want nothing to do with Rufus. In addition to several smaller towns, Kansas City, Mo., recently followed the lead of Denver, Colo., and Ontario, Canada, in instituting a ban on “pit bulls.”
Any animal meeting the “pit bull” description found in the city will either be turned over to shelters outside the city or, more likely, euthanized.
These types of breed-specific prohibitions are a bad idea for a variety of reasons, but the most glaring is that the most common target of these laws the “pit bull” isn’t really a breed at all but rather a generic name given to dogs with with features we’ve come to associate with a certain type of dog with certain aggressive characteristics. The “pit bull” very generally refers to the American Staffordshire Terrier breed, but can include a number of breeds with similar features, including bull terriers like Rufus, and just about any mutt with traces of bulldog, mastiff, or bloodhound crossed with any breed of terrier.
