March 11th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: The UK has had a breed-specific ban instituted since 1991.  I think 20 years of impotent breed-specific legislation is quite enough and indeed the repeal of the UK’s BSL is a testament to what animal welfarists have known all along: breed-specific legislation is ineffective, unenforceable, and needlessly kills innumerable innocent dogs.

Republished from the British Veterinary Association:

Over 10,000 people called for it; the country’s leading animal welfare and veterinary organisations, charities and local authorities fought for it; and Members of the House of Lords supported it when they voted to move Lord Redesdale’s Dog Control Bill on to its final stage in the Lords.

The Bill proposes to replace failed dangerous dog legislation with a new law that would repeal breed specific legislation, introduce Dog Control Notices, and apply to both public and private places. Constructed by the Dangerous Dogs Act Study Group (DDASG), the Dog Control Bill is continuing its path through the legislative system after being tabled by Lord Rupert Redesdale as a Private Members Bill in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

March 10th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: See?  Municipalities who pass these breed-specific ordinances have no idea how to enforce them because “pit bull” is not a breed and so “pit bulls” become whatever arbitrary designation the ordinance wants them to be.  Used to be they defined “pit bulls” as American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers, and Staffordshire Bull Terriers.  Now it looks like they think Bull Terriers are “pit bulls” too.  The truth is, “pit bull” is a catch-all that can literally be as many breeds as the ordinance defines it to be.  That’s why BSL for “pit bulls” in particular has been such a goldmine for those wanting to eradicate dog ownership, and why it is so blatantly unconstitutional.  Indeed, when even Chihuahuas are mistaken for “pit bulls” what can’t be called a “pit bull”?

From KFOR channel 4 in Oklahoma City:

A Midwest City family wins a long overdue court battle against the city. The family had been fighting for years to save their bull terrier pets. This week a state supreme court ruling ends the long legal battle.

Lower courts had previously ruled the dog ban violated state law.

This week the state supreme court refused to take up the issue, which means the Midwest City ban is now officially dead.

The dog owner at the heart of the lawsuit is obviously thrilled by the decision.

“It’s a huge relief,” said dog owner Jerry Stuckey.

The dispute centered on a now defunct Midwest City ordinance that banned dogs with “pit” or “bull” in their names as a danger to the community.

That included the Stuckey’s bull terrier dogs.

“It was just a bad ordinance. It was unconstitutional,” said Stuckey.  Read the rest of this entry »

March 9th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: The following article was written by Illinoisan Lee Williams, originally posted on Illinoispolicy.org and is currently posted on the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership website. I have excerpted parts of the article below because first and foremost we deal with constitutional rights on this blog, and secondly because Illinois, as the whole world knows by now, is full of nanny-staters so corrupt even Al Capone would blush.

From JPFO.org:

Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s recent edict, which orders the state police to release the names of every gun owner to the media, is bad policy that could put guns into the hands of criminals, and give them a handy database of unarmed victims.

Madigan’s office recently mediated a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) dispute between the state police and the Associated Press. The AP had sought the names of every Illinoisan who holds a Firearms Owner Identification Card—a much-derided requirement if you want to exercise what’s left of your Second Amendment rights in this state. You can’t so much as buy a box of shotgun shells without one, much less own a gun.  Read the rest of this entry »

March 7th, 2011 by Editor

March 18, 2011 update: According to HB 1080′s status page, HB 1080 has been kicked back down to the Rules Committee where its sponsor is most likely hoping for an assignment to a more amenable committee.  We hope HB 1080 dies a well-deserved, dishonorable death in the Rules Committee because the bill and its sponsor stand for low-ball politics.

Please write the Rules Committee and politely ask them not to give in to Rep. Bradley’s attempt at an end-around of the democratic process.  And yes, merely changing one word in a so-called “amendment” in order to get HB 1080 out of the Agriculture Committee where it didn’t stand a chance, and back to the Rules Committee where it is hoped that the bill will get an assignment to a committee that will pass it on to the House floor is an end-around of the democratic process.  So is cancelling meeting after meeting where the bill is scheduled to be heard in committee in hopes of waiting out your opposition.

March 11 update: HB 1080 is now scheduled to be heard March 15, 2011, in the Agriculture & Conservation Committee:

Agriculture & Conservation Committee Hearing
Mar 15, 2011, 1:00 p.m.
Stratton Building, Room 413
Springfield, IL

A couple of years ago when Illinois was considering breed-specific legislation (BSL) at the state level, week after week the meetings where the BSL was to be heard kept getting cancelled just like what is happening now with HB 1080. They were waiting everyone out because they knew most people couldn’t keep making the trip hundreds of miles from all over the state to committee meetings that kept getting cancelled.  It was a subversion of the democratic process, just like what is happening now with HB 1080.

In this case, it looks like Bradley knows he clearly has no support for HB 1080 in the Agriculture Committee and so he has added some nonsense amendment (the “amendment” simply strikes out the word “the” and replaces it in some text about rabies vaccines) to the bill to try to kick it back to the Rules Committee hoping he gets a better committee assignment than Agriculture.  I’m guessing the “amendment” is also why his office is misleading people telling them that HB 1080 doesn’t have a committee assignment yet when you call.  Bradley is probably well aware that he has no support for the bill in the Ag Committee, but neither that, nor the fact that a majority of Illinoisans don’t want HB 1080 to pass, seems to be a deterrent for him. Usually that means there’s some special interest backing the bill from the shadows and that the bought-off “representative”  has to earn his payola, er I mean, his “campaign contribution,” and pull out all the political dirty tricks to try to get the bill through.

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From The Journal-News:

Dear Editor:

Rep. John Bradley introduced House Bill 1080 to the Illinois General Assembly this past month. The bill, if passed, will allow amendments to the Illinois Animal Control Act so municipalities will be allowed to ban so-called “vicious” breeds from their towns.

This bill takes the judgment on the personality and behaviour of a dog out of the hands of the pet owner and places it into the hands of persons afraid of a dog based on its breed. If the Illinois house passes this bill, it will mean death to hundreds if not thousands of good dogs in the state.  Read the rest of this entry »

March 7th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: Fatal dog maulings almost always have mitigating factors — like the dog being sick, unaltered, abused, unsocialized, or some combination of these — that the media seldom takes into consideration.  What we know for sure is that dog-bite related fatalities are not a breed problem.  Any dog of any breed if left unsocialized or if abused can become dangerous.  Pete Murphy with the Dubuque Regional Humane Society sums it up best in the article below when he says, “There’s a potential for this to happen with every breed… it’s very important to supervise dogs with kids as well as socialize and train them.”  Indeed, even small-breed dogs have been known to kill infants, so parents, grandparents, guardians, etc. must always be vigilant.

Please contact* the Hopkinton Mayor and City Council at the following address and politely inform them that breed-specific legislation does not prevent dog bites/attacks; that it is ineffective, unenforceable, and has been ruled unconstitutional:

Hopkinton City Hall
115 First St SE
PO Box 154
Hopkinton, IA 52237-0154

Phone: 563-926-2181
Fax: 563-926-2065

Email: cityhopk@iowatelecom.net

From KWWL NBC 7:

We now know the name of a three year old girl killed after she was mauled by dogs this weekend. And some government leaders say they may make changes in their city as a result of the attack.  Read the rest of this entry »

March 3rd, 2011 by Editor

The issue of companion animal hoarding can be tricky.  Compassionate people of course want to end animal suffering, and so seeing neglected animals being removed en masse from hoarders’ dwellings on the news is tough to watch.  But on the other hand this country (and others) does not hold a successful record in applying the law to what should be left to the psychiatry or psychology professions.

The American Psychological Association (APA) appears not, as yet, to have directly addressed animal hoarding.  For the longest time, I have been unable to find mention of it in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV-TR (nor in the DSM V).  The DSM simply mentions hoarding as a general symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder.  Viewed this way, that is, as a psycho-social disability, animal hoarders do not have the intent to hurt animals; rather, they are helplessly trapped in a compulsion.  So should we as a society really be stigmatizing sufferers of this rare phenomenon by criminalizing a disability that its sufferers can’t seem to help?  Read the rest of this entry »

March 1st, 2011 by Editor

March 18, 2011 update: According to HB 1080′s status page, HB 1080 has been kicked back down to the Rules Committee where its sponsor is most likely hoping for an assignment to a more amenable committee.  We hope HB 1080 dies a well-deserved, dishonorable death in the Rules Committee because the bill and its sponsor stand for low-ball politics.

Please write the Rules Committee and politely ask them not to give in to Rep. Bradley’s attempt at an end-around of the democratic process.  And yes, merely changing one word in a so-called “amendment” in order to get HB 1080 out of the Agriculture Committee where it didn’t stand a chance, and back to the Rules Committee where it is hoped that the bill will get an assignment to a committee that will pass it on to the House floor is an end-around of the democratic process.  So is cancelling meeting after meeting where the bill is scheduled to be heard in committee in hopes of waiting out your opposition.

March 11, 2011 update: HB 1080 is now scheduled to be heard March 15, 2011, in the Agriculture & Conservation Committee:

Agriculture & Conservation Committee Hearing
Mar 15, 2011, 1:00 p.m.
Stratton Building, Room 413
Springfield, IL

A couple of years ago when Illinois was considering breed-specific legislation (BSL) at the state level, week after week the meetings where the BSL was to be heard kept getting cancelled just like what is happening now with HB 1080. They were waiting everyone out because they knew most people couldn’t keep making the trip hundreds of miles from all over the state to committee meetings that kept getting cancelled.  It was a subversion of the democratic process, just like what is happening now with HB 1080.

In this case, it looks like Bradley knows he clearly has no support for HB 1080 in the Agriculture Committee and so he has added some nonsense amendment (the “amendment” simply strikes out the word “the” and replaces it in some text about rabies vaccines) to the bill to try to kick it back to the Rules Committee hoping he gets a better committee assignment than Agriculture.  I’m guessing the “amendment” is also why his office is misleading people telling them that HB 1080 doesn’t have a committee assignment yet when you call.  Bradley is probably well aware that he has no support for the bill in the Ag Committee, but neither that, nor the fact that a majority of Illinoisans don’t want HB 1080 to pass, seems to be a deterrent for him. Usually that means there’s some special interest backing the bill from the shadows and that the bought-off “representative”  has to earn his payola, er I mean, his “campaign contribution,” and pull out all the political dirty tricks to try to get the bill through.

****

HB 1080 has been assigned to the House Agriculture & Conservation Committee. You can track the bill here.  Please send your polite letters opposing HB 1080 to the Illinois House Agriculture & Conservation Committee and let’s stay vigilant Illinois.  This bill, if passed, will spell needless death for thousands of dogs in the state of Illinois!

As we wrote about several days ago, Illinois Representative John Bradley has proposed HB 1080, a bill that would overturn the prohibition of breed-specific legislation in the state of Illinois allowing any municipality to ban or restrict any breed of dog it so chooses. As this article on the KFVS channel 12 website explains, HB 1080 is supposedly in response to several dogs attacking a boy in southern Illinois.  Yet, rather than looking at the situation logically, Bradley concludes instead that the attack on the boy was a failing of poor legislation rather than poorly-enforced legislation.  In other words, had the city where the attack happened enforced its leash law and had there been adequate Animal Control personnel, maybe there wouldn’t have been free-roaming dogs roaming around; free-roaming dogs that put the boy in jeopardy. [And here I should make it clear that I'm not accusing Animal Control of failing to protect the boy. Many times attacks happen after repeated complaints have been made to Animal Control, but municipalities across Illinois have been hard-hit by the economic downturn and have cut back on Animal Control.  This is not the Animal Control officers' fault, but it's also not the fault of any one breed of dog either.]

The other faulty assumption Bradley makes is that because the attacking dogs were supposedly “pit bulls” (though there is no such breed as “pit bull”) that a breed ban or breed-specific restrictions would have prevented the attack.  On the contrary, there is ample evidence nationally and internationally of the failing of breed-specific legislation.  We must also conclude that Rep. Bradley knows little about dogs because if he did understand the nature of dogs, he’d know that it’s not the breed in a free-roaming situation that makes dogs dangerous; it’s the fact that they are free-roaming that makes them potentially dangerous.  Again, this points to a lack of Animal Control enforcement, not a breed problem.  In fact, Ledy VanKavage, attorney for Best Friends Animal Society observes that,

“Illinois has some of the strongest dangerous dog laws on the books, so what’s the problem? The answer is lack of enforcement.”  Read the rest of this entry »

February 25th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: Looks like Canada, along with all the rest of the world, is finally waking up to the fact that breed-specific legislation is costly, ineffective, and unenforceable.

From the Winnipeg Sun:

…After launching an e-mail campaign, advocates for ownership of the reputedly vicious dog breed are expected to urge a group of councillors Monday to repeal the municipal prohibition that began in 1990. Coun. Gord Steeves, who met with some of the pit bull supporters in December, says he’ll listen with an open mind when they come before the protection and community services committee.

“They have certain feelings on the breed, and feel that it’s been unfairly treated over time with this ban,” said Steeves (St. Vital), the committee’s chairman. “It’s probably fair that we have the discussion. And then we can ask our people to review it.”  Read the rest of this entry »

February 25th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: There are some surprising statistics in this article, like that in the U.S., 5,479 “pit bulls” are killed daily in shelters.  Boy if that doesn’t just break your heart, I don’t know what would!  Great article with lots of great quotables.

From the Danville News in Danville, Pennsylvania:

[Drayton Michaels of Red Bank, N.J.] known as “the Pit Bull guru,” has worked professionally with dogs for more than 10 years. He presented a seminar Sunday in Wagging Tail Doggie Day Care, attracting 30-plus people from areas including Danville, Lewisburg, Bloomsburg, Lycoming County and as far away as Connecticut and Baltimore.

“There is no epidemic of dog bites,” he said.

With about 300 million people in this country and 74 million dogs, .0002 percent of people bitten by dogs die, he said. People have a 1 in 25 million chance of being killed by a dog, he said.  Read the rest of this entry »

February 25th, 2011 by Editor

Editor’s note: It’s so rare that we get good bully-breed news that I just had to share the article below. There is no love like the unconditional love that pets give us. They really are God’s little guardian angels. 

From the Peoria Journal Star:

A man [in Spring Bay, Illinois] escaped injury from his burning mobile home after his dog awoke him, fire officials said.

[Fire Chief Dennis Perry] said the home was a total loss…The homeowner, Ralph Cody, told Perry he had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette but that his pit bull woke him up, allowing him to escape, Perry said.

Read this article in its entirety here.