Posted on 07/20/2005 3:56:48 PM PDT by Redcitizen
DENVER - A few weeks ago, two police cars and two animal control vehicles pulled up at the home of Stef'ny Steffan looking for her beloved 4-year-old pit bull, Xena. Seven officers hauled the animal off to the city shelter, putting her on death row. Xena became an outlaw after Denver won a court fight and reinstated one of the toughest pit-bull bans in the nation.
Since May, more than 380 dogs have been impounded and at least 260 destroyed — an average of more than three a day.
Dog owners are in a panic. Some are using an underground railroad of sorts, sending their pets to live elsewhere or hiding them from authorities. City officials would not estimate how many people might be violating the ordinance.
Some owners, like Steffan, have won a reprieve for their pets with help from a rescue group. The group got Xena released by signing an affidavit stating that the animal would never return to Denver. The group took the dog to Mariah's Promise in Divide, an animal sanctuary that has accepted more than three dozen pit bulls from Denver.
For Steffan and her partner, Gina Black, leaving Xena 60 miles from home was a lousy option but the only one they had.
"It's safer than animal control. Safer than keeping her underground — at least she'll be able to play now," Steffan said. "But she'll miss us. We're her pack."
Denver is one of three major metropolitan areas, along with Miami and Cincinnati, to ban pit bulls, according to Glen Bui, vice president of the American Canine Foundation.
Pit bull typically describes three kinds of dogs — the American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier and the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. But Denver's ban applies to any dog that looks like a pit bull. The animal's actual behavior does not matter.
City Councilman Charlie Brown said that in his judgment, "pit bulls are trained to attack. They're bred to do that."
Critics of the ban use words like "annihilation" and "genocide," and the city shelter has received e-mails likening animal control officers to Nazis.
"Breed bans are just a knee-jerk reaction to something that happened in the community," Bui said.
Denver banned pit bulls in 1989 after dogs mauled a minister and killed a boy in separate attacks. The Legislature passed a law in 2004 that prohibited breed-specific bans, but the city sued and a judge ruled in April the law was an unconstitutional violation of local control.
Critics of the ordinance say that a blanket ban on an entire breed is misguided that the law should instead target irresponsible owners and all dangerous dogs.
"If anyone says one dog is more likely to kill — unless there's a study out there that I haven't seen — that's not based on scientific data," said Julie Gilchrist, a doctor at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who researches dog bites.
The CDC, the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Humane Society of the United States examined 20 years of dog-bite data and concluded that pit bulls and Rottweilers caused the most deaths.
But the researchers also noted that fatal attacks represent a small proportion of dog-bite injuries and that the number of bites per breed simply seems to rise with their popularity.
At the city shelter, pit bulls are cordoned off from other dogs in what has become death row. Nearly 100 pit bulls have been released to live outside the county. A nonresident must guarantee the dog will never return to Denver.
Sonya Dias, who is moving out of Denver because of the ban, said she was a little intimidated by her pit bull when she first saw him. But "when I said, `Hey little doggie,' his whole body just started wagging." Gryffindor is staying at Mariah's Promise until Dias sells her home.
"He's been dangerous to a couple of pairs of shoes and some mini-blinds," Dias said. "But otherwise he's a jewel."
Sorry, brother. I leave those ideas for the libs.
So every dog should get one free kill?
Adjust your flight plan accordingly.
I'd love to hear how you cheesed off a whole city.
"Should we ban horses now?"
No, just the asses that make up these laws!!
I don't like this breed, but this is just murder in my opinion. I hate this!!! Wish I hadn't read it.
Your argument comparing cars to dogs falls flat cars cant escape from you yard. I want to keep a lion and tiger. I promise it wont escape from my backyard!
Who's saying they are no different? My hyperbole (re: jackboots) is a response to my typical view of most American Liberals. Many of them are well intentioned people with high ideals...They just can't envision them being realized without the application of gov't pressure, and when their little laws, bans and local ordinances don't work, they think that if they could just apply a little more pressure....
Get enough public support through some dramatic media accounts and Bingo, BABY!!!
You mean their MEDIA CONTRIVED RECORD OF ATTACKS?
The term "Pit Bull" is used so carelessly as to be meaningless, so far as the media are concerned my home town (which I will never return to) has it right, any dog that "looks like" a "Pit Bull" IS a "Pit Bull"!!!!
In past decades all the popular breeds of the time have been labeled as vicious, Doberman's, German Shepherd's, Dalmation's, Irish Setter's, etc.
I miss my stolen Staffordshire Terrier "Harley", and if I ever find him he will be rescued, and the vehicle that was carrying him will suffer spontaneous combustion!
A pox on all the knee-jerk fools who feel so superior slamming entire breeds based on the "reporting" of our sensation seeking media!
Most "vicious" dogs are mirrors of their owners, with some exceptions suffering from irrational response due to undiagnosed injury or illness.
But "zero-tolerance" (zero-intelligence) thinking is SO much easier than actually learning the truth and responding rationally!
Did I fail to mention the four cats (was eight) who share the same space as the two dogs?
Don't bother making sense in regards to Denver, they are a liberal dominated cess-pit.
I am SO DAMN GLAD I left there at a young age.
Denver, ANOTHER cancer on America's political land scape!
I think your problem is that you're trying to be rational, while this kind of subject only requires emotions.
/sarcasm
Here we go again.
1. Persons can lose control of their cars. It happens every day. There are car accidents. These are not planned. People get hurt in car accidents. Very few people have car accidents that are planned or intentional, that's why they are accidents.
2. When car accidents happen, big cars are more dangerous causing more property damage ("breaking things") and more serious injury ("hurting people") than small cars.
3. Many times, people lose control of cars for the same reason they lose control of dogs...they are being negligent and irresponsible.
4. We should get rid of bigger cars ("SUVs") because when they break things and hurt people, even if it is an axident, they hurt people worster than little cars. They are ugly too, and their tires loook really meen..
4. Sometimes people have accidents with computers....
Once again your case falls flat. Cars do not have brains.
Nor apparently, do some people.
other than ad hominum attacks. Do you refute that little tidbit about dogs having brains and a free will while cars do not???
Yes, people forget that Pit Bulls are a part of American history. see James Thurber
They also don't understand that tenacity as a trait can make a dog an excellent worker, one who will not give up a challenging task. These dogs if trained are diligent. They also are wonderfully playful. What they are not are watchdogs.
I think this confiscation of property is illegal under the Fifth Amendment. Also there should at a minimum be exceptions made for dogs who can pass certain standardized tests such as Canine Good Citizen.
All the people on this thread jumping aboard the confiscation wagon, your pet could be next. Think about it -- someone coming into your home and taking your family pet of ten years.
Im not allowed to keep large reptiles or bears or tigers
I would, too.
This is a conservative forum? Would you stretch the commerce clause some more? Or would you ignore the Constitution and whine about the children?
The Denver Police have killed more people by "accident" than have pit bull dogs. Talk about a breed that needs to be eliminated.
My neighbor has one. When the wife and I go for a walk, even when we are completely on the other side of the street, the mad dog hits the fence at a full charge trying to get to us. If it ever gets out I have a bullet for it. No if's and's or but's, I'll kill it dead with no remorse.
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