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."
AWESOME Video !!!
Like I wrote in another post, there was an incident here in which a Pit Bull scaled a six foot privacy fence and attacked a woman walking her dog. Did the owner ensure that there was adequate containment?
Also, as posted before, I believe any owner of an animal should be willing to face either murder or manslaughter charges if their animal kills someone. I am fairly sure that my Cocker is not going to jump my six foot fence and kill anyone, so I am willing to make that pledge.
Are you?
By the way, I never get a yes or no answer on that question from a Pit owner, at least not a serious one.
BTTT
Big cats act a lot like little ones and I'll venture you've been scratched more than a couple of times when tabby was grouchy.
(someting on TV awhile back..."the only reason fluffy does not try to eat you is because you are too big")
Dogs, any dogs, are pack animals and as far as they are concerned you are welcome into their pack - cats don't do that.
(I have noticed that other dogs generally don't like Pits, I've seen perfectly tame collies and such go after a Pit that could clearly trounce them. And I've been told that explains why Pits can get so closely attached to a human, they are short on other friends.)
It really is up to the owner, and Cockers really do bite more often than Pits - usually unprovoked and seldom because their owner ordered it.
Mastiffs are in one form or another descended from the original Roman dogs of war.
That original fighting dog is the originator of nearly every protection or fighting dog from Tibet to Anatolia to Naples to St Bernard to England to South Amercia to South Africa...you name it.
The Japanese Akita style guard dogs and their cousins may be the only ones not descended from the Roman "Mastiff".
German Pinschers and certain herding dogs are also in many European blood lines.
But the original Roman Mastiff was a war dog...meant to scare the beejeezus out of the enemy and kill them if possible....in peacetime, they were used for fighting....and usually won except in Briton...where they were allegedly bred with a mysterious Brit fighting dog.
I knew you could be counted on for reason....and you know guard dogs.
LOL..Goodgirl.
If you want to make the leap from banning pit bulls, to the slippery slope of confiscating whatever they want, then I will get silly too. What if you purchased a nuclear weapon? It's your property. Yet the government would come take it if they knew you had it. Now, that is a silly example of a case where the government would be justified in taking property. Pit bulls are dangerous. You can defend them all you want. Only a f$%king idiot would own one. They are too dangerous to be kept as pets in residential neighborhoods.
Sorry, I am for people to be held accountable (like jail accountable) if their MUTT (or fill in the blank breed) kills or severely maims another, and I will and do argue for the AKC registered Staffordshire Bull Terrer, a breed that has never been implicated in a death in this country, but is lumped in by imbeciles as a "pit bull".
Also, I think, breed bans will solve nothing, as there are too many ignorant folk who cannot distinguish breeds apart, and there are too many potentially dangerous breeds and mixes for the thugs to ruin. Could you identify an Anatolian Shepherd? Didn't think so.
I deplore the fact that there is a certain part of the population that doesn't look at pet dogs in the same way most people do, that chooses a dog for its potential to be "badder than YOUR dog, or YOU", then proceeds to make it into a psychotic monster.
Oh, and I've worked with dogs in many different capacities these past 30+ years. I can't count how many I've trained, and how many people I've instructed in dog training.
What's your resume in canine circles?
BTTT
I see more of a parallel with the Muslim => Terrorism association. Not all Pit Bulls attack people, but a disproportionate number of dog attacks are Pit Bulls.
Before I cross trained to EOD I was a AFSC 811X0A Puppy Pusher in Uncle Sugars Wind Force......I love em, understand it's 99.99999999999% the handlers / owners that make or break a pup. You have a devil dog then put em down for the good of the breed and all around em or face your responsibilities with litigation from criminal or civil courts.
Too many breeders are cutting corners inbreeding and such thus creating some really crazy assed pups that will bite themselves if no one else is around. I won't own such an animal. Regardless of the breed poodle or pit.
Bans are incremental....just as this smoking ban in some cities. All it did was to force all resturants etc to become private clubs that charge "every" patron, smoker or not, a membership fee. They still smoke, but it costs everybody.....
If I don't like ___________ I don't go around it, buy it to start and or when I discover it I leave and take my business, money , patronage elsewhere or just turn the channel. Freedom of choice.......
Hope yer well !!!
When I go out in the woods, I take my rifle. It is just good precautionary measures. The same goes for having a pistol ready if dogs of any breed are around. Just common sense.
I bet you would! However, a gag order still in place prevents me from explaining.
But once it's lifted, hoo boy, do I have something to say about those yeahoos in Denver.
No, I'm not an expert. I am letting common sense dictate my views on this. Does the media hype the situation? Absolutely. They hype everything. However, these attacks are still occurring frequently enough for me to know this: I don't want a pit bull in my neighborhood. If I see one in close proximity to my property, that is justification enough for shooting the dog. I am not going to wait for my child to be dead before I act. I would rather not have to worry about the irresponsibility of my neighbors.
Their right to own a pit bull is trumped by my right to allow my children to play in the yard without fear of a killing machine deciding they are the daily meal. Very few people that own pit bulls come with your qualifications. Just so you don't think I am unreasonable, I would even agree that only trained and licensed professionals be allowed to own this dangerous breed (or group of breeds if you will). That would go a long way toward eliminating the problem. Outside of that, an outright ban is the only other acceptable solution.
I believe there were war dogs in England more recenlty, in the middle ages.
And they may have been the forebears of todays English Mastiff.
But that was all a lot of centuries ago--I was thinking of the English mastiff during the last 100 or 200 years, which was bred, I believe, to be tamer.
You can't totally go by what a dog's long ago ancestors were like, else all dogs would be more like wolves in temperament.
This apparently is big cuz it was even a major topic on our local morning talk show here in Baltimore. Of course, the conservatives were basically showing support or at least indifference to the idea of the "ban". Never mentioning how people - including "the authorities" don't really know a "pit bull terrier" from a Boxer.
Sounds like somebody's Labrador better not move to Denver....these asshole ignorant idiots will probably lock her up too! ;-O
This apparently is big cuz it was even a major topic on our local morning talk show here in Baltimore. Of course, the conservatives were basically showing support or at least indifference to the idea of the "ban". Never mentioning how people - including "the authorities" don't really know a "pit bull terrier" from a Boxer.
Sounds like somebody's Labrador better not move to Denver....these asshole ignorant idiots will probably lock her up too! ;-O
"it bulls are trained to attack. They're bred to do that."
Which 1, idiot?? Trained, or bred???
"I've known just as many people attacked by German shepherds as pit bulls, but nobody has every suggested banning German shepherds."
Oh honey, believe me, GS are high on every1's list as "vicious" dogs and they will be on the ban lists VERY soon. They had that rep probably before any other. It's why they're great to have around - every1 thinks they'll eat you up so they stay away from your house. Criminals don't like GS. Even if the dog's a wuss they're afraid of them. Better that way than the opposite.
They'll have to pry my German Shepherd out of my cold dead arms!
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