Last fall, Sioux City hurried through a process, and ignored their local experts, and passed a new law regarding dogs in their community. Among the laws was a ban on "pit bulls", and a changed policy on how the city dealt with "dangerous" dogs -- that all dogs accused of biting would be euthanized -- with no options for transfering the dogs from the city.
The city has had it's share of problems with the laws, including getting people to sign paperwork that signed over their guilt (which is unconstitutional), the local vet community deciding not to help them with breed identification for enforcing their 'pit bull' ban, animal control targeting those who spoke out against the ordinance (another violation of the constitution), and having one of the first dogs that was declared dangerous by the city for biting someone after the ordinance was passed being alabrador belonging to a city council member who was responsible for passing the law in the first place -- a dog that was later stolen from the city shelter.
So why would I not be surprised that the city is facing even MORE problems with their ordinance.
Currently, there are six people who have filed civil suits against the city for what they say were arbitrary decisions about the dogs beign "dangerous". So while these suits tie up the court system, the dogs remain in the shelter for sim months to up to two years at a time on doggie death row waiting for the hearings to take place.
"I think the city does have to be concerned about it because animal control's having to provide shelter for these dogs and it's just something that's going to continue until there's some kind of resolution to it," said Martha McMinn, the attorney for the owners of the dogs. "Everyone agrees you shouldn't have vicious dogs out there biting people but this is so arbitrary."
Dogs affected by the new ordinance, including those confiscated due to the ban on 'pit bulls' now take up about 1/3 of the 52 kennel spaces in the Sioux City Animal Control Shelter and the shelter is struggling with overcrowding. "We're running out of room" said Cindy Rarrat, owner of the Sioux City Shelter.
Also interesting is that of the 6 dogs waiting on doggie death row, only one is actually a 'pit bull' -- with the others being a German Shepherd Mix, a Shar Pei, a Siberian Husky and a Great Dane. So why were 'pit bulls' singled out again? They make up only a small percentage of the dogs that are accused of biting.
Meanwhile, the amount of money the taxpayers are now paying for court rulings, holding the dogs, etc is mounting up tremendously.
"It's just a bad law and people are waking up to a lot of that," said Dennis Cloud, the owner of one of the dogs on death row.
I couldn't agree more.
You've read it here before on many an occassion, but breed mis-identification continues to be a haunting and expensive problem for cities that continue to thing determing a dog's viciousness by "breed" is an easier solution than basing it on thei actual bahavior.
It's not.
And cities and taxpayers continue to pay the price for this outdated thinking.
Last week, Lucas County Dog Warden Tom Skeldon was again in the court room. In this case, Skeldon had confiscated three dogs that he deemed to be "pit bulls' saying that they were in violation of the county's Vicious Dog Law.
The owner of the dogs, Hugh Smith, says the dogs are not "pit bulls', but instead, he has the paperwork for the dogs that shows that all of them are documented Cane Corso's -- a type of Mastiff. Smith's attorney, who appears to get the problem, notes that this mis-identification is a part of a larger issue:
"There's a history here of misclassifying pit bulls when they are not. Many of the people are scared to fight for their dogs, threatened with criminal prosecution."
While the case is ongoing, the dogs were granted a conditional release so they no longer have to be "cared for" at Lucas County Animal Control. From reports I've gotten, the dogs were in terrible shape after just two weeks at the Dog Warden's Facility, caked with feces and urine, sick with kennel cough, and already under weight.
In Denver, Kevin O'Connell had his Boxer-mix named Dexter taken from him by Denver Animal Control. O'Connell lived in nearby Thronton, but dropped Dexter off at a friend's house when he was headed out of town on Business. That is when animal control officers, who were responding to an unrelated call, saw Dexter in the back yard and took him to the pound because they thought he was a 'pit bull' - banned under the city's breed ban.
However, O'Connell appealed the breed identification, and an administrative judge ruled that Dexter was not a 'pit bull' -- even under Denver's broad definition.
"This verdict shows that Denver cannot enforce it's pit bull ban, They do not have qualfied experts in to enforce the ban and determine breeds of dogs," said Jennifer Edwards, the founder of the Animal Law Center.
Even though O'Connell was found innocent -- and that his dog was unfairly taken - he still got stuck with the bill from Denver for the Attorney fees, impound fees and vet fees -- something many people would not be able to afford if they were unfairly targeted. This has caused many - including Denver's alternative newspaper the Westword - to question just how many of the 3500 'pit bulls' that were killed in Denver since 2005 were really 'pit bulls' -- or dogs that were unfairly targeted and the owners did not have the resources to appeal the ruling.
"There could be thousands of people out there who can call into question if their family pet was killed for absolutely no reason," said Edwards. "How many of them were never actually pit bulls?"
Meanwhile, the costs of enforcement, and legal proceedings continue to mount in Denver -- all at taxpayer expense -- as the city is in the middle of yet another lawsuit and continues to defend its breed ban in site of having never done an audit of the ban to determine its success.
There's more on this case from the Animal Law Coalition website.
The combination of these two cases further enhance the statements that people have been making for years:
1) Breed ID based purely on looks is unreliable -- as most people aren't rally very good at visual breed ID of mixed breed dogs.
2) Dog bite studies based on media reports (that are based on visual breed ID) are not very reliable
3) And BSL is completely unenforcable because of the difficulties in breed ID -- and impact many dogs that are not among the targeted breeds.
All of this has caused some to declare this the "Beginning of the End of BSL" -- and it is certainly tearing away at the idea of it. It is proving to be ineffective, costly and too vague in how a "pit bull" is defined to be accurately and uniformly enforced. And as such, citizens should demand a wiser spend of their tax dollars to not waste so many dollars targeting dogs THAT AREN"T EVEN AGGRESSIVE -- but just happen to have a certain "Look" that people fear.
And that just doesn't make sense -- on any level. And mainstream failures like these affecting innocent owners and dogs are going to cause a break down in the entire program. Which will be good for everyone.
