pet connection

Geez, I write about pit bulls so much I need to give them their own category …

Anyway, I’m already starting to get a lot of mail on my newspaper column piece about breed-specific legislation, i.e., banning an entire breed because it’s presumed to be congenitally "bad." Here’s the piece:

Sometimes I think having no pit bulls wouldn’t be that bad a thing, but not for the reasons you might imagine.

If pit bulls weren’t around, they couldn’t be beaten. Starved. Left chained outside with little protection from the elements. Subjected to ear croppings with scissors and no pain relief. Made to bear puppies with next to no food. And finally, if pit bulls weren’t around, they couldn’t be tossed dead (or nearly so) into a vacant lot when they come up on the losing side of a dogfight.

For every headline-grabbing attack by a pit bull, there are countless cruelties inflicted on these dogs by the criminal element that’s attracted to them. As a person recently noted on a dog-related Web log: “It’s amazing how many other kinds of dogs in the best homes bite. It’s amazing how many pit bulls in the worst homes don’t.”

But those who do … Oh, what fear and anger they cause. It’s no surprise, given the horror of recent attacks, that the call to eliminate pit bulls has never been louder. But that call remains the wrong one: Breed-specific legislation is not the answer to the problem of dangerous dogs.

It doesn’t help much to argue that the odds of an attack by a pit bull are so low as to be insignificant compared to life’s other risks, not in the face of saturation media coverage of every such attack. It doesn’t help much to argue that a well-bred and properly raised pit bull can be a better companion than many other popular breeds, based on temperament-testing statistics that show these dogs to be stable and calm. It doesn’t help much to argue that many of the pit bulls who are being seized and killed in places like Denver are family pets who have never shown a reason for concern — and never would have.

So let’s try this: If you want to be protected against a dog attack, banning the pit bull isn’t going to accomplish that goal. That’s because every large breed or mix you can think of, and many small ones you can’t imagine, have been involved in attacks on humans.

You cannot predict the likelihood of an attack by the type of dog, but you can see clear trends based on other criteria. Poorly bred, unsocialized, unneutered and untrained dogs are most often involved in attacks. If you want to prevent those attacks, you need to address those root causes. All dogs, not just pit bulls, need to be the focus of legislative, societal and educational efforts geared toward removing the contributing factors behind most every dog attack.

We need to make it harder for people to casually breed and quickly sell dogs, and we need to make it easier to have animals neutered. We need to recognize that dogfighting is as much of a danger to our communities as it is to the animals participating in this illegal but popular blood sport. We need to outlaw keeping dogs on chains, a cruel practice that leaves animals feeling isolated, territorial and more likely to attack.

And even as we need to crack down on irresponsible and criminal dog owners, we need to help those people who want to do right. We need to educate prospective dog owners on responsible care, training and socializing, so that they may raise dogs who are not dangerous.

And yes, we need to establish zero tolerance for all dangerous dogs, with no second chances: If a dog attacks someone, that animal needs to be put down. If a dog is a neighborhood menace, that animal needs to be put down.

We need to stop looking for scapegoats in the face of every pit bull, and look to addressing the human reasons behind the problem of dangerous dogs.

For then and only then can we hope to be safer around not only the pit bull, but also all dogs. And maybe then the pit bull will be safer around us.

OK, now … before people with pit bulls start getting all excited, know that I think a lot of pit bull folks have only themselves to blame for the attacks, the attention and the call for a ban on the breed. I’ve discussed that subject here, so take a look and ask yourself: Am I doing this breed any favors?

Incidentally, the dog pictured is named Panda. He’s still waiting for his forever home at the Sacramento SPCA. What a sweetie.