From NWITimes.com:

“A City Councilman is looking to put some additional teeth into the city’s animal control ordinance.

Second District Councilman Brendan Clancy is asking his fellow council members to consider adding language to city codes that would define vicious dogs and establish penalties for those dogs defined as vicious and for “repeat offenders.”

‘The intent is to protect residents, but also the dogs from bad owners,’ said Clancy, who is proposing the new language after receiving complaints from residents living in Swanson North subdivision after several incidents there.

…The [vicious dog] definition includes, but doesn’t limit, vicious dogs as being wolf hybrids, coydogs, rottweilers, pit bulls, German shepherds, akitas and Doberman pincers.

The proposed language further states that a dog deemed vicious under the new definition will be destroyed ‘as a direct result of biting any individual, including the owner/handler, regardless of whether the dog is on the owner/handler’s property or not.’

It also provides that while owners can reclaim a dog considered non-vicious if it bites someone one time after following regulations regarding quarantine and paying fines, that the same dog, if charged with a second bite, also will be destroyed.”

Read this article in its entirety here.

Please contact the Portage Mayor and City Council here and politely inform them that breed-specific legislation in any form is ineffective, unenforceable, and that there is no such thing, at least via empirical scientific data, as an inherentlyvicious breed.