Editor’s note:   Breed-specific requirements for certain kinds of containment, including muzzling, could force owners to feel stigmatized such they they cease exercising their dogs in public, or at all.   Extended muzzling, kenneling, etc. can also make a dog of any breed anxious and stressed, which could bring about the very behavior a muzzling restriction seeks to control.

Please write the Malden Mayor and City Council and politely inform them that breed-specific legislation in any form — whether an outright ban or breed-specific restrictions — is ineffective, unenforceable, and unconstitutional, especially for “pit bulls” which isn’t even a breed.

From Boston.com:

A proposal to require all pit bulls to wear a muzzle in public passed a key hurdle last night, after the measure was unanimously recommended to the full   City Council during an Ordinance Committee meeting.  

Put forth by Ward 7 Councilor Neil Kinnon, the ordinance would be modeled after the City of Lynn’s law, which came in reaction to a series of attacks this year.

While no such attacks have occurred recently in Malden to prompt the change, Kinnon said that if passed, the ordinance would put the city in line with a number of municipalities in the region and provide for the safety of people around the city who encounter the dogs.

…Kinnon moved for Malden to adopt a similar ordinance as the City of Lynn, which passed unanimously. The text of the ordinance has not been drafted yet.

Read this article in its entirety here.