From WSBT channel 2:
A dog attack is prompting Elkhart City leaders to consider increasing requirements and possibly even banning pit bulls…It happened as the city was already looking to tighten its animal control ordinance.
…For the last couple months, Elkhart city leaders have been looking to upgrade the current animal control ordinance, especially with pit bulls. City Council President Rod Roberson says the recent pit bull attack increases the urgency for that.
…He says [the new law] could include everything from requiring licensing, shots and registration for pit bulls, and maybe even insurance, and also looking into the possibility of a ban for such animals in the city.
There are many municipalities that have a law against the breeds themselves, with a grandfather clause for those owners who are responsible who have them right now, Roberson explained.
Read this article in its entirety here.
Please contact the Elkhart Common Council here and politely inform them that BSL has long been known to be failed policy as evidenced by the fact that countries like the Netherlands and Italy are repealing their BSL.
7 responses to “Elkhart, Indiana Considers Restrictions for “Pit Bulls” Including Possibly a Ban”
I have a pit bull and lost one a few years ago. Both of these dogs have been the sweetest dogs I’ve ever had. They love people, children, bunnies, the neighbors cats. They have never threatened any living thing other than ants! However my neighbor has a golden retriever that has bitten two people and another neighbor down the road has a mix dog that has bitten 3 people. My grandchildren lay on the floor with my sweet little dog and they truly love them.
My theory is any person has the power to make any child or animal mean. It’s taught most the times.
If any loving family has a little pit they will tell you that they are the greatest little dogs. Both of mine were rescue dogs and they know it. I’ve had full breed dogs that I could imagine giving away because of behavior issues. I’ve never thought once to give away either of my little pits. They’re just too lovable.
Ban the deed not the BREED!
This Ban is ridiculous!! I have an 11 month old female Pit bull and a 17 month old son who are best friends!! My son can ride her like a horse or pull her tail and she will just lay there. I understand that there are pit bulls who attack people but I guarentee that 99% of those dogs come from bad homes and bad people! Everytime someone meets Neko they are so surprised with how sweet and loving she is… and they always say “As long as they have good owners they are always good dogs!” This law will not be fair to people who are trying to make a good home for dogs that just need a break!
I have an Australian Sheppard,very gentle. It is not the dogs to be blamed. It is the stupid owners that
do not socialize them. I can’t see banning them,. Soon
they will ban other breeds.
I have TWO pitt bulls, i do not believe in clipping the ears or tail. i do not belive in fighting them. i do not believe in all the soon to be requirements. This so call bad breed is the BEST BREED i have ever owned!!! i have two boys and a soon to be step daughter and they love our dogs. my 4 yr old rides my oldest pitt like a horse and my baby loves to look at them and when i lay the baby down on the floor they lay next to him. everytime he crys the dogs get up and walk to me almost like their saying,”mom the baby is crying” my pitts have never hurt anyone, but the small dog i owned bit at more people that i have ever seen before. “ban the deed, not the breed”
I think this ban is ridiculous I have a 1 yr and 4mo old pit bull and he is the biggest baby he loves letting my 3 month old nephew lay on him and cuddle with him it is all in how you raise your dog you can make any dog mean and it doesnt matter how many good things the bull dog breed does no one ever wants to look at the they only want to look at and remember all the bad things that happen I am willing to fight with everything I have to keep this ban from going into effect
This legislation was passed to protect people from pit bulls which do have a tendency/history of not only agressive behavior towards other dogs but other humans too.
Just in the last year two cases come to mind, just here in Indiana:
1. A 4 year old girl lost her nose pitbull.
2.A woman lost her leg due to a pitbull.
While you may cite that this was the the cause of negligent owners. However, say what you want but owners cannot be around to govern their dog every hour all the time and as such things happen. Pit bulls have a history of attacks. Other breeds in the hands of negelgent owners don’t cause nearly the damage if either by shear number of attacks or even the severity of the attacks that these dogs do.
Oh blah, blah, blah “John Doe.” It’s always the same prattle from BSL proponents. Either you all are really that ignorant, or you have an agenda. Which is it?
Your whole premise is faulty. There is NO BREED CALLED “PIT BULL”!! When will you all get that??? The slang term “pit bull” can comprise anywhere from 3-30 or more breeds AND their mixes. Do you think that stats on so-called “pit bulls” might just be skewed if you lumped every medium- or large-breed dog under that category??? Hmm??? Even the CDC study that you all repeatedly cite acknowledges that the designation “pit bull” is a conglomeration of breeds which is why they recommend against BSL. I mean, at some point, a reasonable, logical, level-headed person who has looked at all the facts of BSL including that it doesn’t work and that “pit bull” isn’t even a breed, must say to you all DUH!!!!
And many terriers (including small-breed dogs like Jack Russells, Cairns, Scotties, and Westies) in the terrier group can have what’s called “gameness” which you erroneously call a “tendency/history of not only agressive behavior towards other dogs but other humans too.” Where gameness is found, you could have aggression towards other dogs, but then again, that’s true of any breed of dog. Many dogs of many breeds do tend to be territorial, but then there’s another DUH for you. Have you ever even been around dogs? But aggression toward humans being inherent? Absolutely not. And here again, a BSL proponent shows his ignorance about these breeds fingered as “pit bulls.” If that were true, then how did these breeds come to be known as “America’s Nanny Dog“?
In testimony from the Toledo v. Tellings case in 2006, Dr. I. Lerh Brisbin, Ph.D., who is a Senior Research Scientist at the Savanna River Ecology Laboratory and an expert in training, handling, behavior and the anatomy of bully breeds, gave the following testimony about gameness which the court affirmed:
“Many pit bulls [which the court defined earlier as meaning the American Pit Bull Terrier] may also exhibit a behavior or trait referred to as ˜gameness, which, simply stated, is the ability or willingness to continue doing an action once begun, i.e. stick-to-it-iveness. Gameness, in itself, is not a negative trait. For example, the ability to carry out duties or trained tasks, despite injury, distraction, or frustration, is desirable in pit bulls which have been trained to be search and rescue dogs, protection dogs in the U.S. military, drug sniffing dogs, and therapy dogs.”
As ever, dogs (of any breed) can be trained to do good things or bad things; the bad things are an indication of an owner problem, not a breed problem. The court also affirmed in its decision that,
“…pit bulls do not have locking jaws. Based on actual dog dissections and measurement of their skulls, the evidence demonstrated that pit bull jaw muscles and bone structure are the same as other similarly sized dogs. No evidence was presented to demonstrate that a pit bulls bite is any stronger than other dogs of its size and build…[C]ontrary to information relied upon and perpetuated by earlier case law…and law review articles…assertions that a pit bull can bite with a ˜force of 2,000 pounds per square inch have absolutely no basis in fact or scientific proof.”
In the 80s, BSL proponents were telling ridiculously stupid lies like that “pit bulls” had a bite force of 2,000 pounds per square inch or that they had a locking mechanism in their jaws, which Dr. Brisbin completely debunked in the above testimony. However, as further proof, in 2005 Dr. Brady Barr in a show for National Geographic called “Dangerous Encounters” conducted bite-force tests for several kinds of animals from crocodiles and Great White sharks to snapping turtles and hyenas. Also included in the tests were three breeds of dog: the German Shepherd, the Rottweiler, and the American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT). [And while the APBT is an actual breed, I should make it clear that we still don’t know if this is the breed to which the media and others are referring when they use the slang term “pit bull” to describe bites/attacks; though APBTs are almost always one of the breeds named when “pit bull” bans are passed.] Of the three, the American Pit Bull Terrier had the least amount of bite force, which was found to be well below the average dog’s 320-pound bite pressure. So, yet another debunking of BSL proponents’ LIES.
And yes, dog attacks can be horrific, but they are no more or less so depending on breed. Any medium- or large-breed dog can do significant damage (and small-breed dogs have been known to kill infants as well) in an attack. In fact, the first successful face transplant recipient was a woman in France who was mauled unrecognizable by her own Labrador. So, the sooner we stop focusing on specific breeds and look to the irresponsible owners instead — irresponsible owners who can irresponsibly own any breed of dog — the better society will be at preventing dog attacks.
Dangerous dog laws (that do not discriminate by breed) with harsher penalties for offenders have been proven to be an effective deterrrent in communities around the nation. BSL however has proven to be a dismal failure. The Toronto Humane Society in a survey of cities released statistics in May 2010 that “establishes Ontario’s 2005 ban on “pit bull” breeds or dogs that resemble pit bulls has not made any difference in the number of dog bites.” Italy (Article 1, Article 2) and the Netherlands both repealed their BSL within the last couple of years citing its ineffectiveness, and it has been reported in the BBC that the UK’s BSL, which they’ve had since 1991, is a dismal failure since there has been a huge rise in banned breeds in the UK.
So really John? Are you just ignorant or do you have an agenda? Because if BSL proponents really cared about protecting people from dog bites/attacks, they’d stop telling lies, they’d stop spreading faulty statistics and urban myths, they’d stop telling hysterical what-if scenarios about that non-existent “breed” “pit bull,” and they’d stop pushing impotent legislation, BSL, that is globally known to be ineffective.