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All posts for the month April, 2008

Mayor Wild,

This email is in response to the current legislation the current city ordinance, chapter 18 article II, as to regulating vicious/potentially dangerous dogs via Breed Specific Legislation.

You have children, imagine this…

Your 5 year old is outside playing with your loving American Pit Bull Terrier and Boston Terrier. 20 minutes later, the Warden is at your house telling you your dog MUST be chained and muzzled at all times, even in the fenced yard, and tattoo him to label him as a “vicious animal.” When explaining to your daughter why and that the city thinks he is dangerous and mean, she simply responds with a puzzled look, “But he is not.”

Yes this happened to me, which brought light to this unjust, costly, and ineffective ordinance.

All dogs can be dangerous under certain circumstances. When the owner or custodian of the animal does not properly train and/or confine his/her animal, does that animal pose a potential risk to human safety? A common ingredient to the dog personality is to guard and protect its owner and property. ANY dog with that personality can become a problem to the public, if that dog is allowed to run loose and is not properly supervised. The key word here is responsibility. To say certain breeds of dogs are dangerous is not a complete statement. All dogs can be dangerous if in the hands of an irresponsible owner.

Please retract your breed specific bill/ordinance. Don’t punish all of us responsible owners that maintain our dogs as companions and members of our families. We can and do maintain our dogs so they do not pose a threat to anyone, why should we be denied our companions simply because irresponsible owners of the same breed of dog in the past have not “ethically and legally” protected others from injury?

There are several samples of existing non-breed specific legislation (i.e. the states of Il., Pa., and Ca.) that is competent to regulate the irresponsible owners and not punish those that maintain their dogs safely and humanely. I have compiled a list of 25 cities in Michigan who have retracted these BSLs since 2003, including Detroit (chap 6 Article I), and urge you to do the same. I and many others, as responsible dog owners, ask that you seriously consider the impact of breed specific legislation. The irresponsible owners don’t care what breed of dog they lose the right to own…they’ll find another dog breed to fit their needs. I deeply care, because it threatens me with the loss of a family member.

I would love to talk to you, over phone or in person, to discuss this issue and maybe even bring to light some fact you may not have known of on this subject.

Sincerely,
Matthew Paczas

All across the world, American Pit Bull Terriers, Staffordshire Bull Terriers, and American Stafferdshire Terriers are being wrongfully accused of being “vicious animals” simply by their breed.
The city of Westland, MI brought down their sanctions on me a couple days ago, telling me because of my dog’s breed, he MUST be tattooed, and chained and muzzled whenever he walks outside of my house, even though it’s gated.

States like PA and CA understand this is wrong and have a statewide ban on BSL local laws (breed specific legislation). Some cities, such as the one I live, think it is more effective to blame a dog’s breed than understand the true problem…irresponsible ownership. Irresponsible owners who neglect these breeds will just find another breed to fit their needs. These laws are costly to cities, taxpayers, and frankly ineffective.
PETA thinks because these breeds were created for fighting, we should let the breed die out. What they DON’T realize is that when this was occurring in the 1800s, if one of these dogs were vicious on a human, it was killed passing it off as a genetic defect, and did that to prevent that “defect” from being passed on.

Organizations such as National Animal Control Association, Association of Pet Dog Trainers, American Kennel Club, and Humane Society of the United States all believe these BSL laws are wrongful and should be dispelled, and instead word the laws non-breed specific and also place blame on owners, not the dogs.
According to the American Temperament Testing Society, they list the temperament of these 3 breeds as follows, with the higher number the better…

APBT – 84.3%
AMSTAFF – 83.4%
STAFFBT – 88.8%

as a comparison…
Golden Retriever – 83.3%
Labrador Retriever – 91.8%
Poodle – 85.3%
ChowChow – 70%
Jack Russel Terrier – 82.1%

As you can see, my APBT is JUST AS SAFE as a golden retriever, which is the “ideal family dog”
This is bullshit, and against families rights as citizens. Help me fight these laws if they exist in your area, and educate people on the REAL facts of pit bull breeds.
http://www. understand-a-bull. com
http://www. stopbsl. com
and a collection of information I have compiled for temperament and cities lifting bans…
http://spreadsheets. google. com/pub?key=pd9KXfp8foxwyHQcCBuMvVQ

In light of this, I’m adding a new blog category, Anti-BSL and will be adding a new information tab on this blog.