Grimes 1
Joshua Grimes
9th November 2015
ECO 334
Research Paper
The Issue of Breed-Specific Legislation
Of every domesticated animal species that exists, including humans, their upbringing has the greatest impact on how they will pan out in the future. No animal is born a “monster”, which is what people have labeled the breeds of dogs that will be mentioned throughout this document. When someone, whether it is a person or a dog, attacks another being, it is a reaction from a certain stimulus that has been learned in the past for self-defense. All dogs bite and although that may seem obvious, it has been proven by Stefanie A. Ott whose research will be mentioned as well. Specific breeds of dogs should not be banned in certain regions due to statistics that have been slanted because of a bias reputation.
Breed-specific legislation today is more common than in decades past, as hundreds of geographic locations throughout the country have begun to adopted the jurisdiction. States such as Oregon, Hawaii and Montana have introduced statewide breed-specific legislation bills. Focusing on the state of Oregon, Ms. Dana M. Campbell of Cornell Law School addresses some of the essentials of Oregon’s ruling in her article, Pit Bull Bans: The State of Breed-Specific Legislation, as she states, “One would ban “pit bulls” from Oregon unless a person has obtained a permit within 90 days of the bill’s passage; the other would require minimum liability insurance coverage of $1 million for pit bull owners” (Campbell 38). Not all dog owners are able to pay $1 million to be able to obtain the insurance, which creates and indirect restraint on the dogs. Rather than banning the dog breeds up front, states like California have placed breed-specific rulings that also indirectly restrict these feared breeds. The state has assigned a mandatory neuter program requiring dogs of certain breeds to be “fixed” and in the grand scheme of things, this will end the appearance some lineages over time.
Although there have been a handful of states to reject or limit the ownership of certain dog breeds, there are 12 states that have prohibited the passage of breed-specific legislation by their local governments.
As this legislation becomes more and more popular not only in the United States but in Europe as well, the questions asked become, “Are episodes of attacks decreasing because of breed-specific legislation?” Wide-ranging studies in places like Spain and Great Britain conclude that the ban had no effect in stopping dog attacks. However, these recorded attacks were not from the “dangerous animals” that are being banned from the countries, but dogs like German Shepherds and mixed breeds. This same trend was also seen in Prince George’s County, Maryland as it was concluded in 2003, “…that the public safety had not improved as a result of the ban” (Campbell 39). The county raised more than $250,000 per year to gather and destroy banned dogs but the ruling had no effect. Another report that recorded fatal human attacks by dogs in the US since 1975 said dogs from 30 different breeds including Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers, Dachshunds and Yorkshire Terriers were responsible for nearly 150 attacks on humans. To completely understand why the world is terrified of these animals, lets play devil’s advocate briefly. Everyone sees the “pit bull” and these other dogs banned through breed-specific legislation since they are said to be a clear threat to everyone’s public safety. The physical traits that the dogs are known for and the characteristics of being small, powerful and having one of the strongest bites of all dog breeds targets these animals as a nuisance to society almost. “Pit bulls” possess capabilities higher than other dogs with a force of 1800 to 2000 pounds per square in in the average adult dog. This is said to be twice the force of an average full-grown Doberman pinscher and German shepherd. People argue that there are stories where the dogs turn on their own owners from time to time and suddenly act them, but as we have researched, there is most likely a threatening environment that the dog is placed in that makes that dog attack for some reason. Whenever people hear about dog fighting, typically what name pops up, “Pit bull”. “It is unreasonable to ban or restrict an entire group of dogs based on an unsupportable stereotype about their viciousness” (Burstein 326). With all of this being said, dogs do not end up in dogfights, people place them in that hostile environment. This choice comes from and irresponsible owner who not only is participating in illegal action but harming a living being in the process, and because people don’t worry about what the dog is going through, the owners actions get ignored and everything comes back around on the dogs.
Commonly, breed-specific legislation is enacted worldwide on the basis of the reputation of these dogs and the beliefs of how dangerous they really are; rumors in a sense. “Labeling a whole group of dogs as vicious without considering the individual characteristics of the animals that make up that group is more than shortsighted—it is ludicrous” (Burstein 326). Stephen Collier chose to go beyond the negative connotations of these animals and decided to run tests to produce actual data on the attacks. He states, “At first glance, data from the United States indicate that the “pit bull” is the country’s most dangerous dog breed, and Sacks presents data showing that the “pit bull” and its crossbreeds accounted for approximately 32% of human dog attack fatalities between 1979 and 1998, for which the breed of the dog was known (238 deaths)” (Collier 18). Harmful rumors of these dogs are being fabricated when the data shows that in a span of 20 years, the banned dog breeds did not account for half to the deaths they were said to have committed. Looking at this from a different perspective; when someone is falsely accused for committing murder, everyone agrees that the sentence to prison for that person is wrong. Why is there no sympathy for the dogs when they are falsely accused? In both scenarios, we have living beings that do not deserve the punishment they have been given; however people only sympathize with one side.
Mr. Collier also observed data from another case of dog attacks in Australia from 2001 through 2003. There were 547 dog attacks reported during this time span and American Pit Bull Terriers were only liable for 33 of the attacks which is a mere 4%. Looking at the rest of the guilty breeds, 182 or 32.7% of the attacks came from crossbreeds, German Shepherds accounted for 63 or 10.4% of the fatal attacks and Cattle dogs were blameworthy of 59 attacks, which is 8.4%. With statistical evidence, it may be hard to understand why some of these other dogs are not suffering the same punishment as dogs like the “pit bull”. The flaw in the system is, not all dogs are registered in the state they reside, which may skew the calculations from time to time.
Collier makes this clear as he states:
“The report reveals that 32.7% of attacking dogs are registered, with another 27.6 having unknown registration status. If attacking dogs are representative of dogs in general as to registration, at least 1/2 to 2/3 of the state’s dogs are unregistered. Using the registered breed populations as the overall breed populations for the denominator to calculate breeds’ attack rates lacks validity. Such a calculation assumes that each breed has the same proportion of registered and unregistered individuals, which almost certainly is not the case” (Collier 20).
With data that already shows “pit bulls” and other breeds of dogs that have been banned have been accused of a small amount recorded attacks for registered dogs; imagine how much bigger the percentage of attacks would be for dogs that are not effected by breed specific legislation with the added unregistered dogs.
The dog breeds that are constantly being banned frequently have their reputation dragged through the mud because of the purposes their owners breed them for. Since many of these dogs are subjected to dog fighting, it is easy to say they are dangerous. “…It often has been claimed that the APBT and other “fighting” dog breeds are especially dangerous because of human breeding selection for dog physical and “temperamental” traits functional in pit fighting” (Collier 21). Some of these dogs are trained to fight yes but they are also trained to for stability and controllability with people as well. The dogs respond to their environment and the owner just like any other domestic being. There is no specific research that has proven and demonstrated that breeds with a fighting past are more aggressive toward people than any other dogs.
Dr. Esther Schalke, who is involved in practical implementation of learning theory principles in dog training in subordination, decided to runs some tests due to the death of a young child by an attack of a pit bull type dog. After this attack, there was a breed-specific legislation law enforced since they were thought to have represented a particular danger to the population in the eyes of the authorities. These temperament tests were designed to detect dogs with distorted and aggressive signaling behavior. Schalke tested a total 415 dogs including: 93 American Staffordshire terriers, 38 bull terriers, 63 dogs of a pit bull type, 56 Doberman pinschers, 97 Rottweilers and 88 Staffordshire bull terriers, all which are breeds subjected to breed-specific regulations. Although these tests are made to provoke the dogs in means to test aggressive behavior, Schalke has to keep in mind that the test can only make a report on how exceptional the aggressive signal is that the dogs display in particular scenarios, situations and the point in time. Schalke was aware that the results may be open to errors and to avoid this she states, “Judging the behavior of dogs by observing them is always prone to the subjectivity of the observer…To minimize the influence of errors cause by observers’ subjectivity, the temperament tests carried out at the Institute of Animal Welfare and Behavior of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover were always conducted by 2 experts together” (Schalke 100). As a result of the carefully monitored tests, only 9% of the dogs reacted with biting after being confronted with stimuli that constantly provoked aggressive behavior. That 9% is pulling for results as some of the dogs differed in different situations from the varying amount of stress or how threatened the dog felt during the test. Once Dr. Schalke pushed more towards a higher level of threat in her tests, results of aggressive behavior began to display. Schalke declares, “A crucial factor regarding the assessment of the dangerousness of a dog is whether the dog shows appropriate or rather exceptional aggressive signaling or aggressive behavior in inappropriate situations” (Schalke 102). In this case, an inappropriate situation is consider one where the dogs may be involved with children, while the dog is playing with another dog, or while the owner is feeding the dog/ tries to take the dog’s food away. The results show that 95% of the dogs tested shower behaviors that were appropriate in that particular situation.
From a human standpoint, let’s look at situations where we are most aggressive. Times when you are not comfortable around something or defending yourself from something that is attacking you. What is the difference for the dogs? Ms. Stefanie Ott, an expert in animal communications, found that aggressive behavior is most often shown in situations that these dogs are unfamiliar with or situations that do not occur as often during their daily lives. Also, when dogs attack humans it usually is a result of the dog being unfamiliar with behavior that the human is portraying. Ott clearly states, “Aggressive behavior was most often shown in situations that were threatening for the dog, or in situations that were characterized by fast, abrupt, or strange movements of the test assistants” (Ott 140). Just like humans, all dogs react to an abnormal stimulus defensively. The only defense these animals have is their bite. They should not be punished for reacting defensively in the only way they possibly can. What Ott discovered is, the stimuli dogs take note of are the ones they experience as puppies. The first weeks of their lives are considered the socialization period where they learn what normal behavior should be. Which results back to the responsibility of the owners. If the person teaches the dog the habit of biting is normal or okay in this sense, that is what the dog will revert back to. This problem also results from the physiologic and psychological pressure that the owners put on their dogs involuntarily. Why is the animal being condemned on something they think is approved behavior? Instead of punishing the animals, what if the states that support breed-specific legislation police the people who want to own these types of dogs. The people who want their dogs to portray intimidating actions and behaviors are the real problem. They care about how tough, aggressive and how well the dog can send out a dominant persona, rather than how well the dog’s actual being is intact. “Breed-specific legislation ignore both the fact that vigilant and caring dog owners can virtually eliminate the risk to the public associated with even the most aggressive dogs, and that the danger posed by irresponsible dog owners is not effectively addressed by banning dog breeds in a piece meal fashion” (Burstein 324). Check to see if the person’s household and everyday routine will be enough to raise the dog in a positive way. Through her series of behavior tests, Ott realized, “A significant difference in the occurrence of aggressive behavior in inappropriate situations between golden retrievers test in this study and dogs belonging to 6 different breeds affected by the legislation and tested in a previous research project could not be detected” (Ott 140). If the dogs are performing in the same manner, why can’t they be treated equally from a legal standpoint?
Many people fear the name “pit bull” or bull terrier once again based off of a reputation that has been tarnished; however, surprisingly without an official record or someone telling people what kind of dog it is, many can not identify these banned breed dogs from a purely visual identification test. This leads to false accusation in numerous cases where a dog attacks someone and reporters or owners do not know exactly what kind of dog actually bit the victim. Professor Victoria Voith, an experienced research scientist in veterinary medicine, commenced tests to see if visual identification of dogs by people who say they are educated and familiar with dogs, matched the DNA breed identification. Voith goes on to establish that there are no pit bulls in the experiment that she performed and was trying to see if people noticed this or not. The participants of her trial ranged from Kennel Workers making up 35.2% of the test subjects, Veterinarians 10.1%, Dog Show Judges 1.1% and every kind of dog involved occupation in between. The results show that that just looking at a dog does not tell you what kind of dog it is exactly. 51.6% of the over 900 participants identified one of the dogs as a “pit bull” when again, there weren’t any “pit bulls” participating in the viewing. The issue comes from the mixed breed dogs that have been identified already for being some of the most dangerous dogs. This data was no surprise to Ms. Voith however, as she recalls, “It actually shouldn’t be surprising that visual identification of mixed breeds does not always agree with DNA based breed identification. A recent genetic study in dogs determined that very few regions of the canine genome encode morphological traits associated with breed-defining physical traits” (Voith 25). This leads to the vagueness of the actual laws banning these animals. From the Banning the Pit Bull: Why Breed-Specific Legislation is Constitutional journal article, it states,
“The mere fact that determining whether a dog is a pit bull requires factual analysis does not mean that a law banning pit bulls is unconstitutionally vague. “The degree of vagueness that the Constitution tolerates—as well as the relative importance of fair notice and fair enforcement—depends in part on the nature of the enactment. Thus, it is imperative that a stature banning pit bulls sufficiently describe the breed, so that citizens know what is being prohibited. Trained investigators, who can determine by sight whether or not a given dog is a pit bull, should be consulted in drafting definition sections and enforcing bans.”
How can this be possible when we have just proved that even the most experienced people who are constantly acclimated with all types of dogs can not be 100% positive when there is not pit bull in front of them? A Mr. Devin Burstein, an associate at Proskauer Rose LLP and a graduate from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, backs this notion of vagueness, in saying, “Breed-specific legislation must not only notify the community that it is illegal to keep pit bulls within the jurisdiction, but also define what exactly a pit bull is for the purpose of the statute. Due to the difficulty in properly identifying which individual dogs are pit bulls, constitutional challenges based on vagueness have had some success” (Burstein 320). People can not firmly decide on what a “pit bull” is exactly, so generalizations of how they look are made which leads banning several different groups of dogs because no one knows what breed the dog actually is but they fear them. This common thread of vagueness violates the equal protection of these animals, as there is no fundamental right in banning an animal on the basis of how they look. The court states that these dogs are potentially dangerous and the ruling is an attempt to cover all potential and possible evils. So now this is turning into a deal of racism almost, but that word is not being used because the law is against dogs and not people. Believe it or not, the “pit bull” breed that people say they fear so much was once an American icon on a television show called “Little Rascals”as Pete the Pup. Why is this “pit bull” never brought up when people speak of the name? “This dog worked long hours on a set with children without ever harming anyone” (Burstein 324). This is living proof that everyone of the time was apart of, seeing that not all “pit bulls” are vicious killers and that these dogs are intelligent animals.