“We won’t have animal control going out looking at dogs based on their breeds and appearance, and in turn allow animal control to treat all dogs equally.”
—A Maumelle City Council member
We're not sure if dogs need their own Declaration of Independence yet. (When in the Course of Canine Events . . . .) But before all dogs are treated equally by the two-legged creatures they live with, all dogs must act equal. And they most certainly do not.
Those of us of a more genteel nature never understood the attraction to having a pit bull dog around the house. (We’re not going to get into the swirling conversation in which some argue there’s no such thing as a pit bull. There are such dogs. Everybody knows one when they see one.)
There must be some sense of exaggerated masculinity in owning such dogs. Doubtless we will get letters and emails about how pit bulls aren’t really aggressive, and how it all depends on how owners treat them, and how the one at my feet never growls, barks or ever hurt a living thing.
Funny, by which we mean definitely not-funny, but that seems to be the recurring comment in all stories about pit bulls that kill. After a child is pronounced dead at the hospital, the owner tells the papers: But this dog never hurt anybody before.
Before killing a child, that is.
Surely there are poodles and setters and Australian shepherds and basset hounds and collies and schnauzers that aren’t treated properly by humans, even abused. But somehow we never see them in the news after a toddler is killed. It’s always a pit bull.
The papers say Maumelle’s City Council is considering an ordinance that would repeal the ban on pit bulls within the city. That seems to be going in the wrong direction. More cities should ban the breed. Not fewer.
The council member quoted above also told the papers that the ordinance would “strengthen” the city’s animal services code and end “discrimination” against certain breeds.
First, how do you strengthen the city’s animal services code by weakening it? That would be a neat trick. Second, discrimination against certain dog breeds seems common sense. Anybody who walks or bikes around the neighborhood does it on a daily basis.
Some say more cities ought to hold owners responsible for their dogs, instead of banning breeds altogether. But the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. Why not ban breeds that have (deserved) reputations for killing humans, and have something in the city code to hold owners responsible when the occasional pack of poodles corners an elderly person at the mailbox?
Another council member in Maumelle, Steve Mosley, had a better take on the situation: “They are trying to equate dogs to humans. Dogs don’t have equal rights. Dogs are born with certain innate abilities, like retrievers automatically retrieve things and English setters point at birds. Pit bull dogs are fighters and they tend to snap. I don’t think you can blame the owner. It’s the dogs that do the biting. If the dogs aren’t here, they aren’t going to bite anybody.”
For the record, pit bulls were bred over centuries to tackle bulls and bears, and to lock them down by biting and holding onto the larger animal’s head. They weren’t bred to herd sheep or chase sticks.
According to one study, pit bulls make up only 6 percent of the dog population in the United States. But they are responsible for nearly 70 percent of dog attacks and more than half of deaths after dog attacks. We can’t imagine the people of Maumelle are clamoring to get the animals back inside the city limits.
When it comes to this ordinance, let’s not. Let’s instead, think of ways to improve the quality of life. Emphasis on life.