**ALERT** Wichita, Kansas

[Rene Allegrini]

Bites prompt Wichita to weigh a pit bull ban
A draft ordinance is in the works as some dog lovers debate whether the problem lies with the owners.
BY DIANE MCCARTNEY
The Wichita Eagle

PIT BULL BAN

After a pit bull killed an elderly woman's Jack Russell terrier in November 2004, Sharon Revell wrote a letter to the editor.

The Jack Russell's owner, Mary Miller, was lucky not to have suffered more than a fractured finger when she tried to save the little dog, Revell said at the time.

"It is apparent that our community needs some better control over the increasing number of pit bulls," she wrote.

Revell, who lives in southwest Wichita, said she would have favored a ban on pit bulls at that time -- anything to get the dangerous dogs off the street.

But as cities across the state and nation debate laws restricting pit bulls and "pit bull-type" dogs, Revell says she has changed her mind about a ban.

She now thinks the problem is with the owners -- not the dogs.

"A person who wants an aggressive dog will have an aggressive dog of some breed," she said.

Fears about pit bulls -- powerful, muscular dogs that have been bred for generations to fight other animals -- have led to laws banning or restricting ownership of the dogs in at least 30 cities or counties in Kansas.

Will Wichita be next?

The city's legal department is reviewing a draft ordinance that could restrict ownership of the breed, said Kay Johnson, Wichita's director of environmental services. "We clearly have a pit bull bite problem," she said.

No one has been killed in Wichita by a pit bull -- or any kind of dog-- but "we are just very lucky that it hasn't happened," Johnson said. "We have way too many bites."
For the past three years, about 30 percent of the dog bites reported in the city have been by pit bulls. In 2005, 685 dog bites were reported, with 302 reported through May of this year.

Pit bulls also make up 25 percent of the dogs admitted to the city's animal shelter; 68 pit bulls were removed from a Wichita home in July and taken to the shelter pending completion of an investigation, Johnson said.

And pit bulls were mentioned more often than any other breed when residents
complained about vicious dogs in a survey conducted by Wichita Independent Neighborhoods.

"I would say pit bulls are 75 percent of the problem," said John Stevens, who presented the report to the Wichita City Council in June.

'We live in danger'

Linda Crocket says pit bulls have been a problem in her north Wichita neighborhood for two or three years.

Police have responded to complaints about pit bulls in the area, she said, adding that one of the breed still lives in the neighborhood.

This very lengthy article is continued at:
Wichita Eagle | 09/13/2006 | Bites prompt Wichita to weigh a pit bull ban