Don't allow breed banishment (Newsday.com)

[Rene Allegrini]

An excellent, well written letter in the Newsday.

If you would like to write to Ms. Flaim (denise.flaim@newsday.com) and thank her for always writing with common sense and for always writing against breed specific legislation. She is the one person in the media we can count on.


ANIMAL HOUSE: Don't allow breed banishment
July 16, 2007

I got two e-mails that made me stop in my tracks today.

The first was from fellow animal columnist Steve Dale of Chicago, sent to a dog-writers list for scribes who don't mind a little fur on their keyboards. It contained a link to a YouTube slide show of pitbulls doing what comes naturally - nuzzling toddlers, cuddling with their owners and playing good-naturedly, sometimes even with their own kind.


The other was from a different list, this one populated by folks who own the same breed of dog as I do, a medium-large hound called the Rhodesian Ridgeback. The e-mailer, my friend Elise Lewis, one of the most dedicated rescue volunteers I know, included a link to The Irish Times, which was reporting that the Dublin City Council has banned 11 breeds in its municipal housing and was pushing to extend the ban to public parks. Owners would have an opportunity to find new homes for their dogs, or have them confiscated and euthanized. Among the usual suspects - the pitbulls, the Rottweilers, and the bully breeds of various parentage - are Doberman pinschers, German shepherds and, yes, my very own breed.

I could weep. And not because of the state of my breed: On a whole, here and abroad, my fellow fanciers are producing well-temperamented dogs that are sound in mind and body, true to their billing as the consummate family dog and companion. I live that reality daily in a house with 3-year-old triplets and four Ridgebacks aged 6 months to 9 years. The only thing that gets mauled at our place is the occasional Barbie doll.

I am saddened beyond measure that there could be such a skewed understanding of some of the world's most magnificent breeds based on their misuse by a handful of irresponsible individuals. And even if you don't care about Rotties or Dobes or ridgies, if you are the owner of any large-breed dog, regardless of temperament or origin - from Airedales to Newfoundlands to St. Bernards to giant Schnauzers - this "breedism" could one day be a problem for you, too.

Until recently, I used to dismiss such pronouncements as overblown rhetoric by paranoiacs who see PETA lurking behind every "Curb Your Dog" sign.

For years, I watched rather dispassionately as cities like Denver and Toronto literally outlawed pitbulls. I saw that once noble breed - the pit was the great hearth dog of the American West, a patriotic poster icon during the first World War, the gentle companion to the likes of Helen Keller - have its reputation irreparably rent, simply because some harnessed that greatest canine predilection - the desire to please - and use it to instill a workmanlike mastery of violence. Journalists are often the worst offenders, frequently unable to accurately identify breeds, but quick to sensationalize anything involving so called "dangerous dogs" like the pit.

It was lousy, it was unfair, but it was "just" a pitbull problem.

Obviously, my wake-up call has arrived. Eventually, if you allow other breeds that are not yours to be demonized, mischaracterized and outlawed, it will not end with them. Criminals who breed fighting dogs - and the quick-fix legislators who try to thwart them with breed bans - will just move on to new targets, widening the pool of dogs that eventually will be criminalized.

I don't for one second diminish the heartache experienced by anyone whose child has been mauled by any dog, regardless of breed. As a parent, I understand the anger and the outrage. But it is misdirected: While some breeds have more protective instincts than others, the cruel-hearted among us can urge any sentient being under our watch to violence, whether we are talking about children or animals.

Instead of banning specific breeds of dogs, we should be holding their irresponsible owners to task for allowing - sometimes even encouraging - them to pose a risk to the public. And if the individual dog must pay the ultimate price for the overall good of the breed - if their proven acts land them on doggie death row - then so be it.

Yet I honestly wonder whether a decade from now we will be able to own a dog larger than a pug.

And when that day arrives, let the pugs beware.
Email: denise.flaim@newsday.com

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