Pit bulls are different, and so must be the rules

For over 15 years I’ve been helping animals in need: feral cats, pet cats, wild birds and dogs – including two pit bulls. I’ve also adopted a philosophy of questioning everything and only accepting as true things that have sufficient evidence proving them to be true.

I will accept a truth based on evidence, no matter what it is, even if I don’t want it to be true.

I am forced by the evidence to conclude that pit bulls, as they are currently bred, are not suitable for ownership as pets.

Given the right “trigger,” a well-trained, loving dog of any breed will do what it has been bred to do. The sheltie I had as a child nipped at my heels whenever I ran. The first time she saw a flock of sheep, this lifelong house dog tried to herd them.

When my daughter and her husband combined families, her two mixed-breed, 50-pound dogs and her two cats became family members with his well-trained and affectionate pit bull mix, Odin.

All was well for six months, until they came home from work to find that Odin had killed his family member Ziggy, the cat. It was a horrific scene with blood everywhere and all over Odin. Whatever triggered Odin, we will never know.

My daughter and son-in-law opted to keep Odin, against my advice, and gave away their other cat. All was well for another nine months.

Then they came home to another scene of bloody horror: my daughter’s 14-year-old beloved dog, Angel – whom she had grown up with, who was in her wedding – was still barely alive, but only for minutes.

My daughter was inconsolable. This time they had Odin euthanized.

After all, they planned to have a baby. Their remaining dog, a Queensland mix, is now so terrified of other dogs she will not accept another dog into the family.

All evidence shows a dog will do what it has been bred to do, no matter how well it has been raised, trained or loved. Pit bulls were frequently bred to attack and kill other dogs in a ring. No amount of love or training will change their genes.

There are no separate populations of fighting pit bulls and docile pit bulls. They all come from the same population. It would be possible to breed the fighting/killing out of pit bulls in a carefully monitored, scientific breeding program, but it is not currently being done.

I don’t support solving any animal problem with killing.

I do support breed-specific legislation for dogs who can and do easily kill humans. I support mandatory spay/neuter of pit bulls until some authorized entity breeds a population of docile pit bulls. I support restrictions on ownership (none in households with known gang members or people involved in dog fighting). Some jurisdictions require any female dog in heat to be fully enclosed in an undiggable area with a roof. I support this type of housing requirement for pit bulls.

Time and again pit bulls have run loose in Modesto, terrorizing people, attacking and injuring other dogs and killing cats in their own yards. No one is ever held accountable.

If you hit someone over the head with a beer bottle, it is assault with a deadly weapon, but if your pit bull kills a neighbor, it is no crime at all. I feel sure the district attorney could charge the owners of dogs that killed Juan Fernandez last month. If the victim was wealthy and upper class, the dog owner would already have been charged.

Until there is a new pit bull breed, we need new laws.

This story was originally published November 14, 2014 at 7:41 AM with the headline "Pit bulls are different, and so must be the rules."