Pit Bulls are Inherently Dangerous: Citizens Weigh In.

Frosty the pit bull.

By Racheal Myers

            Slobbering, enraged beasts; mauling man, woman, and child; thirsty for blood.  Vicious, spiked-collar wearing wingmen of drug lords, rappers, and football players, fallen from grace. Used as a symbol of power, striking fear in the hearts of would-be rivals, and neighbors alike.     Known for their muscular build, and remarkable jaw strength, pit bulls are an impressive breed of dog.  They are also the breed with the worst reputation, having been indicated as the aggressor of more attacks on humans, some of those attacks being fatal, than any other dog breed. 

Due to this aggressive streak, breed specific legislation has been put into place in several city and county levels, making owning a pit bull illegal.  Maryland, on April 26, 2012, became the only state to put into law a pit bull-specific amendment to its existing dangerous dog legislation.  The amendment comes after a 2007 incident where then 10 year old Dominic Solesky was attacked by a neighbor’s pit bull in Baltimore, Maryland, sustaining life threatening injuries. This amendment included not only pure breed pit bulls, but pit bull mixes as well

The amendment gathered a fire storm of opposition from pit bull enthusiasts from across the state.  It is not because the court was calling for “strict liability” on the part of the dog owner, but because the April amendment labels pit bulls and pit bull mixes as “inherently dangerous,” and took away the owners chance to prove that a pit bull that supposedly attacked someone is actually dangerous.    

To quote the official Court of Appeals ruling: “When an attack involves pit bulls, it is no longer necessary to prove that the particular pit bull or pit bulls are dangerous.”

A slight reprieve came in August 2012, when the ruling was pushed back to include only pure breed pit bulls. While it was a move in the right direction, adviactes were still not happy with the amendment, saying that pit bulls aren’t even a recognized breed, but a slang term for Staffordshire Terriers and American Stafforshire Terriers. How, pit bull enthusiasts ask, can you ban a breed that doesn’t technically exist?

Many enthusiasts are shocked at the attack on such a specific group of dogs.  Nikki Nyack, a former veterinary hospital receptionist from Prince Georges County, Maryland, where pit bulls are illegal, says, “Painting law with a broad brush is irresponsible.  All dogs have the potential for aggression, of which we’ve had daily proof (in her place of work), but it’s not fair to make a blanket decision on any breed.”

Nicole Bacarella, a pre-veterinary major at Drexel University, says, “What makes me really mad is the double standard.  There are so many other aggressive dogs like Chihuahuas and other little nippy things like Miniature Doberman Pinchers that are notorious for being mean and angry.”  She believes that pit bulls should be given the chance to be proven non-violent, like every other dog breed under the new amendment.

Other supporters of pit bulls expressed their outrage in less diplomatic terms.

Pit bull owner Monica Orndorff says simply, “The people who passed that law are f-ing idiots.”

Becca Lynn, who also works in a veterinary hospital in Prince Georges county adds, “The world is full of idiots.  Bully breeds can’t even get a loving home because the court is full of uneducated a-holes.”  Lynn says that, “pit bulls are viewed as aggressive because of the media,” and hopes that people will judge the temperaments of pit bulls for themselves.

The most overwhelming response to the new amendment is the “punish the deed, not the breed” mentality: the argument that if raised in an abusive environment, any dog, not just pit bulls, will turn aggressive, and that the law should in turn punish the abusers, not the abused.

“I think the temperament of a pit bull depends on the owner and how the dog was raised.  I think if the dog, any dog, was raised in a harsh environment, it would be more likely to attack.  If the dog was raised by a kind, loving family, then I’m pretty sure the dog would be just fine.  This is my stance on all dogs,” says Kaitlin Kersh, a dog owner.

Laurel, Maryland resident Phillicia Harrey adds that, “every dog is unique, and every situation is unique,” when it comes to the temperament of a dog.

Harrey is a supporter of tougher laws on pit bulls, but does not necessarily advocate marking a specific breed inherently dangerous. 

She says, “I have a natural fear of any dog bigger than an over-sized purse, so the law makes me feel a little safer.  I know that it’s probably mostly my ignorance of the breed itself that could possibly make me feel happy about there being stricter laws for attacks by such a ‘questionable’ breed.” 

She says that if it were up to her, she would not have let the amendment pass, but pushed for a similar law, and says she would not live easily with her decision, “because it sounds to me like if a dog is found guilty of being dangerous, it does not find itself in a celebrity rehab facility, which would make me really sad.”

An issue that now presents its self with the passing of this amendment is, what do landowners and landlords do if a pit bull is housed on their property?  The amendment states that landlords can also be held responsible if a pit bull attacks someone on the landlord’s property because they “have the right to control the pit bull’s presence on the subject premises, including a landlord who has a right to prohibit such dogs on leased premises,” as explained in the official court ruling.

The fear is that land owners will demand that the pit bulls be removed from the living quarters, forcing the owners to give up their family pet, or move somewhere else.  The former of these two options would mean an influx of pit bulls at shelters that are already full.  The residents of counties that ban pit bulls in Maryland, such as Prince Georges County have already dealt with the strain of over-filled shelters, by placing pit bulls into shelters in counties where the breed is still legal.  With the entire state cracking down on pit bulls now, it will get harder to find space in the shelter systems.  Undoubtedly, there will be some dogs that will have to be euthanized.

Pit bull lovers do not place blame on the land owners, who feel caught between a rock and a hard place when deciding to lose a tenet (and money), or allowing an “inherently dangerous” dog to reside in their establishment.

Kersh says that if she were “ a landlord renting a home to a person who had a pit, I would not want that person to continue renting with me, simply because of the off chance the dog would attack someone, then the domino effect would come to include me.”

Nyack sees a potential way to screen renters with pit bulls, saying, “I would probably like to meet and see the pets, just to get an idea of its temperament and the owners.”

            Harrey says, “It is already hard enough to find residence with “dangerous” breeds, and now with landlords being held at fault if an attack occurs, it’s going to be that much harder.  My only hope is that everyone gets a fair chance but this law does not allow for that, so it means a bump in real estate sales to pit bull owners, I assume.”

            Many animal rights groups agree with the pit bull supporters outrage about the new amendment, but not because of the attack on the breed themselves. The American Humane Association does not support the use of breed specific legislation like the Maryland amendment because they believe it costs too much to enforce, and because “while almost all breed specific legislation refers to ‘pit bulls’, many breeds of dogs have the facial and body characteristic of a ‘pit bull’ but are actually not pit bulls at all.”  Many times the wrong breed can be described, making the pit bull breed look worse than it is.

The American Humane Association recommends alternative measures to breed specific legislation, including education of children, who may startle a dog, causing it to attack, and spaying and neutering the animals to lower their testosterone and estrogen levels, causing them not to be as aggressive. 

            It is clear that something needed to be done about the aggressive tendencies of pit bulls; when one breed of dog is responsible for more bites than any other, there is a problem.  Whether an amendment declaring pit bulls “inherently dangerous” is the correct way to solve the problem remains to be seen, but as alternatives for altering pit bull behavior are out there, perhaps one day people will stop being, as Lynn puts it so genteelly “uneducated a-holes” and get educated on the behavior of not just pit bulls, but of the owners and other breeds as well.