Got a couple minutes tonight and love dogs?

[rick]

Many of you have heard about Lennox, a dog who was taken from his family in Belfast, Ireland for being a pit bull. This was a mixed-breed bulldog DNA tested and registered for five years with the city council, a family pet and support animal for a young disabled girl. The dog kept in what might as well have been a ****ing hole for 2 years, winding up with skin sores and balding over most of its body. The girl's parents told her that even if Belfast killed her friend, she would still get to hold him one last time, have her picture taken with him, and say goodbye.

You can go to http://savelennox.com and watch the video and read statements like this:

The most heartfelt plea of all was heard from Brooke, the owners eleven year old Daughter who is registered disabled. Lennox grew up around Brooke and the two became inseparable. Due to Brooke’s illness she is unable to play each day with other children and so found Lennox to always be there as a playmate and someone to be of comfort to her. Since her best friend was taken Brooke has missed much School due to suffering health and unneeded stress caused by missing her dog. Brooke’s specialist Doctor at Belfast Royal Hospital for Sick Children has also expressed growing concern for the child’s separation from her pet.

And that's good. But I approached this wondering if this was just a sob story or not - what is this unspecified disability, is this just what a distraught family would say, etc. Perhaps the dog really was dangerous?

I think what really informed me was the statement of Sarah Fisher, one of the behaviorists who examined Lennox. Combined with Jim Crosby's Blog I think the picture that emerges is pretty clear. Both the actual behaviorists assigned to the case concluded Lennox was not dangerous. They said the dog was a bit nervous but needed to be returned home. So Belfast got a cop-dog trainer to write a polemic and unprofessional condemnation that they could trot out.


And yesterday, Lennox was killed. His little girl never got to see him or say goodbye to him.


If you have more time, Victoria Stillwell's comments here, starting at 42:17 (you can click inside the little podcast player to move to 42:17 into the show), are really informative, especially in dispelling many of the myths about pit-bulls and breed-based legislation.

[rick]

I know, this all took place on the other side of the world, so while it's heartrending, what can you do about it? Well, breed-based legislation exists in the USA. In 2005, Denver killed over 4,000 dogs based purely on breed. And it is also alive and well and in your home state: http://www.dogsbite.org/legislating-dan ... eorgia.php

Here is an example of what Lawrenceville requires for pit bulls:

1. While on the owner’s property, a Pit Bull must be securely confined indoors or in a securely enclosed and locked pen or structure, suitable to prevent the entry of young children, and designed to prevent the animal from escaping. Such pen or structure must have a minimum dimension of five feet by ten feet and must have secure sides and a secure top. Such pen or structure shall prevent the dog from being within 25 feet from the boundary line of the property, and shall be maintained in the rear yard of the property as defined by the City of Lawrenceville’s Zoning Ordinance. If it has no bottom secured to the sides, the sides must be imbedded into the ground no less than two feet. The enclosure must also provide protection from the elements for the dog.

2. The owner or keeper shall display a sign on his or her premises facing out from all sides of the premises warning that there is a potentially dangerous dog on the property. This sign should be visible and capable of being read from a public highway or thoroughfare or within 20 feet of its placement. In addition, the owner shall conspicuously display a sign with a symbol warning children who cannot read of the presence of a dangerous dog.

3. A Pit Bull may be off the owner’s premises if it is muzzled and restrained by an approved lead or chain not exceeding three feet in length and is under the control of an adult, able-bodied person. The muzzle must be made in a manner that will not cause injury to the dog or interfere with its vision or respiration, but must prevent it from biting any person or animal.

Now, that's not the same thing as I want you to think about how you'd feel if your dog had to live in this way. The closest thing I can come to it is Dumbo's mom. Lawrenceville also for some reason finds it necessary to include in their regulations that if a police officer feels in any way threatened by a dog and it's a pit bull, he's allowed to shoot it. Given the likely circumstances and outcomes, this is effectively a license to kill. And, as does Belfast, Lawrenceville gets to decide whether any mixed-breed dog is a pit bull or not.

[rick]

The protections animals enjoy (possibly not the right word) in our country are also tightly controlled by the livestock industry. But I'm not going to get into that, or into any kind of robble robble about "our animal friends." What I hope, though, is that even if you can barely tolerate dogs, you recognize how important they are to us as a species and to many of us as individuals. Here is something I wrote about what my own dog did for me when I was going through my divorce. It was years ago but still fresh enough to cause me an upwelling of tears even thinking about it:

When I was the lowest point in my life, I put my arm on his back and my hand on his big, flat head. We sat for a few seconds. Then he sighed just once, letting go all the breath in his lungs, holding the line for me, never letting me drop. When I was drowning, he came up next to me and put his shoulder into me and I felt his presence like the wavering blinking sunlight through the water. I went to it. It brought me to the surface. When I felt there was no love in the world for me, he crawled up on the couch next to me and carefully, grudgingly put his head in my lap (for he was never a lap dog). He left it there, tolerating my scrunching of his big soft floppy ears. I realized there were far worse places to be, in fact no better place to be, than with a friend for whom I was everything.

I know this is only one of myriad travesties that occur in the world every day. I don't believe this should be of primacy to others simply because it is important to me. So what I am asking is this: maybe someday you run into if legislation or a decision, or anything comes up where you are asked to vote, contribute, give an opinion, influence someone or something one way or another.

No matter what you think of dogs, I just want you to think about how much they can mean to people like me and a little girl in Ireland.

Think about what Lennox gave to Brooke Barnes, and what we gave him in return.

- Rick

This is not the ravings of a complete sentimentalist or someone who views dogs unscientifically. This kind of thing is in the blood of dogs from 40,000 years back when the wolves who were friendly enough to be tolerated started doing better than the other wolves. For their own geneticially selfish reasons, dogs gave up some of their essential savageness to be support for humans, and in return they received food and cooperation in defense. Later, we accelerated that with breeding, taking dogs off the evolutionary track and making many of them largely dependent on us. This is true of course of most domestic pets.

Last note: After writing this, I felt I should add that the owners may have been irresponsible with their dog. At the very least, they had had run-ins in the past and knew the law, that their dog would be considered a pit from then on, and the possible consequences. At worst, it's possible they had some sort of involvement with the sort of pit-fighting circles that gave the dogs their name. I don't want to paint them as saints, or anyone in Belfast as devils.

But - there is no scientific evidence for breed-based legislation, which was the cause of suffering in this and many other cases. There is in fact nothing non-anecdotal supporting it. Behavior variance in the species far outweighs any divergence in behavior for any specific breed. The only reason a pit bull is dangerous is for the same reason my mastiff would be dangerous. They are strong and can cause damage when they lash out or otherwise become aggressive. And their attacks receive more attention. Naturally aggressive behavior is a detriment to even the macho sort who want to parade their giant pit on a spiked leash. It is quickly weaned from a breed despite whatever other desirable traits its possessors exhibit. Even people that fight dogs would prefer a well-behaved dog that can be tortured and starved until it is induced to fight, but retains its fear of, and obedience to, its cruel masters.