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Joshua Grimes
9th November 2015
ECO 334
Research Paper
The Issue of Breed-Specific Legislation
Of every domesticated animal species that exists, including humans, their
upbringing has the greatest impact on how they will pan out in the future. No animal is
born a “monster”, which is what people have labeled the breeds of dogs that will be
mentioned throughout this document. When someone, whether it is a person or a dog,
attacks another being, it is a reaction from a certain stimulus that has been learned in
the past for self-defense. All dogs bite and although that may seem obvious, it has
been proven by Stefanie A. Ott whose research will be mentioned as well. Specific
breeds of dogs should not be banned in certain regions due to statistics that have been
slanted because of a bias reputation.
Breed-specific legislation today is more common than in decades past, as
hundreds of geographic locations throughout the country have begun to adopted the
jurisdiction. States such as Oregon, Hawaii and Montana have introduced statewide
breed-specific legislation bills. Focusing on the state of Oregon, Ms. Dana M. Campbell
of Cornell Law School addresses some of the essentials of Oregon’s ruling in her
article, Pit Bull Bans: The State of Breed-Specific Legislation, as she states, “One would
ban “pit bulls” from Oregon unless a person has obtained a permit within 90 days of the
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bill’s passage; the other would require minimum liability insurance coverage of $1
million for pit bull owners” (Campbell 38). Not all dog owners are able to pay $1 million
to be able to obtain the insurance, which creates and indirect restraint on the dogs.
Rather than banning the dog breeds up front, states like California have placed breedspecific rulings that also indirectly restrict these feared breeds. The state has assigned
a mandatory neuter program requiring dogs of certain breeds to be “fixed” and in the
grand scheme of things, this will end the appearance some lineages over time.
Although there have been a handful of states to reject or limit the ownership of certain
dog breeds, there are 12 states that have prohibited the passage of breed-specific
legislation by their local governments.
As this legislation becomes more and more popular not only in the United States
but in Europe as well, the questions asked become, “Are episodes of attacks
decreasing because of breed-specific legislation?” Wide-ranging studies in places like
Spain and Great Britain conclude that the ban had no effect in stopping dog attacks.
However, these recorded attacks were not from the “dangerous animals” that are being
banned from the countries, but dogs like German Shepherds and mixed breeds. This
same trend was also seen in Prince George’s County, Maryland as it was concluded in
2003, “…that the public safety had not improved as a result of the ban” (Campbell 39).
The county raised more than $250,000 per year to gather and destroy banned dogs but
the ruling had no effect. Another report that recorded fatal human attacks by dogs in the
US since 1975 said dogs from 30 different breeds including Golden Retrievers,
Labrador Retrievers, Dachshunds and Yorkshire Terriers were responsible for nearly
150 attacks on humans. To completely understand why the world is terrified of these
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animals, lets play devil’s advocate briefly. Everyone sees the “pit bull” and these other
dogs banned through breed-specific legislation since they are said to be a clear threat
to everyone’s public safety. The physical traits that the dogs are known for and the
characteristics of being small, powerful and having one of the strongest bites of all dog
breeds targets these animals as a nuisance to society almost. “Pit bulls” possess
capabilities higher than other dogs with a force of 1800 to 2000 pounds per square in in
the average adult dog. This is said to be twice the force of an average full-grown
Doberman pinscher and German shepherd. People argue that there are stories where
the dogs turn on their own owners from time to time and suddenly act them, but as we
have researched, there is most likely a threatening environment that the dog is placed in
that makes that dog attack for some reason. Whenever people hear about dog fighting,
typically what name pops up, “Pit bull”. “It is unreasonable to ban or restrict an entire
group of dogs based on an unsupportable stereotype about their viciousness” (Burstein
326). With all of this being said, dogs do not end up in dogfights, people place them in
that hostile environment. This choice comes from and irresponsible owner who not only
is participating in illegal action but harming a living being in the process, and because
people don’t worry about what the dog is going through, the owners actions get ignored
and everything comes back around on the dogs.
Commonly, breed-specific legislation is enacted worldwide on the basis of the
reputation of these dogs and the beliefs of how dangerous they really are; rumors in a
sense. “Labeling a whole group of dogs as vicious without considering the individual
characteristics of the animals that make up that group is more than shortsighted—it is
ludicrous” (Burstein 326). Stephen Collier chose to go beyond the negative
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connotations of these animals and decided to run tests to produce actual data on the
attacks. He states, “At first glance, data from the United States indicate that the “pit
bull” is the country’s most dangerous dog breed, and Sacks presents data showing that
the “pit bull” and its crossbreeds accounted for approximately 32% of human dog attack
fatalities between 1979 and 1998, for which the breed of the dog was known (238
deaths)” (Collier 18). Harmful rumors of these dogs are being fabricated when the data
shows that in a span of 20 years, the banned dog breeds did not account for half to the
deaths they were said to have committed. Looking at this from a different perspective;
when someone is falsely accused for committing murder, everyone agrees that the
sentence to prison for that person is wrong. Why is there no sympathy for the dogs
when they are falsely accused? In both scenarios, we have living beings that do not
deserve the punishment they have been given; however people only sympathize with
one side.
Mr. Collier also observed data from another case of dog attacks in Australia from
2001 through 2003. There were 547 dog attacks reported during this time span and
American Pit Bull Terriers were only liable for 33 of the attacks which is a mere 4%.
Looking at the rest of the guilty breeds, 182 or 32.7% of the attacks came from
crossbreeds, German Shepherds accounted for 63 or 10.4% of the fatal attacks and
Cattle dogs were blameworthy of 59 attacks, which is 8.4%. With statistical evidence, it
may be hard to understand why some of these other dogs are not suffering the same
punishment as dogs like the “pit bull”. The flaw in the system is, not all dogs are
registered in the state they reside, which may skew the calculations from time to time.
Collier makes this clear as he states:
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“The report reveals that 32.7% of attacking dogs are registered, with another
27.6 having unknown registration status. If attacking dogs are representative of
dogs in general as to registration, at least 1/2 to 2/3 of the state’s dogs are
unregistered. Using the registered breed populations as the overall breed
populations for the denominator to calculate breeds’ attack rates lacks validity.
Such a calculation assumes that each breed has the same proportion of
registered and unregistered individuals, which almost certainly is not the case”
(Collier 20).
With data that already shows “pit bulls” and other breeds of dogs that have been
banned have been accused of a small amount recorded attacks for registered dogs;
imagine how much bigger the percentage of attacks would be for dogs that are not
effected by breed specific legislation with the added unregistered dogs.
The dog breeds that are constantly being banned frequently have their reputation
dragged through the mud because of the purposes their owners breed them for. Since
many of these dogs are subjected to dog fighting, it is easy to say they are dangerous.
“…It often has been claimed that the APBT and other “fighting” dog breeds are
especially dangerous because of human breeding selection for dog physical and
“temperamental” traits functional in pit fighting” (Collier 21). Some of these dogs are
trained to fight yes but they are also trained to for stability and controllability with people
as well. The dogs respond to their environment and the owner just like any other
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domestic being. There is no specific research that has proven and demonstrated that
breeds with a fighting past are more aggressive toward people than any other dogs.
Dr. Esther Schalke, who is involved in practical implementation of learning theory
principles in dog training in subordination, decided to runs some tests due to the death
of a young child by an attack of a pit bull type dog. After this attack, there was a breedspecific legislation law enforced since they were thought to have represented a
particular danger to the population in the eyes of the authorities. These temperament
tests were designed to detect dogs with distorted and aggressive signaling behavior.
Schalke tested a total 415 dogs including: 93 American Staffordshire terriers, 38 bull
terriers, 63 dogs of a pit bull type, 56 Doberman pinschers, 97 Rottweilers and 88
Staffordshire bull terriers, all which are breeds subjected to breed-specific regulations.
Although these tests are made to provoke the dogs in means to test aggressive
behavior, Schalke has to keep in mind that the test can only make a report on how
exceptional the aggressive signal is that the dogs display in particular scenarios,
situations and the point in time. Schalke was aware that the results may be open to
errors and to avoid this she states, “Judging the behavior of dogs by observing them is
always prone to the subjectivity of the observer…To minimize the influence of errors
cause by observers’ subjectivity, the temperament tests carried out at the Institute of
Animal Welfare and Behavior of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover were
always conducted by 2 experts together” (Schalke 100). As a result of the carefully
monitored tests, only 9% of the dogs reacted with biting after being confronted with
stimuli that constantly provoked aggressive behavior. That 9% is pulling for results as
some of the dogs differed in different situations from the varying amount of stress or
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how threatened the dog felt during the test. Once Dr. Schalke pushed more towards a
higher level of threat in her tests, results of aggressive behavior began to display.
Schalke declares, “A crucial factor regarding the assessment of the dangerousness of a
dog is whether the dog shows appropriate or rather exceptional aggressive signaling or
aggressive behavior in inappropriate situations” (Schalke 102). In this case, an
inappropriate situation is consider one where the dogs may be involved with children,
while the dog is playing with another dog, or while the owner is feeding the dog/ tries to
take the dog’s food away. The results show that 95% of the dogs tested shower
behaviors that were appropriate in that particular situation.
From a human standpoint, let’s look at situations where we are most aggressive.
Times when you are not comfortable around something or defending yourself from
something that is attacking you. What is the difference for the dogs? Ms. Stefanie Ott,
an expert in animal communications, found that aggressive behavior is most often
shown in situations that these dogs are unfamiliar with or situations that do not occur as
often during their daily lives. Also, when dogs attack humans it usually is a result of the
dog being unfamiliar with behavior that the human is portraying. Ott clearly states,
“Aggressive behavior was most often shown in situations that were threatening for the
dog, or in situations that were characterized by fast, abrupt, or strange movements of
the test assistants” (Ott 140). Just like humans, all dogs react to an abnormal stimulus
defensively. The only defense these animals have is their bite. They should not be
punished for reacting defensively in the only way they possibly can. What Ott
discovered is, the stimuli dogs take note of are the ones they experience as puppies.
The first weeks of their lives are considered the socialization period where they learn
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what normal behavior should be. Which results back to the responsibility of the owners.
If the person teaches the dog the habit of biting is normal or okay in this sense, that is
what the dog will revert back to. This problem also results from the physiologic and
psychological pressure that the owners put on their dogs involuntarily. Why is the
animal being condemned on something they think is approved behavior? Instead of
punishing the animals, what if the states that support breed-specific legislation police
the people who want to own these types of dogs. The people who want their dogs to
portray intimidating actions and behaviors are the real problem. They care about how
tough, aggressive and how well the dog can send out a dominant persona, rather than
how well the dog’s actual being is intact. “Breed-specific legislation ignore both the fact
that vigilant and caring dog owners can virtually eliminate the risk to the public
associated with even the most aggressive dogs, and that the danger posed by
irresponsible dog owners is not effectively addressed by banning dog breeds in a piece
meal fashion” (Burstein 324). Check to see if the person’s household and everyday
routine will be enough to raise the dog in a positive way. Through her series of behavior
tests, Ott realized, “A significant difference in the occurrence of aggressive behavior in
inappropriate situations between golden retrievers test in this study and dogs belonging
to 6 different breeds affected by the legislation and tested in a previous research project
could not be detected” (Ott 140). If the dogs are performing in the same manner, why
can’t they be treated equally from a legal standpoint?
Many people fear the name “pit bull” or bull terrier once again based off of a
reputation that has been tarnished; however, surprisingly without an official record or
someone telling people what kind of dog it is, many can not identify these banned breed
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dogs from a purely visual identification test. This leads to false accusation in numerous
cases where a dog attacks someone and reporters or owners do not know exactly what
kind of dog actually bit the victim. Professor Victoria Voith, an experienced research
scientist in veterinary medicine, commenced tests to see if visual identification of dogs
by people who say they are educated and familiar with dogs, matched the DNA breed
identification. Voith goes on to establish that there are no pit bulls in the experiment
that she performed and was trying to see if people noticed this or not. The participants
of her trial ranged from Kennel Workers making up 35.2% of the test subjects,
Veterinarians 10.1%, Dog Show Judges 1.1% and every kind of dog involved
occupation in between. The results show that that just looking at a dog does not tell you
what kind of dog it is exactly. 51.6% of the over 900 participants identified one of the
dogs as a “pit bull” when again, there weren’t any “pit bulls” participating in the viewing.
The issue comes from the mixed breed dogs that have been identified already for being
some of the most dangerous dogs. This data was no surprise to Ms. Voith however, as
she recalls, “It actually shouldn’t be surprising that visual identification of mixed breeds
does not always agree with DNA based breed identification. A recent genetic study in
dogs determined that very few regions of the canine genome encode morphological
traits associated with breed-defining physical traits” (Voith 25). This leads to the
vagueness of the actual laws banning these animals. From the Banning the Pit Bull:
Why Breed-Specific Legislation is Constitutional journal article, it states,
“The mere fact that determining whether a dog is a pit bull requires factual
analysis does not mean that a law banning pit bulls is unconstitutionally vague.
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“The degree of vagueness that the Constitution tolerates—as well as the relative
importance of fair notice and fair enforcement—depends in part on the nature of
the enactment. Thus, it is imperative that a stature banning pit bulls sufficiently
describe the breed, so that citizens know what is being prohibited. Trained
investigators, who can determine by sight whether or not a given dog is a pit bull,
should be consulted in drafting definition sections and enforcing bans.”
How can this be possible when we have just proved that even the most experienced
people who are constantly acclimated with all types of dogs can not be 100% positive
when there is not pit bull in front of them? A Mr. Devin Burstein, an associate at
Proskauer Rose LLP and a graduate from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law,
backs this notion of vagueness, in saying, “Breed-specific legislation must not only
notify the community that it is illegal to keep pit bulls within the jurisdiction, but also
define what exactly a pit bull is for the purpose of the statute. Due to the difficulty in
properly identifying which individual dogs are pit bulls, constitutional challenges based
on vagueness have had some success” (Burstein 320). People can not firmly decide on
what a “pit bull” is exactly, so generalizations of how they look are made which leads
banning several different groups of dogs because no one knows what breed the dog
actually is but they fear them. This common thread of vagueness violates the equal
protection of these animals, as there is no fundamental right in banning an animal on
the basis of how they look. The court states that these dogs are potentially dangerous
and the ruling is an attempt to cover all potential and possible evils. So now this is
turning into a deal of racism almost, but that word is not being used because the law is
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against dogs and not people. Believe it or not, the “pit bull” breed that people say they
fear so much was once an American icon on a television show called “Little Rascals” as
Pete the Pup. Why is this “pit bull” never brought up when people speak of the name?
“This dog worked long hours on a set with children without ever harming anyone”
(Burstein 324). This is living proof that everyone of the time was apart of, seeing that
not all “pit bulls” are vicious killers and that these dogs are intelligent animals.
Looking at the individual dogs for a moment, the banned breed of dogs are still
domesticated animals; however breed-specific regulations treats these animals as if
people are capturing them from the wild and turning them into house pets. They can be
taught just like any other domesticated dog that people have become so fond of.
Burstein states how there are analogies of a “pit bull” being viewed as a weapon such
as a loaded gun in a sense, since the dogs are view to have a sole purpose of inflicting
pain and causing death at times, but that is an attribute of all dogs, or even better all
animals that have a bite that is effective enough. Looking at these animals historically,
there was never a history in aggression towards humans from these dogs. Some dog
owners buy dogs as a means of protection in their household when they feel as though
they cannot protect themselves in situations where a dog can. People who support and
own the breed-specific legislation effect dogs are typically fond of having them for this
purpose as they, “…Take pride in the fact that pit bulls are the only breed (includes
most breed-specific effected dogs) controlled enough to avoid biting people even during
mortal combat…” (Burstein 325). All animals can be unpredictable at times as they are
able to take command but they cannot communicate back verbally. Having an animal
that you know will protect you without acting you in the crossfire guarantees the safety
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of the owner. People do not understand these convicted breeds as well as they think
they understand some of the more mild breeds of dogs. They rather not do the critical
thinking and research to understand the dogs nature, so they result in accepting the
stereotype.
Instead of looking at this case as a loss cause, lets find different ways to try and
help give these animals a better chance to clear their reputation. More accountability
needs to be put on the owners of these dogs. At the end of the day, these dogs are
considered privately owned property and if there is a problem being cause by the dog
the owner should suffer the consequences.
“Perhaps the easiest and most effective way to protect people from dog attacks
is to create and enforce laws requiring the appropriate containment of all dogs,
regardless of breed. These laws should prohibit unsupervised dogs from
roaming freely. Dogs would have to be enclosed or properly supervised on an
owner's property and leashed when off the property, unless in a designated dog
run or play area. This type of law would avoid breed discrimination, while putting
the onus for dog bite prevention on the animal's owner-where it belongs”
(Burstein 327).
If any issues come out of this kind of system, mainly speaking of attacks, then the
owner would be required to handle any hospital fees, as they are completely liable.
This works well for the communities that these dogs live in and helps avoid
discrimination of particular dog breeds. Equality for all dogs and all dog owners is the
goal in the long run. In place of states using breed-specific legislation regulations, a
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requirement for all dogs of the feared breeds could be (1) state registration to allow
everyone to be aware of the dogs and (2) dog training school as well. With all of these
dogs being officially trained by the state, they will be more obedient, lowering the
danger of them attacking people.
The debate between whether these restrictions should be lifted or not will always
keep coming up due to the rights of the dogs and the controversy of their negative
reputation. Breed-specific laws are singling out a minority in the dog community and it
has been proven that there has not been a promising decrease in places where these
rules are being put in play. Dogs will be dogs; they bite because that’s all they can do.
Rather than enforcing prejudice because of their status, actively work toward equal
rights for all dogs and apply the necessary action to make sure they do not attack
anyone. These animals are like children; they just need to be taught right from wrong.
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Works Cited
Burstein, Devin. “Breed Specific Legislation: Unfair Prejudice & Ineffective Policy.”
Web. 11 October 2015.
Campbell, Dana M. “Pit Bull Bans: The State of Breed-Specific Legislation.” Web. 11
October 2015.
Collier, Stephen. “Breed-specific legislation and the pit bull terrier: Are the laws
justified?” Journal of Veterinary Behavior 1, 17-22. Elsevier Inc., 2006. Web. 9
October 2015.
Grey, Karyn. “Breed-Specific Legislation Revisited: Canine Racism or the Answer to
Florida’s Dog Control Problems?” Web. 11 October 2015.
Ott, Stefanie A. “Is there a difference? Comparison of gold retrievers and dogs affected
by breed-specific legislation regarding aggressive behavior.” Journal of Veterinary
Behavior 3, 134-140. Elsevier Inc., 2008. Web. 9 October 2015.
Schalke, Esther. “Is breed-specific legislation justified? Study of the results of the
temperament test of Lower Saxony.” Journal of Veterinary Behavior 3, 97-103.
Elsevier Inc., 2008. Web. 9 October 2015.
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Voith, Victoria L. “Comparison of Visual and DNA Breed Identification of Dogs and
Inter-Observer Reliability.” American Journal of Sociological Research 3(2): 17-29.
Scientific & Academic Publishing, 2013. Web. 11 October 2015.
“Banning The Pit Bull: Why Breed-Specific Legislation Is Constitutional.” Web. 11
October 2015.