INDIANAPOLIS––Indianapolis city/county councilmember Mike Speedy on April 24, 2009 introduced an ordi-nance to make Indianapolis the biggest city in the U.S. to man-date sterilizing pit bull terriers.

The introduction comes three years after a breed-spe-cific ordinance proposed by another Indianapolis councillor metintense opposition. Her ordinance was watered down into aconventional dangerous dog law, providing penalities of only$50 for the first violation and $100 for the second, withimpoundment coming only on third offense.

“An Indianapolis Star review of dog bite data for2008 revealed that pit bull bites soared 33% from the previousyear and were three times higher than in 2006. Pit bulls alsoaccount for more bites and more severe bites than any otherbreed,” reported Heather Gillers of the Star.

Speedy took up the issue after constituent BrendaHill, 68, was severely mauled in her own yard in January 2009by two pit bulls who escaped from a neighbor. Though Hillsurvived, the attack followed a familiar pattern: an analysis of88 U.S. pit bull fatalities by DogsBite.org founder ColleenLynn, all occurring in 2006-2008, found that pit bulls are fourtimes more likely to kill a person off the premises where thedogs live than all other dog breeds combined.

The 2006 political antagonists are again mobilized.Mauled by a pit bull in 1992, Caress Garten of Indianapoliswrote a book inspired by her experience, In Defense ofInnocents, and has advocated for dog attack victims ever since.Opposing breed-specific legislation are––among others––Humane Society of Indianapolis executive director JohnAleshire and Indy Pit Crew founder Cynthia Morgan.

Speedy perceived, he told ANIMAL PEOPLE, that“This issue will not be decided by human interests. This issuewill be resolved by concern about the dogs.”

Before introducing his bill, Speedy consulted othervoices within the large and often polarized Indianapolis humanecommunity. Speedy won the support of Foundation AgainstCompanion Animal Euthanasia founders Scott and EllenRobinson, who are respectively an emergency room physicianand the director of a low-cost dog and cat sterilization clinicknown worldwide for high output and a record-setting low rateof surgical complication. Speedy also won the backing ofHumane Society of the U.S. regional representative DesireeBender, who founded Where Angels Run, a pit bull shelter inArkansas. Speedy incorporated their input into his bill, whichhe calls the At Risk Dog Proposal.

“The At Risk Dog proposal is designed to protectpeople from devastating dog bites and pit bull breeds fromabuse,” said Speedy. “Additionally, it requires more humane

treatment for all dogs, such as prohibiting direct point chain-ing. It introduces higher fines for violations with unaltereddogs, and requires that all dogs and cats leaving the Indiana-polis Animal Care & Control shelter be spayed or neutered.

“Pit bull advocates have been giving their all for thelast 10 years to pit bull specific spay/neuter, adoption, out-reach and training programs with little progress,” Speedy toldan April 24, 2009 press conference held outside Brenda Hill’shome. “It is time that we admit, as a community, that theyneed legislative help,” Speedy said. “They are unable toachieve the needed results solely by voluntary programs. Andas I have come to learn, pit bull-type dogs deserve laws thatprovide them with extra protection.”

The Speedy bill is similar to ordinances recentlyadopted in Omaha, Little Rock, and San Francisco. TheOmaha ordinance has only been in effect for six months, butthe Little Rock ordinance has cut pit bull bite incidents in half,animal services director Tracy Roark told WTHR EyewitnessNews. “There was a day when you could walk down any streetin central Little Rock and see several pit bulls chained up. Youdon’t see that anymore,” Roark said.

The San Francisco ordinance took effect in January2006. “In the two and a half after the law went into effect, 23%fewer pit bulls were impounded and 33% fewer were eutha-nized than in the 2.5 years prior to the law,” San FranciscoDepartment of Animal Care & Control acting director RebeccaKatz told ANIMAL PEOPLE.

Nationally, pit bulls have risen from under 1% of theU.S. dog population through the first 85 years of the 20th centu-ry, and 5% of shelter admissions when the first breed-specificsurveys of shelter dogs were done in the late 1980s, to about5% of the dogs, 25% of shelter admissions, and 50% of shelterdog killing since 2000. Among the U.S. pit bull population ofabout 3.5 million, about a third per year enter shelters, com-pared with about 5% of the dogs of all other breeds combined.About one million pit bulls per year are killed in shelters.

Dogfighting has leaped fromnear extinction as recently as 1990, withjust a few remaining strongholds reportedin the South, to more prominence than atany time since the rise of the U.S.humane movement in the mid-19th centu-ry. And pit bulls have accounted for halfor more of all fatal and disfiguring dogattacks in at least 27 consecutive years.

Older legislation seeking to cur-tail the problems associated with pit bullshas typically just banned keeping pit

bulls––sometimes with loopholes based on hair-splitting dis-tinctions among pits and closely related breeds.

Where strict pit bull bans have been enforced, forexample in Denver for all but 15 months of the past 21 years,they have producd markedly lower numbers of pit bull bites,fatalities, impoundments, shelter killing, and arrests for dog-fighting. Denver appears to be the only major U.S. city wherepit bulls consistently account for less than 5% or even less than10% of dog impounds.

The Cincinnati city council on March 25, 2009 rein-forced a pit bull ban in effect since November 2003 by provid-ing that anyone convicted of keeping, breeding, selling ortransferring ownership of a pit bull in any way, except throughsurrender to an animal shelter, may be sentenced to serve up tosix months in jail, twice the previous maximum penalty of 90days. “The changes apply to any dog owner not grandfatheredin when the pit bull ban went into effect in November 2003,”wrote Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Jane Prendergast.

Many Ohio cities enacted pit bull bans of varyingstrength circa 20 years ago, after the state had four fatal pit bullattacks in 1986-1988. Since then, Ohio has had only two moredog attack fatalities, both by pit bulls, and one of those, in1993, resulted in the dog owner being convicted of murder.

Opponents of breed bans and other breed-specific leg-islation have repeatedly tried to overturn them on constitutionalgrounds. However, the U.S. Supreme Court in February 2008upheld the constitutionality of breed-specific dog regulation byrefusing to hear an appeal of a case against the Toledo ordi-nance. The Toledo ordinance limits possession of pit bull terri-ers to one per person, and requires that pit bulls be muzzledwhen off their home property.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in favor of Toledo inAugust 2007. The Ohio Supreme Court verdict followed othercourt decisions upholding breed-specific legislation inArkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, NewMexico, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.

INDIANAPOLIS––An onlinepoll conducted by WTHR-TV found69% community support for councilmember Mike Speedy’s proposed AtRisk Dogs ordinance, against 26%opposition and 5% undecided.

The ordinance would requiresterilizing pit bull terriers.

“1,988 people participated.With all of the critical comments on thestories from pit bull fans, I’m surprisedso many voted in favor. Keep in mindour poll is not scientific, meaning itwould be easy to skew with coordinatedeffort,” said Sara Galer of WTHR.

ANIMAL PEOPLE findingssuggest that the WTHR results are actu-ally close to residual public opinionnationwide, and are unique chiefly inattracting enough input to overcomeattempts to skew it.

Uncontrolled online surveyssimilar to the WTHR poll often followlocal reportage of dog attack fatalitiesand disfigurements, about 75% of whichare inflicted by pit bulls and Rottweilers.Monitoring such surveys, ANIMALPEOPLE has observed that the initialresponse usually skews heavily in favorof breed-specific legislation, but afterthe first few dozen votes are recorded,input tips abruptly the other way––unless the poll is quickly closed.Organized response tends to comechiefly from opponents of breed-specificlegislation, but dog attack victims andtheir families sometimes try to rallycounter-response.

ANIMAL PEOPLE won-dered if the usual early poll tilt in favorof breed-specific legislation reflectedresidual opinion, likely to be found inany survey at any time, or just reactionto local incidents. Finding a definitiveanswer might require polling thousands.But a tightly controlled small survey ofpeople from places where there have notbeen recent pit bull attacks or legislativedebate might provide clues.

ANIMAL PEOPLE surveyedseveral dozen volunteers from amongthe membership of two professionalsocieties having no direct involvementwith animal issues. The volunteers werenot told in advance what they would beasked about. They were asked only

three basic questions, but membershipdirectory information permitted trackingmany biographical variables.

Except for having more formaleducation than most Americans, therespondents in composite mirrored U.S.demographic norms, including in urban/rural balance, geographic distribution,income range, and response from visibleminorities. More men responded thanwomen, reflective of the membership ofthe societies, so proportional weightingwas used to achieve gender balance.

68%, including 71% of themen and 62% of the women, agreed thatthey would prefer not to live next door toa pit bull. 28%––29% of the men butonly 21% of the women––did not objectto living next door to a pit bull.

Four percent of the respon-dents had a pit bull, about equal to therate of keeping pit bulls in the generalpopulation. 76% of respondents hadpets, far above the U.S. norm of 57%;24% had children, all of whom also hadpets; 24% had neither pets nor children.

No men were undecided aboutliving next to a pit bull, but 18% of thewomen were undecided, all of whomhad pets but no children living at home.

Among all respondents withpets, 69% would prefer not to live nextdoor to a pit bull. Among all respon-dents with children at home, 80% wouldprefer not to live next door to a pit bull.Among all respondents who had everhad children, 86% would prefer not tolive next door to a pit bull.

CATHOLIC CONCERN FOR ANIMALS

began in 1929 in the UK.

We now have a

branch in the USA.

www.catholic-animals.org973-694-5155

P.O. Box 266, Wayne, NJ 07474

8 - ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2009

Indianapolis considers requiring pit bulls to be sterilized

Living next door to a pit bull