By John N. Quick of the MH Animal Care Center Many people living
in Morgan Hill do not remember, or were not here when a
two-year-old child was killed by a pit bull in the 1980s. This
occurred on Wright Ave., at a house that was shared by two tenants,
one of whom bred pit bulls for fighting purposes.
By John N. Quick of the MH Animal Care Center
Many people living in Morgan Hill do not remember, or were not here when a two-year-old child was killed by a pit bull in the 1980s. This occurred on Wright Ave., at a house that was shared by two tenants, one of whom bred pit bulls for fighting purposes. The two-year-old child wandered into the dog’s reach and was used like a chew toy. The owner of the dog was charged with, and convicted of, manslaughter and went to jail for approximately 12 years. It was a well-deserved sentence.
At the time of this incident there was a hue and cry for “outlawing pit bulls,” as well as other aggressive breeds of dog. There are, however, several problems with blanket condemnation and litigation based on breeds and/or aggressive tendencies. As a veterinarian, I have been bitten more often by chihuahuas than any other breed. Shall we outlaw this “aggressive breed”? Just behind those little dogs come the cocker spaniels in bite frequency. Shall we outlaw them? The fact is, aggression can occur more frequently in some breeds than in others, but aggression can be filtered for, and trained, or conditioned against. It can also be selectively bred against.
There are many types of aggression in pet animals: fear, dominance, food and others. In the case of most aggressive dogs, there is a tendency towards aggression that goes unchecked for one of several reasons:
1) Owner ignorance of training and conditioning techniques;
2) Owner desire for aggression for “protection” or ego (the macho syndrome);
3) Breeding to achieve aggression – for protection animals such as police and junkyard dogs, this is considered desirable;
4) Owner denial of the problem, including being unwilling to euthanize an aggressive animal;
5) Owners thinking it is “cute” when little FIDO (FIghting DOg) scares their friends and family.
There are plenty of other reasons, but you can get the idea that most of this is preventable. It is!
We can breed and train away from aggression. Educating the public is the first step in this process. Legislating against aggressive behavior is the other step – and Morgan Hill has already done this.
The act of outlawing breeds is misdirected and futile. Misdirected because of the training and selection cures for the problem; futile for the following reason: The letter of the law requires a high level of proof to be able to take a citizen’s property (such as an animal). The “beyond a reasonable do-ubt” feature of our justice system applies here.
There are no absolute and scientific ways to determine that a pit bull is a pit bull. There is no genetic marker. An animal that looks like a wolf could easily be a German shepherd. An animal that looks like a pit bull could easily be a boxer or a cross-breed (most pit bulls are). A single litter of pups can have multiple fathers. In the end, the breed of such dogs is what the owner declares it is. If we outlaw “pit bulls,” or otherwise create restrictive legislation against them, the owners can simply call them something else – and no one can prove them wrong! This has been done before very successfully with wolf hybrid dogs. There is a precedent that has worked very well in the past.
What then, is the solution? From a human perspective, it is education, pet selection and training of owners and animals to limit aggression in owned dogs. Legislatively, it is what Morgan Hill already did almost 20 years ago.
When the tragic death of that two-year-old boy occurred here in the 80’s, there was justifiable outrage and a cry for justice and prevention. Some well intentioned, but misguided souls called for “outlawing pit bulls and other aggressive breeds.” To address the problem, the City Council appointed several citizens to a committee to formulate a legal approach to controlling animal aggression toward humans and other animals.
I had the honor to serve on that committee. We brought in a world renowned animal behaviorist who was a personal friend of mine. With his help and guidance, we presented a model law to control aggressive behavior in animals that still stands out as one of the best in the entire country.
The Morgan Hill Vicious Animal Ordinance addresses the behavior of aggressive animals and has well-defined parameters for determining what that is. There is no need for defining breeds when it is behavior that is a problem. It would be comparable to saying because there is a higher crime rate among people of color, we should outlaw people of color. That is obviously the pinnacle of idiocy.
It is the behavior that needs to be controlled. It is the behavior which can be easily defined and identified. We were one of the first cities in the country to do that. Morgan Hill has a model law for the control of animal aggression. Familiarize yourself with this law by reading it. Then you will be able to ask our law enforcement officers to use it. Other cities and towns could simply copy and modify our law for their local needs and variations. We helped to create this wheel. It has created a safer environment in our town where bad behavior can be, and is, addressed. All we have to do is apply the energy through knowledge and communication to make it roll.
