Castle Rock “pit bull” ban was a failed policy
The town of Castle Rock recently repealed it’s 25-year old breed discriminatory “pit bull” ban, replacing it with a safety-focused two-tiered breed-neutral ordinance that focuses on the behavior of every dog and owner in the community. It’s the latest municipality to stand up for the property rights of responsible dog owners by rejecting this failed approach to regulation.
It goes without saying that we all share the same goal of a safe and humane community. That’s why organizations like Best Friends Animal Society, along with tens of thousands of individual advocates throughout the state and country, work so hard to fight against failed policies like breed discrimination and for proven solutions like breed-neutral ordinances that focus on the behavior of dogs and owners alike. It’s also why law enforcement, like the Castle Rock police department and town attorney supported the recent effort; they know that breed discriminatory laws are the wrong approach to keeping residents safe from dangerous dogs.
We do this because we know that scapegoating and fear-mongering are not an acceptable basis for making policy and because breed-discriminatory laws, like the one that was just replaced in Castle Rock, have been shown, time and again, to be totally ineffective at improving public safety.
What these laws do accomplish, sadly, is to tear loving families apart and to overwhelm our municipal shelters with great dogs that don’t belong there in the first place. Removing a family pet because of misguided preconceptions and because of its appearance is the wrong approach.
The simple truth is that these breed specific and discriminatory laws are based on fears and misconceptions about certain breeds of dog and their supposed propensity for certain behavioral traits. This thinking simply does not comport with the field of animal behavior. The experts have consistently found that breed is not a reliable factor in determining a dog’s behavior.
If you look at studies in a number of countries with breed-discriminatory laws, they show that breed is not a factor in the frequency of dog bites. These findings are consistent in every peer-reviewed research paper that has examined the issue.
Besides being completely ineffective, concerns about due process violations and the infringement on our property rights has led organizations like the American Bar Association (ABA), the National Animal Care and Control Association (NACA), the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and Best Friends Animal Society to reject breed discrimination and to support breed-neutral, behavior-based laws.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), based on its study of human fatalities from dog bites, also promotes a breed-neutral approach to legislation. The CDC found that many other factors, besides a dog’s breed, such as reproductive status, heredity, sex, early experiences, socialization and training, can affect the likelihood that a dog may bite someone.
As a result, more and more communities are rejecting outdated breed discriminatory policies and laws and enacting comprehensive breed-neutral ordinances that focus on ensuring the proper behavior of both dogs and owners. This is the proven, results-driven approach that will help improve public safety in Castle Rock.
Finally, polling has found that 84% of Coloradans stand against breed discriminatory legislation, believing that the government should not tell responsible owners what kind of dog they can love and own. This was born out in Castle Rock, where the overwhelming majority of residents attending the various town council meetings and open houses spoke in favor of the breed-neutral law and against breed discrimination.
This overwhelming public support, coupled with the scientific consensus, is why twenty-one states and counting have prohibited breed discrimination.
The science on this is settled. It’s time to take a sober look at the data and to listen to the experts. Let’s stop punishing family pets and the responsible people that love them.
Castle Rock was right to remove its ineffective and discriminatory ordinance. We applaud the town for taking this step and urge the Denver city council and the six other Colorado municipalities that maintain these discriminatory laws to follow suit.