Florida bill would let cities and counties ban pit bulls, ot

Bill would let Florida cities and counties ban pit bulls, other dog breeds
By Josh Hafenbrack | Tallahassee Bureau
March 16, 2008
TALLAHASSEE - In Edna Elijah's Lauderdale Manors neighborhood, the growing population of pit bulls has her so jittery she often carries a stick for protection during strolls.

She and her neighbors fret that one day a brawny pit bull might attack a child waiting at a bus stop or riding a bike.

"Who's to say when one of those dogs are unattended what they'll do?" said Elijah, president of her Fort Lauderdale neighborhood's homeowners association. "Those dogs are deadly. They can kill."
Sparked by such fears and a spate of pit bull attacks in recent years, state Rep. Perry Thurston, D-Plantation, is leading an effort in the Legislature to authorize cities and counties to target dangerous breeds of dogs with tighter controls or even bans.

The bill (HB101) would reverse an 18-year-old state prohibition on "breed-specific" local regulations on dogs. But it has attracted a firestorm of opposition on the Internet, with critics saying it stigmatizes some breeds whose negligent owners are to blame for attacks.

Politicians from Broward and Palm Beach counties say that if given the authority, they'd attempt to ban dangerous dogs — pit bulls in particular — or keep them away from public places. Pit bulls and pit bull mixes account for nearly a third of reported dog bites in both counties.

"This ain't the regular family pet," Thurston said. "I don't think we put our heads in the sand and pretend there's not a problem."

Word of the bill has spread across the blogosphere, with lovers of big dogs sounding the alarm that the law could affect not only pit bulls, but any other breed that local officials deemed a threat to safety.

More than 1,000 people put their names on an online petition to stop the bill, with dog owners from Florida to France writing testimonials about beloved canines that they fear could be subject to tighter regulations or bans. Critics raise the specter of an animal-control officer knocking on a dog owner's door, taking away the pet and euthanizing it.

"That could mean YOUR dog," one flier, distributed via e-mail, warns.

Fort Lauderdale's Helen Schwarzmann, of the Florida Doberman Pinscher Rescue Ring, started a blog on her group's Web site to try to derail the bill. Thurston's move to target certain breeds places the blame on the dogs, she said, instead of where it should be: their owners.

"Any breed can go out and do bad things," Schwarzmann said, noting that Labrador retrievers, the most popular breed in America, rank near the top in reported cases of dog bites in South Florida.

Thurston countered that, compared to other breeds, pit bulls can cause much more serious injury to people and other animals.

"Someone said to me, 'A Chihuahua can attack you,'" Thurston said. "The difference is a pit bull who latches on to you and holds, that's a different type of injury."

Thurston's bill faces long odds to become law, at least during this 60-day legislative session. The bill lacks a sponsor in the Senate, which under the Legislature's procedures makes passage unlikely. Still, Thurston said the effort has gotten a lot of publicity — opponents of the measure fill up his office's e-mail inbox every week— and he's working to get a hearing in the House.

Miami-Dade County is the only county in Florida with a ban on pit bulls. The county imposed the rule in 1989, a move that sparked the state ban on breed-specific regulations a year later. Miami-Dade's pit bull ban was grandfathered in as an exception.

Fort Lauderdale officials for years have sought to ban dangerous dogs, at least in public places such as the beach. Mayor Jim Naugle said the bill would give his city more flexibility to take measures against aggressive breeds — requiring pit bulls to be muzzled in public, for example.

Palm Beach County Commission Chairwoman Addie Greene was even blunter, saying she views a pit bull ban as an "excellent solution" to what she sees as a growing safety issue, fueled in part by unscrupulous owners who raise pit bulls to fight.

"The people who abuse these animals, like the Michael Vicks, they're the ones causing people to feel this way," said Greene, referring to the former National Football League quarterback sentenced to prison for financing a dog-fighting ring. "You can't pick out the good owners from the bad owners."

In 2007, there were 440 reported incidents in which pit bulls and pit bull mixes bit people in Broward and Palm Beach counties, according to the counties' animal-control departments. Yet, animal-control officials don't support a ban on specific breeds, saying such regulations would be difficult to enforce and misguided in placing the blame on the dogs.

Josh Hafenbrack can be reached at jhafenbrack@sun-sentinel.com or 850-224-6214.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flfdogs0316sbmar16,0,5383486.story