|
Breed Specific Legislation
by Steve Stone
In the United States, a vast but shadowy subculture of dog
owners thrives, living in an underworld invisible to
responsible pet owners and show-goers. For many decades the
inhabitants of this subculture have been looking for the ideal
"junk yard dog," a large ferocious beast that seems
a major threat if not an actual menace. Equally faddish as the
visible world of dogs, this underworld moves from breed to
breed in its search of the canine suited to its warped dreams.
Years ago, the first I knew of these people, they were
"into" German Shepherds where they stayed for about
fifteen years before moving into Dobermans. After that they
got hold of Collies and Saint Bernards.
After a period of foundering, they conceived the notion of
moving into Pitbulls.
Their modus operandi is always the same: First their top
echelon buys "pet quality" pups from legitimate but
novice breeders or obtain adults from animal rescue stations
since pedigrees and registrations meaning nothing to them.
They keep the animals chained or cooped up in back of the
house and breed father to daughter, mother to son, sister to
brother, with complete disregard. The first litters sell for
seventy-five dollars per pup, but the next generation sells
for fifty dollars, and the generations after that for thirty
or thirty-five. Bitches are bred on every heat and shotgunned
when they have whelping problems or become infertile. Usually
three or four generations of such breeding suffices to
guarantee that most of the specimens are atypical in the
extreme, including temperament.
These unfortunate creatures are not fed correctly and
receive little or no veterinary care. They are encouraged to
behave savagely and even to attack on command. Of course such
"training" borders upon the barbaric and serves only
to destabilize an already iffy specimen.
When the underworld people got into Shepherds and Dobermans
and Collies and Saint Bernards, they managed nearly to ruin
those breeds . But when they got hold of Pitbulls, they got
more, much more, than they had bargained for.
Pitbulls proved a lead-pipe cinch for the subculture to
ruin in record time because their temperament, originally
sound, is easy to spoil. It does not require physical abuse or
maltreatment but nothing more than indifference from the
owners and isolation from human love and companionship, an
existence without human affection for long periods of time.
The result: a vicious dog in the original sense of that term.
A Pitbull, even with a spoiled temperament, remains the
most athletic and strongest canine, pound-for-pound, in
existence, capable of almost unimaginable feats of power,
endurance, and tenacity, feats far beyond the capacity of most
mortal dogs.
When uncaring owners allowed such Pitbulls to roam free or
get free, some of them did indeed commit social atrocities,
that's true. But these were not well-bred dogs owned and
raised and cared for by responsible citizens. Rather, they
were canine sociopaths manufactured to design by that shadowy
subculture, reflecting as though from a mirror its moral and
ethical bankruptcy.
In response, the national media began its typical
shark-feeding frenzy, its reportage always superficial, always
error-prone, always sensationalized. And the duped public
reacted predictably.
When I arrived in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1969, there was not a
Pitbull in the city. In 1988, frightened owners turned in more
than 400 Pitbulls to the Omaha Animal Shelter to be destroyed
humanely -- but an estimated two thousand more were not turned
in.
Now, in 1996, the "Pitbull menace" is long gone -
it's over, kaput - and has been for five years or more
although its image lingers on public memory.
The shadowy subculture has moved on and is in the process
of ruining yet another breed.
It's moved into Rottweilers.
Steve Stone
|