Breed-Specific Dog Laws: Moving the United States Away from an Anti-Pit Bull Mentality
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Breed-Specific Dog Laws: Moving the United States Away
from an Anti-Pit Bull Mentality 159
BREED-SPECIFIC DOG LAWS:
MOVING THE UNITED STATES AWAY FROM
AN ANTI-PIT BULL MENTALITY
PAIGE RIEM
I. INTRODUCTION
a. Issue Addressed
While laws and attitudes have progressed overtime regarding
many issues of animal welfare, some issues still have a long way to go.
One issue that is pervasive in society today is the negative connotation
surrounding the dog breed known as the Pit Bull. The term Pit Bull
actually denotes three different dog breeds, which are the American
Staffordshire Terrier, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and the American
Pit Bull.' Society tends to place all of these dogs into the Pit Bull
category, and they are often labeled as inherently vicious killers that
could attack at any moment and are bred for fighting.2 Pit Bulls have
been described as dogs that attack[] without a bark or any warning,
ha[ve] a high threshold of pain, and usually will not quit [a] fight
voluntarily.3
This reputation has been facilitated by negative media portrayal
and false information, which has elicited fear in some humans. Statistics
regarding dog bites that are shared in the media are also commonly
misleading, based on the fact that there are actually several dog breeds
placed into the Pit Bull category.4 This means the amount of dog
bites by Pit Bulls is skewed since the dog bites are not correlated to the
individual breeds responsible. Highly-publicized dog-bite injury and
death cases, as well as gruesome dog-fighting competition incidents,
have also aided in the destruction of the Pit Bull's character.
Some cities have chosen to deal with their Pit Bull problem by
implementing breed-specific dog laws that ban or restrict the keeping
of a dog based solely on its breed. The pertinent issues that arise in the
I Safia Gray Hussain, Attacking the Dog-Bite Epidemic: Why Breed-Specific
Legislation Won't Solve the Dangerous-Dog Dilemma, 74 FORDHAM L. REV. 2847,
2851 (2006).
2 Russell G. Donaldson, Annotation, Validity and Construction of Statute,
Ordinance, or Regulation Applying to Specific Dog Breeds, Such as Pit Bulls or Bull
Terriers, 80 A.L.R. 4th 70 (1990).
3 Gregg Neal, Pit Bull Dog Attack Litigation, 33 Am. JUR. TRIALS 4, 7 (1986).
4 Hussain, supra note 1, at 2870.
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Breed-Specific Dog Laws: Moving the United States Away from an Anti-Pit Bull Mentality
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