Supplemental Correspondence

Calls to regulate pit bulls in Pasadena date back to July 2007, when three people were attacked on the city's NE side. Six and a half years after those attacks Pasadena City Council met (on Jan 27, 2014) to receive public input on a proposal to spay and neuter pit bulls in Pasadena.

The proposal was a modest effort, little more than a city-sanctioned version of what shelters and animal welfare groups across the country already voluntarily do. The City Council had six-and-a-half years to prepare for this night but they had almost no idea of the tsunami of advocacy that was about to overwhelm them.

Over 60 people spoke at the meeting, which dragged on until nearly midnight. Advocates submitted over 350 pages of testimony, most of it downloaded from pit bull advocacy sites on the internet. Marla Tauscher, an attorney who may have been hired by Josh Liddy, submitted over 50 pages of copied web pages and appeared to be the most prolific copier.  Then we discovered the files submitted by Garland Juarez, the Executive Director of his own pit bull registration agency. Juarez submitted an astounding one hundred and one xerox pages.

Many of these advocates simply repeat the assertions that echo across the blogosphere: that BSL is discriminatory, that it is expensive and ineffective. Numerous advocates refer to the ATTS test, which purportedly proves that pit bulls are less aggressive than Chihuahuas or Dachshunds, and nearly all of the advocates mention how sweet their dogs are.

We have excerpted a few representative examples of advocates' comments, and offer our responses below.

* * * * *

A comment by Jo Lohr claimed that pit bulls are not among the most common biters.

SRUV Reply:  BSL was never intended to stop the thousands of minor bites and abrasions from countless dog bites. BSL is intended to reduce the number of maulings which result in grievous bodily harm and fatalities. The important statistic is not the number of bites that a specific breed or type of dog commits; the important statistic is the actuarial value of the attacks. How many people suffer amputations or other disfigurements as a result of bites from a Dachshund or Golden Retriever?

Ms Lohr instructs us to Do Your Research! and Really do your homework! This is the angry, arrogant language that is too often found in pit bull advocacy comments. If advocates of fighting breeds want to be taken seriously they must learn how to conduct a civil exchange and must learn not to talk down to their opponents.

* * * * *

Judith Brecka, the Legislative Liaison of the Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club of America (SBTCA) addressed a lengthy letter to the Mayor and Council on January 27, 2014, the day of the meeting.

SRUV Reply: Ms Brecka's letter begins with the threat of economic boycott by her club's 400 members. She imagines the Pasadena police disrupting an AKC sanctioned dog show or competition. She blunders on about the necessity of traveling with registration papers. She pens a wildly incoherent paragraph about a dog's registration papers being private papers. And astonishingly, she claims there has not been one recorded bite from a Staffordshire Bull Terrier in the United States. If readers believe this they may also believe that pit bulls are Nanny Dogs (another fantasy that originated with the SBTCA). ¹

* * * * *

Marina Baktis wrote: Any large breed dog can injure or kill someone if not properly socialized and trained. In the past German Shepherds, Rottweilers and Doberman Pinschers have been similarly demonized.

SRUV Reply:  This argument begs the question of which dog breed really is more dangerous. Yes, Dobermans may have enjoyed their moment as most feared canine, as have GSDs and Rottweilers. But all the fear and publicity and posturing aside, which dog really is more dangerous? It isn't even close. While Dobermans may be intimidating they've killed only 7 humans in the last 30 years while pit bulls have killed 257; Dobermans just weren't bred for killing. GSDs have killed 15 humans in 30 years (in the low 20s if counting crossbred GSDs) and Rottweilers have killed in the low 80s in the last thirty years. This isn't an argument worth having.

* * * * *

Vicky Kimball (and dozens of other advocate respondents) believes that dog attacks are a "Human" problem, not a specific "Breed" problem.

SRUV Reply:  Pit bull advocates never tire of claiming that The Problem is at the other end of the leash.  And yet these same advocates fail to acknowledge the many attacks attributed to much loved, fully socialized pit bulls which have never before shown signs of aggression. Jeremiah and Angela Rutledge lived with their pit bull Kissy-Face for eight years and there was never any indication the dog was a threat, until the the pit bull suddenly killed their two-year-old son Beau. Vicky Kimball and other advocates may claim that the Rutledge's were not responsible dog owners. She should tell that to Ms Rutledge.

* * * * * 

We could add 50 similar paragraphs, but will not try our reader's (or our own) patience.

* * * * *

Notes:
¹ The Nanny Dog Myth Revealed, by Dawn James


Sources:
A Pound of Prevention
   Pasadena Weekly, Jan 30, 2014
Pasadena's pit bull fight should result in spay and neuter law
   San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Jan 30, 2014
The Wrong Tree
   Pasadena Weekly, Jan 29, 2014
Police fatally shoot pit bull after attack on bicyclist
    Pasadena Star-News; Jan 29, 2014
Pasadena Council tables pit bull issue
    Pasadena Star-News, Jan 28, 2014
Pasadena Council postpones vote on pit bull ordinance
    89.3 KPCC; Jan 28, 2014
Pasadena Council to consider pit bull spay/neuter ordinance
    Pasadena Star-News, Jan 27, 2014
Council to consider ordinance requiring pit bulls be spayed or neutered
    89.3 KPCC, Jan 27, 2014
Pasadena debates banning pit bulls; better to spay and neuter
   San Gabriel Valley Tribune, December 13, 2013
Council Bites Back
   Pasadena Weekly, November 27, 2013
Fighting the Truth
   Pasadena Weekly, November 26, 2013 (by John Grula)
A Matter of Time
   Pasadena Weekly, October 16, 2013 (by John Grula)
A Breed Apart
   Pasadena Weekly, Oct 9, 2013
Neutering, spaying is the right thing to do

   Pasadena Sun, June 22, 2013

Pasadena considers spay-neuter requirement for dogs, cats

  Pasadena Sun, June 18, 2013

Pasadena mulls pit-bull ban

   Pasadena Sun, Oct 19, 2012

Snip Tuck
   Pasadena Weekly, April 9, 2008


Letters to City Council:
Letters to Pasadena City Council:
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 1
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 2
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 3
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 4
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 5
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 6
    Hand delivered Xerox materials from Marla Tauscher
      etc, etc, etc.
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 15

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks in the US

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Public Input

Suggestions for managing public input 
at city council meetings for Breed-Specific Legislation

Revised: February 17, 2014; 03:05 GMT
Revised: February 17, 2014; 17:57 GMT

Numerous communities have tried to pass Breed-Specific Legislation, only to have their efforts blocked by the overwhelming input of pit bull advocates. Even though these advocates are a minority of the constituency they corrupt the public process with their intimidating presence. They often hijack the public process and force the city to abandon its efforts to provide public safety legislation.

Pit bull advocates are often portrayed, by themselves and in the media, as “animal welfare activists.” This is a grossly inaccurate description. Many have never participated in any other animal welfare activity, such as efforts to improve the conditions of laying hens or prevent the impending extinction of polar bears. The activists who are so vociferous in support of pit bulls are mostly single purpose advocates of fighting breeds and should not be viewed as animal welfare advocates. Newspapers should be discouraged from generalizing and calling pit bull advocates “animal welfare advocates.”

The following six guidelines will allow both sides of the debate to present their viewpoints fairly and equally:

• Do not allow dogs to attend the public meeting. Advocates may claim that some pit bulls are “service dogs.” Use the policy adopted by the US Postal Service: Only dogs which are assisting blind or deaf people are allowed.

• Provide separate sign-in sheets (for BSL and against BSL) for those who would like to speak.

• Speakers must give their name and address on the sign-in sheet and introduce themselves the same way prior to speaking.

• Only residents may speak.  Do not allow proxy speakers. 

• Alternate speakers with opposing viewpoints. Conclude public testimony when all speakers on the shortest list have spoken. This method will insure that both groups are equally represented.

• Invite citizens who are not called upon to speak to leave a personal original statement. Accept only original statements (not copied materials) as the excessive amount of copied material quickly becomes unmanageable.

• Limit all speakers to three minutes. Equal time allows a fair hearing.

View or download in PDF format

* * * * *

Statistics:

32 years of logging fatal & disfiguring dog attacks
   Animals 24-7; September 27, 2014

Statistics quoted on SRUV are from the nation's authoritative source for current dog attack statistics, the 30+ year, continuously updated Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada.
View or download the current PDF

This page may also include information from Dogsbite and Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks

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AKC Self-Destructs

Revised:  February 11, 2014; 13:10 GMT
Revised:  February 13, 2014; 18:14 GMT

To: Sarah Sprouse, AKC Legislative Analyst
Cc: Bill Bogaard, Mayor of Pasadena
      Pasadena City Council
      Frank Pine, Managing Editor, Los Angeles News Group
      Jon Guynn, Publisher, The Pasadena Weekly
         and hundreds of respondents to city council


Your letter was among the hundreds recently received by the Pasadena City Council. We are writing to correct a number of misrepresentations and to comment on AKC spay/neuter policy.

Among the most common remarks received by the City Council is that Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) is ineffective. This unsupported assertion, which you make twice, is false. Both Miami-Dade and Denver passed BSL in 1987. Today they are perhaps the only major American cities that have not experienced any fatal pit bull attacks. Meanwhile, there have been 18 fatal pit bull attacks elsewhere in Florida, which remains unprotected by BSL. The truth is that BSL is effective in reducing fatal attacks wherever good legislation is passed and enforced.

You suggest that communities should "establish a well-defined procedure for dealing with dogs proven to be dangerous." The problem with responding to pit bull attacks ex post facto is that the first attack by a pit bull often causes grievous injury or permanent disfigurement. Of the five fatal pit bull attacks in California in calendar year 2013, the pit bulls in four of those attacks had not previously demonstrated aggression.

We note that your letter repeats the phrase Deeds, not breeds, should be addressed three times. The hypnotic repetition of this phrase is used with numbing regularity by pit bull advocates. This tiresome jingle has become meaningless propaganda and serves only to numb your readers.

Finally, the AKC policy against BSL is itself bewildering. Thirty years ago pit bulls represented only 1% of the canine population; they are now nearly as numerous as (perhaps more numerous than) Golden Retrievers or Labradors, two of the AKC's most registered breeds. To encourage unregulated back-yard breeding of pit bulls and pit bull mixes, as your policy does, does not benefit the AKC or the breeders you represent.

(Click on photo for additional images of Adopt Don't Shop)

The pit bull advocates you support with your letter are the same people who urge families to adopt or rescue a pit bull, rather than purchase a dog from an AKC breeder. It is impossible to understand why the AKC would support a policy which encourages back-yard breeders. According to John Homans,

Rescue dogs . . . have never been more popular, while the American Kennel Club, arbiter and protector of purebred dogs, has seen its membership and registrations drop for a decade or more. The AKC brand has been partly hollowed out.¹

Mandatory breed specific spay/neuter laws do not punish responsible owners, as you claim; responsible owners already have their dogs spayed or neutered.  It is self-evident to many of us that the primary effect of mandatory spay/neuter of pit bulls would be a decrease in the number of free and roaming pit bulls, the number of pit bulls in shelters, and consequently a decrease in the number of dogs euthanized. To imply that the spay/neuter campaign is punitive is irrational.

The AKC policy against breed specific spay/neuter laws is not in the interest of the American Kennel Club, its members, or our canine companions.


* * * * *

Notes:
¹ Op-Ed by John Homans, author of What's a Dog For
   LA Times, February 10, 2013


Sources:
A Pound of Prevention
   Pasadena Weekly, Jan 30, 2014
Pasadena's pit bull fight should result in spay and neuter law
   San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Jan 30, 2014
Police fatally shoot pit bull after attack on bicyclist
    Pasadena Star-News; Jan 29, 2014
Pasadena Council postpones vote on pit bull ordinance
    89.3 KPCC; Jan 28, 2014
Pasadena Council to consider pit bull spay/neuter ordinance
    Pasadena Star-News, Jan 27, 2014
Council to consider ordinance requiring pit bulls be spayed or neutered
    89.3 KPCC, Jan 27, 2014
Pasadena debates banning pit bulls; better to spay and neuter
   San Gabriel Valley Tribune, December 13, 2013
A Breed Apart
   Pasadena Weekly, Oct 9, 2013
Neutering, spaying is the right thing to do

   Pasadena Sun, June 22, 2013

Pasadena considers spay-neuter requirement for dogs, cats

  Pasadena Sun, June 18, 2013

Pasadena mulls pit-bull ban

   Pasadena Sun, Oct 19, 2012

Letters to City Council:
Letters to Pasadena City Council:
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 1
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 2
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 3
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 4
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 5
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 6
    hand delivered Xerox materials from Marla Tauscher
      etc, etc, etc.
    Supplemental Correspondence Part 15


Resources for Euthanasia & Shelter Killing:
Fewer animals killed, but pit bulls and Chihuahuas crowd shelters
    Animal People, July/August 2012
More adoptions will not end shelter killing of pit bulls
   Animal People, October 2011
Stop dogfighting by addressing supply-side economics
   Animal People, November 20, 2013
Shelter Killing Report, 2013



Statistics:
Statistics quoted on SRUV are from the 30+ year, continuously updated Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada, published by Animal People.
 View or download the current PDF

This page may also include information from Dogsbite and Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.


Shelter killing:
Shelter intake and euthanasia rates are published annually in the July/August edition of Animal People.
View or download the current PDF

Information on euthanasia rates is from Pit bulls and Political Recklessness, by Merritt Clifton.

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks in the US

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Like a Dog

Revised, links corrected:  April 27, 2014; 15:06 GMT
Revised: October 25, 2014; 20:25 GMT

To:
Debra Statz, Director
   The McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, Stanford University¹
Deborah Chasman, Joshua Cohen; Editors
   The Boston Review

On July 1, 2011, the Boston Review published Like a Dog by Colin Dayan. The article begins with a review of Serge Avedikian’s short film Barking Island, which won the 2010 Palme d’Or in the short film category.

The film depicts the 1910 effort by the new Turkish government to rid the city of street dogs. After listening to proposals offered by European experts (including the Pasteur Institute in Paris) the government simply rounded up 30,000 dogs and abandoned them on Oxia, an island in the Marmara.

by Thomas Azuélos, from the film Barking Island

Ms Dayan devotes two sentences in the middle of her article to the Armenian genocide, the subject at the heart of Avedikian's film. She then pivots to the subject closest to her heart: a catalog of sorrows about recent and, according to her, ongoing canine slaughters.

She mentions the March 2011 shooting of 10 dogs at the Chesterfield County Animal Shelter (SC).² She mentions the killing of a hundred sled dogs in Whistler Canada, after the 2010 Olympics. She saves the pièce de résistance for last:

And now, an estimated 40,000 dogs on the streets of the Romanian capital Bucharest face extermination if the country’s Chamber of Deputies approves a proposal to allow the euthanasia of stray dogs wandering in the city. Euthanasia is only one option. Marcela Pisla, president of the animal rights organization Cutu-Cutu, warns, “We have seen photographs as well as videos showing dogs being killed with metal bars, electrocuted and having their throats slashed.”

Ms Dayan was apparently unaware of Larry Portis's essay on Avedikian's film, which was published six months before her own essay. Portis writes eloquently about the art (by a young artist, Thomas Azuélos) and the cinematography (by Frédéric Tribolet); he also writes about the larger issue of human genocide the film is meant to evoke. Ms Dayan also neglects to inform the reader that Turkey has passed some of the world's most enlightened animal welfare legislation on a federal level, including a prohibition against killing homeless dogs. In 2004 Turkey passed additional federal legislation which mandates the use of neuter/return to control homeless dog populations. Local jurisdictions often fail to adhere to the legislation but animal advocates have been vigilant in reporting abuses.

The shooting at the Chesterfield County Animal Shelter occurred in March 2011, after the Chesterfield gas chamber was decommissioned and staff balked at using phenobarbital.

The 100 dogs killed in Whistler were raised as part of a tourist sledding business for the Olympics and were killed by the owner of the business. This was not a shelter or government sanctioned euthanasia. Ms Dayan fails to make the distinction.

The proposal to euthanize stray dogs in Bucharest was approved by the Chamber of Deputies in November 2013, but the European Union standards for euthanization apply.^{3, 4} Shock images have been released by animal activists from many countries, including the United States. Relatively few such images have been associated with Romania, where dogs were last purged on a large scale in 2001.

* * * * * 

It was different before, but now when we talk about euthanasia, especially in the US, we are talking about pit bulls.⁵ Shelter pit bull intake has soared from less than 1% of the dogs received to 37% in 2013, and from less than 2% of the dogs killed in shelters to nearly 60% of dogs killed.  Since the year 2000 shelters have received more than a million pit bulls per year and kill over 90% of them. Pit bull advocates were quiet on the subject of shelter killing until the majority of dogs killed were pit bulls.

We have allowed the number of surplus pit bulls to increase; we have even encouraged this growth. We have saturated the market of potential adopters, and the number of pit bull attacks on humans and on our companion animals continues to climb. In calendar year 2013 there was a fatal pit bull attack on a human every two weeks. Pit bulls maimed or permanently disfigured over 400 people. It's estimated that 31,000 domestic and companion animals were killed by dogs in 2013; 30,000 of those were killed by pit bulls.

There's a remedy for the slaughter of dogs in shelters, and for the pit bull attacks on humans and companion animals, but the advocates of fighting breeds and many in the humane movement steadfastly refuse to implement the remedy. In fact they often do their best to throw up obstacles to reform. The advocates for pit bulls are willing to spend (hold your breath, for this will sound fantastical to the uninitiated) millions of dollars to fight legislation which would mandate the neutering of pit bulls.

If we were to stop the breeding of surplus pit bulls the mass euthanasia of pit bulls would also stop. Shelter overcrowding and the pressure to adopt out pit bulls would disappear. There would be shelter space available for all the remaining dogs in need of it. Money spent on warehousing and euthanizing surplus pit bulls could be directed to other animal welfare needs.

Ms Dayan's article fails to inform us about the related problems of shelter crowding and euthanasia. She fails to mention the humane movement's self-inflicted tragedy of the mass euthanasia of dogs in shelters, most of which are pit bulls. The Boston Review has accomplished little by publishing Ms Dayan's article other than to raise the level of angry, often incomprehensible rhetoric on this already contentious issue.

The Editors

* * * * *
Notes:
¹ The Boston Review and The McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society share a publishing partnership.
² Ms Dayan's article was published before the County Sheriff ultimately fired four employees in August.
³ Stray Animal Control Practices (Europe)
⁴ The welfare basis for euthanasia of dogs and cats and policy development, by the International Fund for Animal Welfare
⁵ Pit bulls are the inescapable subtext of Ms Dayan's article. See image below.



Resources on Euthanasia & Sheltering:

Pit bulls and shelter bankruptcy
   by Alexandra Semyonova;  June 20, 2012 (published in 17 Barks)
Pit bulls were 32% of US shelter inventory in June 2014
   Animals 24-7, July 5, 2014
Stamford shelter manager is first in U.S. to be charged with reckless endangerment for rehoming dangerous dogs
   Animals 24-7, June 23, 2014
Fitchburg (MA) becomes third public shelter to suspend operations due to liability concerns about pit bulls
   Animals 24-7, June 18, 2014
Why do shelters with empty cages kill animals at night?
   Animals 24-7, June 13, 2014
Shelters sued for attacks by rehomed pit bulls
   Animals 24-7; May 15, 2014
We cannot adopt our way out of shelter killing
   Animals 24-7, March 12, 2014
Pit bulls and political recklessness
   Animals 24-7; September 16, 2012

Sources (Barking Island):
Serge Avedikian’s "Barking Island": Dog Slaughter as Overture to the Armenian Genocide
by Larry Portis
Divergences: Revue Libertaire Internationale en ligne, Jan 29, 2011

Chienne d'Histoire (BARKING ISLAND)
Festival de Cannes

Collaborating to Save 'Garbage Dogs' in Turkey
by Garo Alexanian
Animal People, Nov/Dec 2008; p4

Castaway dogs trouble Malaysian conscience (p 1)
Marooned dogs' howls echo in Turkey (p 16)
Animal People, June 2009



By Colin Dayan
(published in The Boston Review):

Dead Dogs: Breed bans, euthanasia, and preemptive justice
   Boston Review, March 01, 2010

Like a Dog
   Boston Review, July 01, 2011

Exterminate the Brutes
   Boston Review, May 8, 2012

Dogs are Not People
   Boston Review, Jan 23, 2014

Sources for Chesterfield County, SC:
[Notes:  SLED = State Law Enforcement Dept. The pages below are no longer available. SRUV will send text versions upon request]
       
SLED to look closer at Chesterfield dog shelter reports
   April 1, 2011; Charlotte Observer (NC)
Witness describes abuse and cruelty at Chesterfield animal shelter
   April 2, 2011; Charlotte Observer (NC)
County urged to help with animal issues
   April 4, 2011; Cheraw Chronicle & Advertiser (SC)
Animal Shelter probe near closure
   July 20, 2011; Cheraw Chronicle & Advertiser (SC)
Sheriff fires four animal control officers
   Aug 3, 2011; Cheraw Chronicle & Advertiser (SC)
South Carolina, Chesterfield County settle dog shootings
   Aug 3, 2011; The Associated Press
Attorney General: No criminal charges brought in shelter killings
   Aug 12, 2011; Cheraw Chronicle & Advertiser (SC)

Statistics:

32 years of logging fatal & disfiguring dog attacks
   Animals 24-7; September 27, 2014

Statistics quoted on SRUV are from the nation's authoritative source for current dog attack statistics, the 30+ year, continuously updated Dog attack deaths and maimings, U.S. & Canada.
View or download the current PDF

This page may also include information from Dogsbite and Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks

Colin Dayan (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Accessed Jan 15, 2014

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2000 - 2013

The Annotated Cultural Bibliography of Pit Bull Journalism

In six sections:

Introduction

1987 through 1989

The Tipping Point

2000 through 2013

Anachronisms

Argumentum ad misericordiam (forthcoming)

* * * * *

Managing the Stigma of Outlaw Breeds: A Case Study of Pit Bull Owners
   2000; Society and Animals Forum
[Note: References to 'racism' in pit bull literature had been mentioned as early as 1987 (and perhaps earlier). This forum may have introduced the concept of 'stigma' in relationship to dog ownership. Malcolm Gladwell used the concept to memorable effect in his 2006 New Yorker article. See below.]

Dog Holocaust web site
   2000
[Note: First known use of the term 'Holocaust' in conjunction with Breed Specific Legislation]
See Breed Holocaust

Fatal Dog Attacks: the Stories Behind the Statistics
   2002, by Karen Delise

Breed-Specific Legislation Revisited: Canine Racism or the Answer to Florida's Dog Control Problems?
   Spring 2003, by Karyn Grey
   27 Nova L. Rev. 415

Does breed specific legislation reduce dog aggression on humans and other animals?
   2003, by Linda Watson

Canine Profiling: Does Breed-Specific Legislation Take a Bite out of Canine Crime
    by Heather K. Pratt
   108 Penn St. L. Rev. 855 (2003-2004)

Pit Bull Panic
    April 10, 2003; by Judy Cohen

Breed Specific Legislation: Unfair Prejudice & (and) Ineffective Policy
    2004, by Devin Burstein
    10 Animal L. 313

The Case Against Dog Breed Discrimination By Homeowners' Insurance Companies
   May 2, 2005, by Larry Cunningham
   St. John's University School of Law

Troublemakers, by Malcolm Gladwell
    Feb 6, 2006; The New Yorker

Why Breed-Specific Legislation Won't Solve the Dangerous-Dog Dilemma
    April 2006, by Safia Gray Hussain
    74 Fordham L. Rev. 2847

Breed-specific legislation and the pit bull terrier: Are the laws justified?
   July/August, 2006
   by Stephen Collier
   hosted online by StopBSL.com

Pit bull bans and the human factors affecting canine behavior
   by Jamey Medlin,
   56 DePaul L. Rev. 1285 (2006-2007)

[April 25, 2007: Arrest of Michael Vick]

The Pit Bull Placebo; The Media, Myths, and Politics of Canine Aggression
   2007, by Karen Delise

The pit bull terrier: a dangerous or a defamed breed?
   2007, by Stephen Collier
   hosted online by Defense of the American Pit Bull Terrier

The Pitbull's Transition from Mainstream to Marginalized Masculinity
    August 2007
    by Theresa Allen
    In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Underlying much breed-specific legislation are biases based on class and race. This dissertation demonstrates the importance of broadening the scope of Sociology through the examination of human-animal relationships to show that animals also represent a marginalized population worthy of consideration. Additionally, it offers insight into the symbolic position of animals as mediators of race and class relations. 

Pit Bulls are Innocent
August 20, 2007; Salon

Demonizing the Pit Bull: Breed-Specific Legislation and the Circuit of Communication
   Spring, 2009
   Dissertation by Bethany Gibson
   hosted online by RealPitBull.com

It Ain't Easy Being a Pit Bull Owner
   July 9, 2009; Scientific American

"The Constitutionality of Breed Discriminatory Legislation"
in Guide to Handling Dangerous Dog Issues
by Joan E. Schaffner
ABA 2009

Animal Ethics and Breed-Specific Legislation
   by Bernard E Rollins, Ph.D.
   5 J. Animal L. 1 (2009)
Similarly, if I can show that there is a moral-conceptual flaw underlying breed-specific legislation then I don't need to assemble supporting facts. That is what I propose to do in this talk . . .
[Note: This paper may have introduced the now common (and repugnant) device of comparing the fewness of deaths caused by fatal pit bull attacks relative to the number of deaths by lightening, falling coconuts, etc.]
See also SRUV Post: Animal Ethics

Dead Dogs: Breed bans, euthanasia, and preemptive justice
by Colin Dayan, The Boston Review
March 01, 2010
See also SRUV Post: Dead Dogs (forthcoming)

Irrationality Unleashed: The Pitfalls of Breed-Specific Legislation
    Spring 2010, by Kristen E. Swann
    78 UMKC L. Rev. 839
INTRODUCTION: A TALE OF TWO "PITTIES": A young woman struggles with an overfull trash bag in a chilly, hissing rain. Hefting the bag into the trash bin behind her apartment building, she hears weak but insistent mewling. Seven impossibly tiny puppies huddle in the wet detritus behind the container.  [Etc, etc.]

Pit bulls and Moral Panic (poster)
By Samantha Rindler  and  Dr. Brian M. Lowe
October 14, 2010

Like a Dog
by Colin Dayan, The Boston Review
July 01, 2011
See also SRUV Post: Like a Dog

Licked to Death by a Pit Bull
by Bronwen Dickey; Garden and Gun
December 2011

I'm a Good Dog: Pit Bulls, America's Most Beautiful (and Misunderstood) Pet

by Ken Foster

Published October 25, 2012

[Note: Coffee table book that is arguably the apogee of the pit bull public relations campaign]

Review by Merritt Clifton

In Defense of the Pit Bull
February 5, 2013; Salon

In Praise of Pit Bulls: Author Jim Gorant Speaks Out About Misunderstood Dogs and the Laws Aimed At Them
February 14, 2013; Forbes

Defending the pit bull: Experts say animals no more aggressive or prone to attack than other breeds
July 7, 2013; The Journal Times (Racine, WI)
[Note: This exculpatory article appeared several weeks after a 15-month old infant was attacked by the family pit bull in nearby Caledonia and four months after 1-yo Daxton Borchardt was killed by a pit bull in Walworth County, WI]

The Softer Side of Pit Bulls
by Paul Tullis
Time Magazine, July 22, 2013
[Note: This article includes six remarkable billboard-sized glamor studio shots of pit bulls, shot against pastel backgrounds.]

“Becoming in Kind”: Race, Class, Gender, and Nation in Cultures of Dog Rescue and Dogfighting
by Harlan Weaver
American Quarterly; Volume 65, Number 3, September 2013
This article takes up these debates in order to explore how specific relationships between humans and pit bulls reveal intersections among race, class, gender, nation, breed, and species. 

Culture, Theory and Critique (2013): The Dangerous Individual('s) Dog: Race, Criminality and the ‘Pit Bull’
October 11, 2013; by Erin C. Tarver

The Tragedy of America's Dog
by Jake Flanagan
The Pacific Standard, February 28, 2014

Attitudes and laws against pit bulls soften
by Bill Draper
Associated Press, March 11, 2014

"Canine profiling," in Global Guide to Animal Protection
by Joan E. Schaffner
Univ. Illinois Press, 2014

Dog/Fight: On Pit Bulls and Their People
by Bronwen Dickey
(forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf, 2015)

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