Although guardians of these dogs may have done nothing to endanger the public, they nevertheless may be required to choose between compliance with onerous regulations or forfeiture of their beloved companions, and may even be required to forfeit their companions outright. In some localities, the list of banned breeds includes not just American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers, Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Bull Terriers and Rottweilers, but also a variety of other breeds, including American Bull Dogs, Mastiffs, Dalmatians, Chow Chows, German Shepherd Dogs, Doberman Pinschers and any mix of these breeds. Although intended to improve community safety and comfort, ultimately these laws can cause hardship to responsible guardians of properly supervised, friendly, well-socialized dogs. Other factors implicated in dog aggression are selective breeding and raising of dogs for elevated aggression, whether for protection, use in dog fighting competitions, social status or financial gain (Bradley, 2006) abuse and neglect (Delise, 2007) and inadequate obedience training and supervision (Shuler et al., 2008).īreed-specific laws must also be evaluated from a welfare perspective. Chaining and tethering also appear to be risk factors for biting (Gershman et al., 1993), and programs that target tethering have proven effective in reducing bite rates (Sacks et al., 2000 AVMA, 2001). For example, intact males constitute 80 percent of all dogs presented to veterinary behaviorists for what formerly has been described as dominance aggression, are involved in 70 to 76 percent of reported dog bite incidents, and are 2.6 times more likely to bite than neutered dogs, while unspayed females “attract free-roaming males, which increases bite risk to people through increased exposure to unfamiliar dogs,” and “contribute to the population of unwanted” and potentially aggressive dogs (Gershman et al., 1993 Sacks et al., 2000 AVMA, 2001). Supporting the concern regarding identification, a recent study noted a significant discrepancy between visual determination of breed and DNA determination of breed (Voith et al., 2009).Ī variety of factors may affect a dog’s tendency toward aggression these include heredity, early experience, socialization and training, sex and reproductive status (Lockwood, 1999). Specifically, the authors of this and other studies cite the inherent difficulties in breed identification (especially among mixed-breed dogs) and in calculating a breed’s bite rate given the lack of consistent data on breed population and the actual number of bites occurring in a community, especially when the injury is not deemed serious enough to require treatment in an emergency room (Sacks et al., 2000 AVMA, 2001 Collier, 2006). The CDC strongly recommends against breed-specific laws in its oft-cited study of fatal dog attacks, noting that data collection related to bites by breed is fraught with potential sources of error (Sacks et al., 2000). To understand the ASPCA’s opposition to such laws, it is critical to examine what is known about which dogs bite and why, which dogs are most dangerous, and the impact of breed-specific laws to date. However, the theory underlying breed-specific laws-that some breeds bite more often and cause more damage than others, ergo laws targeting these breeds will decrease bite incidence and severity-has not met with success in practice. Often, such laws are responses to a particularly violent individual dog attack or, as some hypothesize, result from media campaigns that negatively portray a particular breed (Capp, 2004). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) only two percent of those seeking emergency room treatment for dog bites each year are actually hospitalized (CDC WISQARS), some communities have enacted laws that intensively regulate or even ban certain dog breeds in an effort to decrease dog attacks on humans (AVMA, 2001). Notwithstanding relative stability in the number of dog bites over time (Bradley, 2006), and the fact that according to the U.S. In the U.S., approximately 334,000 people visit emergency rooms annually for dog bites (Bradley, 2006), with an additional unknown number of individuals incurring other dog bite-related injuries (e.g., breaking a bone while fleeing a threatening dog) (AVMA, 2001). Despite the well-established strength of the human-animal bond (Wensley, 2008), exemplified by the nearly 74 million dogs kept as companion animals in the United States, coexistence is not always peaceful.
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