When is a pit bull not a pit bull?
While there’s an old one hanging on my wall, and while I served as a juror once, I have little to say these days about Pulitzer Prizes.
The Pawlitzer Prizes are another matter, though, and, since they don’t really exist, I hereby bestow one on the Toledo Blade.
The newspaper’s report Sunday, asking and answering the question of how many dogs are put down at the local shelter under the mistaken belief they are pit bulls, is the kind of probing, hard-hitting doggie journalism we need more of — as opposed to celebrity dogs, costumed dogs, ugly dogs and cute dogs.
(It’s also the kind of journalism we need more of, in these times of fading newspapers and diminishing depth.)
The story raises some serious questions about how many supposed pit bulls have been and are being euthanized at the Lucas County Animal Shelter, where the decision of who’s a pit bull — as at most shelters — is based on an educated guess, or often an uneducated one, reached solely on the basis of looks.
The story shows that looks can be deceiving.
Written by Tanya Irwin, it’s a piece that should be required reading at every animal shelter. It starts like this:
Lucas is lucky to be alive.
The dog, owned by Laurie and George Hughes of Rossford, was one of the first “pit bull” puppies spared by the Lucas County dog warden in January, 2010, after the county commissioners changed a long-standing policy under which all “pit bulls,” no matter their age or temperament, were automatically destroyed.
The irony is that Lucas, who was transferred to the Toledo Area Humane Society, isn’t a “pit bull.”
As the story points out, recent changes in local and state law mean dogs designated as pit bulls will no longer get an automatic death sentence when they arrive at a county shelter. In practice, though, and somewhat less automatically, they still are often euthanized, due to factors like an overabundance of their kind at shelters.
The newspaper conducted DNA tests on six dogs that were originally labeled as pit bulls by the Lucas County dog warden. Using the Mars Veterinary Wisdom Panel Insights DNA test, it determined only one was predominantly American Staffordshire terrier and Staffordshire bull terrier. Two had some “pit,” and three of the dogs had no “pit bull” breed in them at all
Lucas, it turned out, is predominantly a boxer-bullmastiff mix.
“We really don’t care what breed he is, he’s a good dog and we love him,” said Hughes. “I think it’s awful what people say about ‘pit bulls’ or dogs that look like ‘pit bulls.’ It’s like racism, except against dogs.”
Two other dogs, despite their labels, were pit-free: Carly, who turned out to be an American bulldog -American Eskimo mix, and Bandit, whose breeds were boxer, Scottish terrier, Chinook, Doberman pinscher, black Russian terrier, Irish setter, Glen of Imaal terrier, and dogue de Bordeaux.
Based on factors like a large head or broad chest, dogs are being mislabeled as pit bulls – a subjective judgment that, in the case of Toledo and Lucas County, and many other jurisdictions, can determine whether a dog lives or dies. It often also determines, in communities across America, whether you can rent, the cost of your insurance, and even whether you’re allowed into town in the first place.
Then you have the “pit bull mix,” an equally dangerous designation, also used to unfairly ban, restrict or single out dogs. Is it based on having a majority of pit bull blood, a small percentage (as my dog does, according to our own experiences with DNA testing), or any at all? No. It’s also most often a guess, based on looks, that allows even more dogs to be discriminated against.
Former Lucas County Dog Warden Tom Skeldon, who departed the office amid complaints over its high kill rate and his insistence that all dogs he deemed pit bulls must be killed, said he never considered the DNA tests to be reliable, and therefore made no use of them.
Dr. Angela Hughes, a veterinarian and the veterinary genetics research manager at Mars Veterinary, told the newspaper that the reliability of the tests has increased over the past four years, and now stands at about 80 to 85 percent in the case of the cheek-swab tests.
That’s a far better record than many an animal shelter probably has. At most of them, classifying a dog’s breed is a guessing game. Dogs shouldn’t be put to death based on a guess. In Lucas County, the article notes, thousands may have been.
“It’s impossible to know how many dogs Mr. Skeldon killed claiming they were pit bulls when they weren’t, but based on the kill rate during his more than 20 years as warden, the fact that close to half the dogs at the pound traditionally have been labeled pit bulls, and the DNA tests The Blade performed, easily thousands of dogs could have been killed because they were mislabeled pit bull.”
The Lucas County dog warden’s office continues to euthanize perceived pit bulls because it is “at capacity for ‘pit bull-type’ dogs.” Dog Warden Julie Lyle told the newspaper that — despite Ohio having recently revamped a law that labeled all pit bulls dangerous – the shelter has yet to begin adopting out pit bulls.
The state’s new dangerous dog law, which brings an end to pit bulls being automatically designated as dangerous, goes into effect May 21. But even then, pit bulls, due to their numbers, will likely remain the type of dog most often euthanized.
The solution?
Dr. Amy Marder, director for the Center for Shelter Dogs, has proposed that dogs adopted from shelters in the United States simply be identified as “American shelter dogs.”
The North Shore Animal League in New York has done away with the pit bull label, in part because it’s not actually a breed, anyway. Instead the league refers to dogs who have “the look” as terrier mixes.
Lucas County dog warden Lyle thinks that approach is deceptive.
“When people think of terriers, they think of small, cuddly dogs, not large dogs,” Lyle said.
She said that, unless a breed is mentioned by people surrendering a dog, she and her deputies designate what breed a dog is. Currently about 40 percent of the dogs the pound takes in are designated as pit bulls.
Lyle said she was not surprised that there were cases they had gotten wrong. Overall, she said, she thinks she and her staff have done a good job deciding who is a pit bull and who is not. She said she doesn’t see any reason for the pound to change how it identifies a dog’s breed.
I can think of three: Lucas, Carly and Bandit.
(Graphic from the Toledo Blade; photo by Lori King / Toledo Blade)
Posted by jwoestendiek March 20th, 2012 under Muttsblog.
Tags: american shelter dogs, american staffordshire terrier, animals, appearance, breed testing, breeds, bully, dangerous, dna, dna testing, dog, dog warden, dogs, euthanasia, euthanized, guessing, investigation, killed, labeled, looks, lucas county, mislabeled, mixes, mutts, pets, pit bull, pit bulls, pitbull, pitbulls, shelter dogs, shelters, staffordshire bull terrier, terriers, testing, toledo, toledo blade, warden, wrongly
Comments
Comment from Lisa in OH
Time March 20, 2012 at 10:49 am
Buck the test DOES test for the breeds most commonly listed as “pit bull type” those being American Staffordshire and Staffordshire Bull Terriers. The American Pit Bull Terrier and American Staffordshire are basically the same breed, in fact one dog may be registered as one breed with the AKC and another with the UKC. If the DNA test didn’t come back with either American Staffordshire or Staffordshire Terrier then the dog is not what is typically called a pit bull. Mastiffs, Boxers etc are not pit bulls no matter how much Mr Skeldon would like to claim they are
Comment from Gwen Lebec
Time March 20, 2012 at 12:03 pm
I have a dog that looks pit and isn’t. Yet I would be happy to have to meet special requirements to keep her if it would help stop the insanity of too many pit bulls and too many dog attacks and too many dogs dying. I want solutions that help people and animals, not to have my own dog choices validated.
Comment from Jess
Time March 20, 2012 at 12:43 pm
this is so true! our rescue pulls a lot of ‘pit bull type’ dogs from shelters in southern MD that do not adopt out anything ‘pit-looking’. A cry for help for 3 pit-type puppies that were to be euthanized if no one stepped up to rescue them… 4 months in, turns out they are not pit at all… lab/mastiff mixes. they are HUGE. and they would have been pts…. ashame. (ashame even if they were pits, b/c I don’t agree they should be pts… but thats another topic for another day)
Comment from practicalone2
Time March 20, 2012 at 3:01 pm
“it’s impossible to know how many dogs… Mr. Skelton killed”… I contend he was not solely responsible for killing any. Ultimately those who intentionally or negligently produced surplus AND handicapped dogs were responsible for their suffering and death. Pit promoters are responsible for pit suffering and death. Rather that support a ban on the breeding of a handicapped type of dog, THE choice of the dogfighters, they promote acquisition of pits. The result: naive people buy pit bulls, and more pits suffer and die. Pit promoters are no different than Michael Vick. All they care about is themselves and their ability to breed and own pit bulls. The enormous amounts and degree of suffer that surrounds the pit bull means nothing to them and they refuse to consider any ideas to reduce the crisis. Understand this: they only care about themselves.
Comment from Snoopy
Time March 20, 2012 at 4:27 pm
This is what people have been saying all along. The ASPCA did did DNA testing on a bunch of dogs identified as pit bulls, and found that 75% had no pit bull DNA. This is also the major issue with pit bulls. It isn’t the breed that is a problem at all, but when you call every single dog that even resembles a pit bull a ‘pit bull,’ it makes it appear as if there is a breed issue. There is no breed issue, just a breed misidentification issue, so now that there is DNA evidence and expert testimony on this subject from multiple entities that are trusted, we can assume every time we read a pit bull attack story, there is 75% chance that dog has no pit bull DNA at all.
Comment from Anne’n'Spencer
Time March 20, 2012 at 9:15 pm
At the risk of opening yet another can of worms, I question seriously whether there actually *is* such a thing as “Pit Bull DNA.” I don’t think they’ve been a distinct breed for long enough to have such. I also think that a lot of people who are breeding them aren’t paying particularly close attention to bloodlines. Staffordshire Terriers and their offshoots, American Staffordshire Terriers, have very bloodlines that reach back for centuries, and I suspect they would be easy to identify with a test like this.
All this serves to underline the fact that you can’t judge an individual dog’s temperament by its appearance. You might say that Border Collies (as an example) are generally “intelligent,” or that Labs are generally “good with children.” But you can’t predict that when it comes to an individual dog. There are just too many variables, and not all of them have to do with heredity, breeding, or bloodlines.
It seems to me that all dogs should be given the chance to show their personalities. Those that do well initially can go to proper homes. Some may require a little more time and care. Those who have been so badly abused that they can’t recover emotionally could then be cared for (we hope) in comfortable and secure environments according to their needs.
All we need to do is to look at the Michael Vick dogs, most of whom have gone on to loving homes and outstanding accomplishments, to see how unjust it is to judge a dog by its appearance or by what people say it is. I think we have many years to go before anyone can safely talk about “purebred American Pit Bull Terriers.” Many years and many generations of caring human beings.
Comment from Marty
Time March 21, 2012 at 2:26 am
We adopted our mixed breed dog from a shelter. Most everyone thought he had pit bull in his ancestry. His Mars DNA test showed he was part Rottweiler, Australian Shepherd, Catahoula, & a few other breeds- no Pit Bull, American Staffordshire or Bull Terrier at all. Now if he had turned out to be part Pit, we would have loved him just the same, as Pits can be wonderful dogs.
Comment from Chaotic
Time March 21, 2012 at 5:49 am
@practicalone2: You say the “promoters” of pit bulls only care about themselves and the suffering of the dogs mean nothing and they refuse to consider any ideas to reduce the crisis. Understand THIS: The “pit bull type” dog is MY breed of choice. I am a suburban mother, gainfully employed with a non-profit organization helping OTHER people. I work closely with a rescue group to rescue these dogs who have been placed in bad situations, yes some by what you would consider ‘bad’ people. SPAY/NEUTER is a LARGE part of our program, doing what we can to reduce this “crisis” of over population of not just pit bulls but of all unwanted pets that end up in shelters. We also go into schools and do education programs with kids about dog safety with our pit bulls. OH MY GOSH! Pit bulls around kids?!?! Yup! And the kids and parents and teachers love it! So please don’t sit back and generalize about how pit lovers only care about themselves and are only creating more problems and aren’t working to be part of the solution. This isn’t a “pit bull” problem as the article truly pointed out, it is a perception problem which you so beautifully illustrated.
Comment from Bobbi
Time March 21, 2012 at 1:37 pm
@practicalone2: I am a pit bull owner. My dog is the sweetest, most loving and beautiful dog. She was a rescue-thrown from a car. We think she was very mistreated because of some of her reactions to things. Today she is a spoiled “fur baby” who is happiest 1) laying on a human, 2) laying by a human, 3) laying where she can see her humans. Unfortunately, I live in a town with a bsl, thanks to people who have decided pits bulls are bad – kind of like you, it sounds like. But I am neither naive nor Michael Vick. My baby is not suffering. Why do you think all pit bulls are suffering. Some are yes, others are beloved pets. Your attitude is doing nothing to help the situation. You sound as if your purpose is to get rid of all pits. Do you work for PETA by chance?
Comment from Alex
Time March 21, 2012 at 3:40 pm
i have something to say on this subject: 1) ANY DOG can be made to fight 2) am staffs are great around people and other animals 3) i worked for sav animal care and control where i have see alot of dogs mis labled by any breed standered so people please learn your breads before you put a lable on them and yes i own 6 am.staffs or in the publics eye’s pit bulls i love them to death and would do any thing for them
Comment from Ron
Time March 22, 2012 at 9:14 pm
Dude, has that Lyle actually read about that NYC shelter. They got a big picture and it says they got Pit Bull puppies on the page. Pits rock. Most dog are mixes anyways. I say, just go with it.
Comment from Buck McCoy
Time March 20, 2012 at 8:54 am
Go to the Mars website. It say flat out that their test does not test for pit bulls. You can take pure bred apbt with papers and registry and it will not come back as a pit bull because the test does not test for pit bulls.
The mars company SPECIFIES WHAT BREEDS WILL SHOW UP and guess what those breeds are? THE SAME BREEDS THAT LUCAS, CARLY AND BANDIT CAME BACK AS:
mastiff breeds, various small terriers, bullmastiffs, boxers, and american bulldogs.
The test did exactly what the company said it would do if you test a pit bull with it.
This is tantamount to administering a hearing test to prove someone isn’t blind.