What makes BSL ineffective? (BSL= breed specific legislation)

• Dog attacks are usually the fault of an irresponsible owner, not a specific breed. Therefore,     banning an entire breed will solve nothing. The irresponsible owners will just most likely move on to another breed, and continue making bad choices regarding their dogs. BSL targets the breed, not the owner where the responsibility belongs.

• It’s very costly. It’s costly to the responsible owners, because they are forced to pay for insurance policies, ridiculously tall fences to be built, etc. BSL is also costly to the place enforcing it. There will be kenneling costs and court costs to deal with.

• It’s unfair to responsible owners. It restricts your right as a responsible dog owner to own certain breeds. If the law states that you can own the dog, but there are restrictions (muzzling, short leashes, high fences), you are still punished. When you take your dog in public, you are frowned upon and sometimes harassed by others for owning what they believe to be a “vicious” breed.

• Dogs can only be identified by appearance, and Pit Bulls are especially difficult for the average person to identify. There are far too many people that are not qualified to determine breeds of dogs and therefore Pit Bulls have become scapegoats. Any dog that bites or attacks, has a large head, or cropped ears, often gets called a Pit Bull. Many of these are actually not Pit Bulls at all, or are mixes with another dominant breed. Because of this, many dogs will be wrongly identified, and countless lives taken.