BREED IDENTIFICATION FOR BSL IS BASED ON A DOG’S APPEARANCE ALONE.
The primary means of breed identification for non-pedigreed dogs and mixed-breed dogs is a visual glance and a guess. The dog may be compared with the breed standard for a breed; again, this is based on visual assessment. It is entirely subjective.
Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant, who pushed for a ban on pit bulls in Ontario, proposed this manner of identification:
“I’ve said before and I will say again, if it walks like a pit bull, if it barks and bites like a pit bull, wags its tail like a pit bull, it’s a pit bull.” (Ontario Hansard 38-1, November 4, 2004)
Dog warden Tom Skeldon, the driving force behind Ohio’s BSL, testified before the court in Tellings v. Toledo (2006) that
“even if a dog was 50 per cent pit bull, if it did not ‘look like a pit bull,’ the owner would not be charged. On the other hand, if a dog did ‘look like a pit bull,’ it would be classified as a pit bull and the owner would be subject to the ‘vicious dog’ laws.”
WHO IDENTIFIES BREEDS FOR BSL?
To know whether BSL affects any particular dog, breed determination is usually made by an animal control officer or a veterinarian (depending on how the law is written). However, contrary to popular assumption, veterinarians and animal control officers—despite handling many dogs for a living—are not trained in breed identification. For the most part, they are no better than average citizens at breed identification.
Animal Control Officers (ACOs) and Workers There are not many hiring requirements to get a job as an animal control officer or shelter worker (the major requirement is having a physical ability to do the work, which may include picking up or restraining large animals). Being able to accurately and certainly identify dog breeds is decidedly not a requirement. Because AC departments are usually understaffed and underfunded, any sort of official training is minimal (most officers learn their duties on the job), and breed identification training is a complete rarity. Additionally, ACOs do not generally learn breed identification on the job to any great degree, because they rarely, if ever, receive feedback regarding their breed designations—so they have no idea if they are labeling dogs correctly or incorrectly.
Veterinarians Veterinarians do not have to be trained in breed identification to receive a veterinary license—and most aren’t. In fact, most veterinarians don’t even receive training in dog behavior. Their focus is on treating disease, and they don’t need to know a dog’s breed to diagnose and treat disease.
CHECKLISTS FOR BREED IDENTIFICATION
Some places with BSL use checklists for breed identification in an attempt to standardize and objectify identification processes. Some checklists are very short, while others tick off dozens of characteristics in great detail. The person performing the identification may be asked to choose along a sliding scale whether a particular dog matches or does not match a particular characteristic on the checklist.
Unfortunately, these checklists consist almost entirely of subjective characteristics. Using descriptive—but unmeasurable and nonscientific—words like “medium length,” “broad,” “high,” and “strong,” the checklists ask their users to draw personal conclusions about whether a particular dog matches each item.
No comments:
Post a Comment