What is BSL?

“Breed-specific” legislation (BSL) is the blanket term for laws that either regulate or ban certain breeds completely in the hopes of reducing dog attacks. Some city/municipal governments have enacted breed-specific laws (view the comprehensive BSL map). However, the problem of dangerous dogs will not be remedied by the “quick fix” of breed-specific laws—or, as they should truly be called, breed-discriminatory laws.¹

It is worth noting that in some areas, regulated breeds include a whole range of breeds:

• American Pit Bull Terriers
• American Staffordshire Terriers
• Staffordshire Bull Terriers
• English Bull Terriers
• Rottweilers
• American Bulldogs
• Dogo Argentino
• Canary Dog (Canary Island Dog, Presa Canario, Perro De Presa Canario)
• Presa Mallorquin (Perro de Presa Mallorquin, Ca De Bou)
• Tosa Inu (Tosa Fighting Dog, Japanese Fighting Dog, Japanese Mastiff)
• Cane Corso (Cane Di Macellaio, Sicilian Branchiero)
• Fila Brasileiro
• Mastiffs
• Dalmatians
• Chow Chows
• German Shepherds
• Doberman Pinschers
• Any mix of these breeds—and dogs who simply resemble these breeds

You read that right: Those who simply resemble these breeds. So if your dog looks like one, you should be worried. If you look at the list of countries, breeds and various legislation recorded in Wikipedia: Breed-Specific Legislation, it’ll make your head spin.

On the bright side, many states (including New York, Texas and Illinois) favor laws that identify, track and regulate dangerous dogs individually, regardless of breed, and prohibit BSL.

What’s Wrong with Breed-Specific Laws?

BSL targets dogs of a certain appearance and does not take into account how the owner has trained or managed the dog. It does not take into account the dog’s actual behavior.

There are two forms of BSL: bans and restrictions. From Stop BSL:

A breed ban usually requires that all dogs of a certain appearance (“targeted breed”) be removed from the municipality wherein the ban has been implemented. After the effective date of the ban, dogs in the municipality that are identified as targeted breeds are usually subject to being killed by animal control, though in some cases, such dogs may be saved if relocation is an option. Breed bans may have grandfather clauses that allow dogs of targeted breeds to stay in the ban area (provided they are registered with the municipality by a certain date, and likely subject to various breed-specific restrictions).

Breed-specific restrictions may require an owner of a targeted breed do any of the following or more, depending on how the law is written:

• Muzzle the dog in public
• Spay or neuter the dog
• Contain the dog in a kennel with specific requirements (6′ chain link walls, lid, concrete floors, etc.)
• Keep the dog on a leash of specific length or material
• Purchase liability insurance of a certain amount
• Place “vicious dog” signs on the outside of the residence where the dog lives
• Make the dog wear a “vicious dog” tag or other identifying marker

BSL carries a host of negative and wholly unintended consequences:¹

• Dogs go into hiding
  Rather than give up their beloved pets, owners of highly regulated or banned breeds often attempt to avoid detection of their “outlaw” dogs by restricting outdoor exercise and socialization and forgoing licensing, microchipping and proper veterinary care, including spay/neuter surgery and essential vaccinations. Such actions have implications both for public safety and the health of these dogs.
• Good owners and dogs are punished
  BSL also causes hardship to responsible owners of entirely friendly, properly supervised and well-socialized dogs who happen to fall within the regulated breed. Although these dog owners have done nothing to endanger the public, they are required to comply with local breed bans and regulations unless they are able to mount successful (and often costly) legal challenges.
• They impart a false sense of security
  Breed-specific laws have a tendency to compromise rather than enhance public safety. When limited animal control resources are used to regulate or ban a certain breed of dog, without regard to behavior, the focus is shifted away from routine, effective enforcement of laws that have the best chance of making our communities safer: dog license laws, leash laws, animal fighting laws, anti-tethering laws, laws facilitating spaying and neutering and laws that require all owners to control their dogs, regardless of breed.
• They may actually encourage ownership by irresponsible people
  If you outlaw a breed, then outlaws are attracted to that breed. Unfortunately some people take advantage of the “outlaw” status of their breed of choice to bolster their own self image as living outside of the rules of mainstream society. Ironically, the rise of Pit Bull ownership among gang members and others in the late 1980’s coincided with the first round of breed-specific legislation.

BSL will not only exhaust the limited resources of the already underfunded animal control programs by flooding them with potentially “unadoptable” dogs; it could cost individual communities millions of dollars while providing questionable results fulfilling its purpose of preventing dog related injuries and fatalities as. The costs of enforcing BSL include but are not limited to:²

• Animal control and enforcement costs,
• Expenses for kenneling and veterinary care,
• Expenses related to euthanasia and carcass disposal,
• Litigation costs from residents appealing or contesting the law, and;
• Possible DNA testing costs.

Additional costs depending on current resources available to a specific community’s animal control program may include:

• Additional shelter veterinarians,
• Increased enforcement staffing, and;
• Capital costs associated with increased shelter space needed.

To calculate what BSL will cost you if one is enacted in your city, state

On August 6, 2012, the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates approved Resolution 100, urging “all state, territorial, and local legislative bodies and governmental agencies [. . .] to repeal breed discriminatory or breed specific provisions.” A comprehensive recommendation is accompanied by an extensive report detailing the legion of problems associated with breed specific regulation, including:³

• significant questions of due process;
• waste of government resources;
• documented failure to produce safer communities;
• enforcement issues connected with identifying the dogs to be regulated or seized;
• and infringement of property rights.

Bottomline: there is no evidence that breed-specific laws make communities safer for people or companion animals.

Following a thorough study of human fatalities resulting from dog bites, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) decided not to support BSL. The CDC cited, among other problems, the inaccuracy of dog bite data⁴ and the difficulty in identifying dog breeds (especially true of mixed-breed dogs). The CDC also noted the likelihood that as certain breeds are regulated, those who exploit dogs by making them aggressive will replace them with other, unregulated breeds.

And we’ll be back at square one, with probably worse outcome.

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¹ASPCA – Breed Specific Legislation
²Best Friends Animal Society, “The Fiscal Impact of Breed Discriminatory Legislation in the United States” (PDF) – April 2012
³American Bar Association’s Resolution 100 (PDF) – August 2012
⁴Dog bite data varies greatly; not all bites are reported, and those reported aren’t always documented into databases.
⁵Best Friends Animal Society: Breed-Discriminatory Legislation: An Ineffective Response to Negligent or Reckless Owners