http://www.goskagit.com/index.php/ne...misunderstood/
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Local dog owners claim breed is misunderstood
Stephanie Kosonen
Argus
September 05, 2007 - 09:42 AM
Pit bulls are the dog breed Americans loves to hate.
But some Skagit County dog owners are trying to reverse the stigma that has this strain of canine on the brink of being banned from several communities in Washington.
Some of the reasons the pit bull is feared are its strong jaws and muscular build. But pit enthusiasts say the breed is less likely to cause harm to humans than most other types of dog.
Aggression toward humans, severe shyness and instability are not traits typically found and accepted in the American Pit Bull Terrier breed, according to Pit Bull Rescue Central.
The rescue center’s Web site says the breed needs a little more attention than most other dogs, and bad dog owners can turn a pit into a monster through neglect and poor training.
“It’s just not fair,” local dog groomer Germaine Kornegay said of the pit’s bad reputation. She adopted a mild-mannered pit about a year ago and said he is “the sweetest guy ever.”
Kornegay stays up late on the Internet and talks daily with like-minded enthusiasts for dog owners’ rights.
One reason pits are singled out is they do have strong jaws, said Emily Diaz, animal control officer for the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office.
“A lot of people are under the impression (that pits are) agressive and vicious dogs, which is absolutely not the case. It’s a very small amount of pit bulls that are actually vicious against people,” Diaz said.
She said the breed gets a bad rap because if a pit does attack, it is severe.
Pit bulls can cause more damage, she said. “But the bites that I have dealt with from pit bulls, they have been bites. They have not been ripping people apart.”
In an effort to reduce dog attacks, communities all around the country have come up with definitions for dangerous dogs. In some communities, a dog can be thus labeled because it looks like a pit bull, or is part wolf.
Kornegay’s main goal is to stop breed-specific legislation, which labels dogs as dangerous based on what breed they look like. This type of legislation has cropped up in the form of banning dogs from communities, even requiring the euthanasia of family pets in Colorado a few years ago.
Her research often brings her to literature published by the American Dog Owners’ Association, which has focused most of its efforts on fighting breed-specific legislation since forming in 1970.
Is it a pit?
One problem with the approach is that people don’t always know the difference between a pit bull and other breeds, Kornegay said.
As the owner of Animal House Pet Grooming on Avon Avenue in Burlington, Kornegay meets all kinds of dogs.
But on a quiz of 300 dogs in which she was supposed to pick out which one was a pit bull, she said she couldn’t do it.
There were five or so that could have passed for the under-loved breed, she said.
About 25 breeds closely resemble pits, according to the Pit Bull Educational Packet, created by Marcy Setter.
The name “pit bull” itself corresponds to three specific breeds: the American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier and the Staffordshire Bull Terrier.
The information pack cites research from the American Canine Foundation and information from dog trainers and rescue organizations.
The research includes reports of other dog breeds attacking and sometimes killing humans, to show that singling out the pit bull is not an effective way to prevent dog attacks.
Setter said that the dog most likely to bite is any non-neutered male, regardless of breed. The second most frequent biter is the unspayed female of any breed.
The answer is education, said Kornegay and local dog trainer Carmen Williams. Williams operates Sunnylane Canine Academy in Sedro-Woolley.
Factual information is the only thing that can dispel widespread misconceptions about the breed, Williams said.
She said she encounters aggression problems with the smaller breeds more often than she does with pit bulls.
“There’s as much variance within the breed as there is between breeds,” she added.
Kornegay said she wants to hold a question-and-answer panel at the newly built Humane Society of Skagit Valley once the staff and pets have settled in there.
Within a few weeks she said she hopes to gather up experts on the pit bull breed so that people who are thinking of adopting a dog from the Humane Society will give the pit bulls a second look.
Canine citizens
Her interests go beyond educating people about dog ownership. Kornegay said she would like to see the laws changed to assign more responsibility to dog owners.
One way she said this could be done would be to require people send their dogs through training, only allowing them to register their dog if the dog passes a Canine Good Citizen test.
The Canine Good Citizen program was developed by the American Kennel Club, and is used in some jurisdictions to provide well-trained dogs an exemption to breed-specific legislation.
Kornegay suggests that all dogs be required to pass the test each year or be sent back to training, that way people would continue to ensure their dogs are well socialized, she said.
Fewer animal problems would also mean a lighter workload for law enforcement.
With the right upbringing, pit bulls are a loving breed toward humans, Diaz said.
“Any person can make any dog aggressive toward people,” she said.
People who train their dogs to be aggressive toward people should not be allowed to own dogs, she said.
When pits were bred for the dog fighting industry, if any of the dogs ever turned on their owners, they were most often killed, Diaz said.
“So a lot of the aggressive lines toward people have been weaned out,” she said.
She said that six out of the 59 dogs labeled as a dangerous or potentially dangerous dog in Skagit County were pit bulls.
Diaz said it is never a good idea to trust any dog around a child without an adult present.
“Dogs are animals and you can’t predict what they’re going to do. It doesn’t matter if it’s a black lab or a pit bull,” she said.
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