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Breed
Specific Legislation
(date)
(TO:..insert name here)
(address)
(city, state,zip)
(FROM:..Your name)
(Your address)
(your city, state, zip)
(your area code and phone number)
Dear (insert name here):
In the United States, a vast but
shadowy subculture of dog owners thrives, living in an underworld invisible
to responsible pet owners and show-goers. For many decades the inhabitants of
this subculture have been looking for the ideal "junk yard dog," a large ferocious
beast that seems a major threat if not an actual menace. Equally faddish as
the visible world of dogs, this underworld moves from breed to breed in its
search of the canine suited to its warped dreams.
Years ago, the first I knew of
these people, they were "into" German Shepherds where they stayed for about
fifteen years before moving into Dobermanns. After that they got hold of Collies
and Saint Bernards.
After a period of foundering,
they conceived the notion of moving into Pitbulls.
Their modus operandi is always
the same: First their top echelon buys "pet quality" pups from legitimate
but novice breeders or obtain adults from animal rescue stations since pedigrees
and registrations meaning nothing to them. They keep the animals chained or
cooped up in back of the house and breed father to daughter, mother to son,
sister to brother, with complete disregard. The first litters sell for seventy-five
dollars per pup, but the next generation sells for fifty dollars, and the generations
after that for thirty or thirty-five. Bitches are bred on every heat and shotgunned
when they have whelping problems or become infertile. Usually three or four
generations of such breeding suffices to guarantee that most of the specimens
are atypical in the extreme, including temperament.
These unfortunate creatures are
not fed correctly and receive little or no veterinary care. They are encouraged
to behave savagely and even to attack on command. Of course such "training"
borders upon the barbaric and serves only to destabilize an already iffy specimen.
When the underworld people got
into Sheps and Dobes and Collies and Saints, they managed nearly to ruin
those breeds . But when they got hold of Pitbulls, they got more, much more,
than they had bargained for.
Pitbulls proved a lead-pipe
cinch for the subculture to ruin in record time because their temperament, originally
sound, is easy to spoil. It does not require physical abuse or maltreatment
but nothing more than indifference from the owners and isolation from human
love and companionship, an existence without human affection for long periods
of time. The result: a vicious dog in the original sense of that term.
A Pitbull, even with a spoiled
temperament, remains the most athletic and strongest canines, pound-for-pound,
in existence, capable of almost unimaginable feats of power, endurance, and
tenacity, feats far beyond the capacity of most mortal dogs.
When uncaring owners allowed such
Pitbulls to roam free or get free, some of them did indeed commit social atrocities,
that's true. But these were not well-bred dogs owned and raised and cared for
by responsible citizens. Rather, they were canine sociopaths manufactured to
design by that shadowy subculture, reflecting as though from a mirror its moral
and ethical bankruptcy.
In response, the national media
began its typical shark-feeding frenzy, its reportage always superficial, always
error-prone, always sensationalized. And the duped public reacted predictably.
When I arrived in Omaha, Nebraska,
in 1969, there was not a Pitbull in the city. In 1988, frightened owners turned
in more than 400 Pitbulls to the Omaha Animal Shelter to be destroyed humanely
-- but an estimated two thousand more were not turned in.
Now, in 1996, the "Pitbull menace"
is long gone - it's over, kaput - and has been for five years or more although
its image lingers on public memory.
The shadowy subculture has moved
on and is in the process of ruining yet another breed.
It's moved into Rottweilers.
Sincerely,
(signature)