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148 | schaffner / canine profiling Issues of Concern Canine profiling Newfoundlands, German shepherds, Saint Bernards, Dobermans , and rottweilers share a common problem: over the years these breeds of dogs have been subject to breed discrimination. Today, American pit bull and Staffordshire terriers along with mixed-breed dogs who share their physical characteristics are the target of breed-discriminatory laws (BDL) throughout the world. In an effort to protect citizens from so-called dangerous dogs, some jurisdictions define all “pit bulls” as dangerous per se based purely on their breed and then either ban them or impose strict limitations on their “ownership.” However, upon studying the matter, these jurisdictions have found that these laws are ineffective, inefficient, and unfair. Studies throughout the world, including the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States, have indicated that breed-discriminatory laws are ineffective in that they fail to protect citizens from dog bites or attacks. For example, in Spain, researchers compared reports of dog bites to the public health department of Aragon, Spain, for five years before and five years after the legal ban on pit bull–type dogs and concluded that the law was “not effective in protecting people from dog bites in a significant manner” (Rosado et al. 172). Breed-discriminatory laws are also costly. For example , Prince George’s County, Maryland, established a task force to study the effectiveness of its pit bull ban. The task force reported that over a two-year period, the ban cost the county approximately $560,000. The costs were traced to the impounding of hundreds of pit bulls a year, housing and caring for a large percentage of them during the lengthy hearing process, and eventually killing them because of their appearance, thus incurring cost of euthanasia and disposal of their bodies. Meanwhile , hundreds of other dogs brought to the shelter were killed because there was no room for their care. To better analyze the costs associated with such laws, Best Friends Animal Society commissioned a study to develop a model to estimate the costs of a breed ban by locality. According to the model, if the United States were to enact a national ban on pit bull–type dogs, it would cost the country $459,138,163 annually to enforce. Finally, breed-discriminatory laws are unfair and may be unconstitutional. Targeting a dog because of breed rather than behavior is fundamentally flawed. Each dog is an individual and should be judged based on his or her behavior, not breed. Dog caregivers have challenged these laws for decades on a number of constitutional grounds, including procedural and substantive due process . Generally, the laws are upheld by courts, although in recent years some courts have begun to side with pit bull caregivers. The most successful challenges are those that claim the laws are unconstitutionally vague and violate the caregiver’s procedural due process by failing to provide adequate procedures for identifying the breed of dog and by denying caregivers the ability to challenge the breed designation by local authorities. Further, with the relatively recent scientific advances in canine DNA, the actual breed or breeds of a dog can be more accurately determined. Studies comparing visual identifications of breed with DNA testing of dogs have shown that the visual identification is very often inaccurate. This, in turn, results in arbitrary enforcement of the law. Caregivers have also challenged BDL as irrational. They argue that breed does not determine a dog’s temperament or expected behavior, and thus, targeting a breed does not effectively protect the public from harm. In fact, pit bulls are noted for being highly obedient animals who strive to please their caregivers and make excellent family companions. Factors other than breed are far more predictive of dangerous behavior. A study of fatal dog attacks noted the following commonalities among the attacks: (a) 97 percent of the dogs had not been neutered; (b) 84 percent involved caregivers who abused, neglected, chained, or failed to constrain their dog or left their dog unsupervised around children; and (c) 78 percent of caregivers kept the dog not as a companion but rather to guard, breed, or fight. Thus, banning a dog based purely on breed does not rationally relate to protecting the public. cheever / cosmetic surgery | 149 The more effective, efficient, and fair approach to protecting the public from dog bites or attacks is to target reckless human caregivers. Progressive jurisdictions are instituting a variety of regulations to address the problem of reckless humans, including allowing convicted...

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