Prince Georges County, Maryland

For those who don't live around here, you may not know that Prince Georges County, Maryland, a large county county south of Baltimore and just east of Washington, D.C., has a ban on pit bulls that's been in place since 1996.

Recently, Craig Moe, the mayor of Laurel, Md., a suburban city that's on the border of Prince Georges County and neighboring Howard County (part of the town is in one county, part of it in the other), wrote a letter to Prince Georges County Executive Jack Johnson, urging him to put assemble a task force to examine the possibility of lifiting the ban.

According to this Washington Post article, which was published Aug. 17 (yes, I know, I'm behind), that's not something he's willing to consider. At all. A County Council representative is quoted in the story as saying that even thinking about the bill is a waste of time, considering the more pressing issues that the council has to tackle.

This despite the fact that a task force put in place earlier this decade examined the county's pit bull ban and found it to be "inefficient, costly, difficult to enforce, subjective and questionable in its results."

When report came out in 2003 (you can read it for yourself here), droves of pit bull lovers went before the Prince Georges County Council to testify in favor of lifting it. I remember that I had to work that night and could not go, but I was there in spirit with a lot of my friends who did attend the meeting. I remember thinking that with so many responsible pit bull folks speaking to the council about how important it is to place blame on owners--not a breed of dog--for dog bite problems, coupled with this report that really hammered the inefficiency of the breed ban there was no way the council could fail to examine the issue.

I also remember how disappointed I was when friends of mine, mostly rescue folks who've worked with bully breeds for many years, recounted that meeting and said that the council members could have visibly cared less about what they had to say. They sat in their seats and whispered with one another, checked e-mail on Blackberries, one guy was reading something while constituents and pit bull lovers testified.

Here's the thing that kills me: One of the highlights of the report, from what I could see, is that the time it takes for the county to go through the legal proceedings for dealing with an "illegal" pit bull confiscated from a PG County resident is approximately one year. The report determined that it costs the county roughly $68,000 to maintain that one dog in the shelter while hearings are held and to pay for the legal proceedings surrounding it. $68,000. And according to the report, despite the pit bull ban, at the time the report was put together the county was still taking in roughly 800 pit bulls per year. Even if only 10 of those dogs' owners are put through the full legal hearing, that is around $680,000 spent on maintaining a pit bull ban in that year. Wonder how much of that money could be spent to help alleviate some of the other pressing issues the county faces? You know, like fighting crime, repairing roads, improving schools.

But the council can't be bothered to even listen to people who come to talk to them about reconsidering this monumental waste of time and money.

This is government in action in Prince Georges County, everybody.

Why the ASPCA isn't working with Mike Vick

Unlike the HSUS, which is trotting him out for PR purposes, the ASPCA refuses to get into bed with Michael Vick. Did anyone actually watch that episode of 60 Minutes? I found it very frustrating.

Anyway, I found this statment on Vick from the ASPCA interesting.

Bike Riding With Dogs=Abuse?

Recently a local newspaper here in Baltimore published a photo of a guy riding his bicycle along with his pit bull. The dog was on a leash and appeared to be wearing a weight harness, and maybe a weighted collar. Tough to say based on the photos. Regardless, the dog was running along with the guy, and a photographer snapped a photo and published it in the paper. The guy gave the photog his name and the photographer said the dog appeared happy and I think he actually described the dog as "frolicking." Apparently, though, this photo resulted in a major public outcry. You can view the photo, along with a blog post about it a small sampling of the resulting outcry here.

Now, I don't know this man from a hole in the wall. He may or may not be an upstanding citizen. But honestly, I don't really care. With the limited information I do have on him, via this photo, I can see that he's not doing anything untoward, illegal, or abusive. But readers of the Baltimore Sun are insisting that the photographer from the paper should have called the authorities on this guy, reported him for animal abuse, and have pretty much declared the guy a dog fighter. Why? Because he's spending time exercising his dog in a way that freaks people out.

If these commentators are correct, the newest trend (apparently) in dog-fight training is bike riding and strength training with your dog. Honestly, that's one I have not heard before. I've heard about the evils of treadmill training (Someone better tell the folks at Jog a Dog treadmills this, for the love of god! They keep putting up photos of spaniels on their mills.) I have also heard about the sport of weight pull being a front for dog fighting. (This despite the fact that the UKC weight pulls feature such a diverse array of dogs as pulling St. Bernards, standard poodles, and even a couple of weight-pulling papillons.) I'd also heard about how flirt poles and tugging are used by dog fighters to allegedly hone prey drive to help a dog be a better fighter. Even though it's fight drive, and not prey drive, that's at play when two dogs fight. And even though lure-coursing, and other such intensely prey-driven activities are really the dominion of sighthounds, such as greyhounds, lurchers, and deerhounds.

But the biking is a new one to me. And the biking with weights? Well, that's sommething I certainly wouldn't advise to most people, because it's gotta be stressful on the joints, but probably no more so than if a dog is 10 to 20 pounds overweight, which most pet dogs are.

I do bike with my dogs often. I also go out of my way to keep them all in shape. Doc is absolutely a nicely conditioned dog, and I've worked hard to make it so. Button is still a puppy, but he's actually developing a nice physique too. Even Tucker, who has bad hips, is kept lean and I do what I can to help him maintain proper muscle mass. I use the bike, backpacking (yep, they have to carry some weight in that pack), and a treadmill to keep them in condition. I also use a weight pull harness with Doc and have him drag some chains from time to time. It tires him out, it gives him work to do, it makes him happy.

Interestingly, no one I've ever encountered has seemed suspicious of me doing these things, and mostly people come up and ask me questions and seem to find it kind of eccentric and funny rather than threatening or abusive. Maybe because I'm a white girl, and not a black man like the guy in the photo? Or maybe because I'm not living in a neighborhood overrun with pit bulls? I really don't know.

But the response to that photo alarms me, because a guy should be able to bike his dog in a park, even if the dog is wearing some weight training equipment, without being cast as a dog fighter. I mean, it's not really advisable (or necessary) to weight your dog down for a run or a bike ride. It puts a lot of stress on the joints. But other than that, I can't think of a single negative thing to say about it. It's certainly not abusive. And we certainly shouldn't be jumping to the conclusion that this guy is a dog fighter based on no evidence but a photo of him running his dog in a city park.

And just for fun, here's what it looks like when me and Doc are out on the bike.

I'd Swear This was an Onion Story

I'd swear this was a story from satirical newspaper the Onion, but it's not. It's from the Guardian, which is a real publication based in the United Kingdom.

"Weapon dogs?"

Dog attacks on trees?

Terriers hung from branches?

If nothing else, I hope this story underscores the point that BSL is not effective. I mean, the UK has had a "dangerous dogs act" since 1991, which banned all pit bull type dogs. If, nearly years later, not even the trees are safe from dangerous fighting dogs, then the law surely must not be working. Right?

Rescue groups to help with Missouri bust dogs

Looks like the HSMO is actively working with various rescue groups to help with the Missouri fight bust dogs.

Read the press release here.

Teddy's Abraham and Teddy's Jade?

So anyone who reads this thing knows I have this dog, Doc, who's a white APBT. I've owned him for a over 3 years now, and I know very little about him, except that he was taken to a shelter by Animal Control in Alabama somewhereabouts 2004 or so. I was told he was a chain dog on a breeding yard, and that he sired a litter or two. Supposedly some dogs were taken from the yard for not having adequate food/water/shelter. Supposedly. And that's literally all I know. Everything that happened to him after that is pretty inconsequential, he went all around the block from Alabama to Georgia to North Carolina to Maryland, till he eventually landed in my lap, and he belongs to me now.

A week or two ago, someone pointed out to me that someone on Myspace had posted photos of him on their page and had called him "Vette's Casper." I laughed and sent them a message telling them they must be mistaken because my dog is just a BYB pit bull of no known heritage, and he's never been called anything but Doc as long as I've known him.

Person emailed me back, said they had met his breeder at shows, knew the dogs, visited the yard, and that my dog used to be on the guy's yard years ago, and that the dog was a stud dog on the yard. I honestly didn't believe it, and I told him that if this was true I wanted details.

The person would not give me any indentifying information, but said the dog was from Florence, Alabama (Doc is from Alabama), and that I should look up Teddy's Abraham by Teddy's Jade. He said the dogs were ADBA, but he would not give me any more info, no numbers or anything.

Of course I looked and found nothing. But I'm also not really well-versed in looking up peds and lineages of dogs . . . anyone ever hear of Teddy's Abraham or Jade? Any dogs being bred with the name Teddy's in them?

I'm still skeptical, of course, because why would someone recognize my big old white dog from some photos? I think all the white dogs look kinda generic and bulldoggy, but I can't help but ask around in case anyone knows anything about this dog's lineage.

The dog has such a balanced, even temperament and is such a good worker that, if I were to find out what's behind him, I might actually consider searching out similarly bred dogs for my next working dog. No joke.

So if anyone knows anything, even if it's just info on whether there ever was a Teddy's Abraham or Teddy's Jade, I'd love to hear about it.

And just for fun, here's a photo of the dog someone else said was named Vette's Casper. He's got an LP registration with UKC under the name Sullivan's Doc, which is who he really is, no matter what he was in the past.

Still, I'm curious.