Monday, July 13, 1987

United States: Series of Pit Bull Attacks Stirs a Clamor for Laws

UNITED STATES -- When Raylene Smith sees a pit bull, she sees a killer. Her mind flashes back to the day two years ago when two pit bulls knocked her to the ground, tearing at her stomach, legs, arms and thighs.

When Sarah Nugent sees a pit bull, she sees a breed of dog she has raised and loved for 22 years. She blames irresponsible owners and public hysteria for the intense hostility that has made her afraid to take her dogs for a walk.

Angered and frightened by a steady flow of horror stories about pit bull attacks on people, many cities and states are rushing to enact legislation to ban or regulate the animals.

Officials who work with animals say it is the most concentrated legal assault on a specific breed they can recall. The controversy is reflecting both tricky legal issues and troubling social issues as the dogs are increasingly put to violent uses.

Steel-Trap Jaws

The term pit bull refers to a wide variety of animals with squat, muscular bodies and steel-trap jaws descended from the fighting bulldogs of 19th-century England. They are known alternately as American pit bull terriers and American Staffordshire terriers, and commonly include mixtures with Staffordshire bull terriers, bull terriers and bulldogs. All have in common a genetic history of being bred for fierce combat with other animals or other dogs.

Few definitive figures on dog bites are available. But the Humane Society of the United States says that since July 1983, pit bulls have been responsible for 20 of the 28 deaths after dog bites in the nation, including all five this year. The breed accounts for perhaps 1 percent of all dogs in the nation.

The most publicized recent attack came in June when a chained pit bull guarding a marijuana crop in California killed a 2-1/2-year-old boy. 

In the past week alone, a 3-year-old Ohio girl lost part of her nose after she was attacked by her family's pit bull and a Michigan man was charged with assault with a deadly weapon when his pit bull attacked a 12-year-old girl.

For victims like Ms. Smith, 45, who still suffers nerve damage from the attack, the emotional effects linger long after the assaults.

"I can't remember the pain, I can only remember the terror. I remember thinking, they're killing me and I can't stop them," said Ms. Smith, who lives in Houston.

Such incidents have stirred intense emotions around the country.

"From the testimony we heard here, I think we should treat them like bears or tigers," said Ethel Sandoval of Tijeras, New Mexico, a city that banned pit bulls after a 9-year-old girl almost died after being mauled by four pit bulls in 1985. 

Some Areas Ban Pit Bulls

Largely as a result of pit bulls, more than 600 communities have requested information on animal control ordinances from the Humane Society this year, said Randall Lockwood, its director of higher education.

In Cincinnati, which last year banned pit bulls, officials say they have received well over 150 calls in the last two months asking for information on the ordinance.

Rhode Island, Washington, Ohio and Texas recently have enacted laws dealing with vicious dogs, and other states such as Connecticut are studying them.

In New York, a City Council member, Carolyn Maloney, this week proposed a pit bull ordinance that would require registration and liability insurance of at least $100,000 for current pit bull owners and would prohibit new owning or leasing of the dogs. Violation of the ordinance would be a misdemeanor punishable by fines of $500 to $5,000, up to a year in jail, or both.

Breeders Object to Laws

Ordinances specifying pit bulls are in effect in places ranging from Maumelle, Ark., to Buckley, Wash., and from Farmers Branch, Tex., to Lawrence, Kan. But specific laws have been overturned by the courts in Miami and Hollywood, Fla., Odessa, Mo., and St. Paul, Minn.

Breeders of pit bulls and other interested organizations love to claim that Pit Bulls are being singled out when in earlier decades it was supposedly German Shepherds, Rottweilers and Doberman pinschers that were doing the most maulings and causing the most deaths. But is this true?

They also contend it is seldom possible to be sure precisely which dogs sould be classified as pit bulls. Because of legal challenges, only about 10 of some 40 breed-specific ordinances that were passed or proposed are still on the books, Dr. Lockwood said.

Canine Defense Fund Started

"It's gotten to the point where anything with four legs, tail on the south and teeth on the north is a pit bull," said Jean Fletcher of the American Dog Owners Association in Castleton, N.Y. The group has established the Canine Defense Fund to fight pit bull ordinances.

More common are "dangerous dog" ordinances, which mandate registration and bonds or liability insurance for owners of dogs that have bitten people and specify that dogs can be confiscated and their owners fined or imprisoned for a second incident.

"We're seeing a growing propensity to have mean dogs in an age when we're increasingly distrustful of law enforcement," Dr. Lockwood said. "But we're also seeing the general public less willing to put up with people who are unwilling to restrain their danagerous animals. Your right to own a vicious dog stops at the next person's throat."

Both proponents and critics of the dogs see a similar process at work. They say pit bulls are increasingly being bought by careless owners or owners who are intentionally training them to be vicious watchdogs or attack dogs. The dogs have become increasingly popular with youth gangs and drug dealers, officials say. 'Wild, Savage, Ugly'

As a result, the most dangerous tendencies of the dogs are being enhanced.

"There is a new type of pit bull coming about - wild, savage, ugly, uncontrollable," said Samuel McClain, a former investigator with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Philadelphia. "You can tell by the names - Homicide, Switchblade, Crazy Pete."

The trend and the public fury toward pit bulls is particularly troubling to longtime breeders.

"The problem is not with the dogs, it's with the owners," said Ms. Nugent, the Houston breeder. "It's a more difficult dog to raise than some, and not everyone should have one. The trouble is it has become the macho dog to have, so the wrong people want them, and the right people don't."

She contends pit bulls may already be peaking in popularity and before long a new breed will become the nation's mean dog of choice.

Less Sensitive to Pain

Many animal groups agree that raised properly and kept contained, pit bulls need be no more dangerous than other large dogs.

But they say a large percentage of pit bulls have always been raised for combat. And they stress that pit bulls, if raised improperly, pose special dangers. Pit bulls tend to hang on and rip into flesh. They are also less sensitive to pain, so they are harder to dislodge while attacking.

The backlash against the dogs is showing up in different ways. Animal shelters report a growing number of people turning their dogs in for "disposal." There have also been several reports of attacks on the dogs. In Kansas City a pit bull burned to death when a gasoline bomb was thrown into its enclosure.

But some people concerned with the issues say the furor says as much about humans as about pit bulls.

"People determine whether dogs will be useful inhabitants of a community or nuisances," an attorney, Lynn Marmer, said in an analysis of dog-control laws for the University of Cincinnati Law Review. "It is the people who breed and foster viciousness in dogs whom legislators also must control."

(Special to the New York Times - July 12, 1987)