Court Rules Miami-Dade County Pit Bull Ban Unenforceable!

http://www.animallawcoalition.com/system/files/PIT+BULL+EVALUATION+FORM.doc

Court Rules Miami-Dade County Pit Bull Ban Unenforceable!

Posted Mar 19, 2009 by lauraallen

Miami-Dade County, Florida (March 19, 2009) Miami Coalition Against Breed Specific Legislation (MCABSL) and Animal Law Coalition applaud a hearing officer's ruling that the Miami Dade County Pit Bull ban is too vague, and the county cannot enforce the finding by animal control that a dog named Apollo is a pit bull that must be euthanized or removed from the county. 

The ruling came in a case challenging the finding by Miami Dade County Animal Control that a family pet named Apollo was a "pit bull" that must be removed from the county or euthanized.

In Ordinance No. 89-22, the county bans all dogs that "substantially conform" to American Kennel Club standards for   American Staffordshire Terriers or Staffordshire Bull Terriers or United Kennel Club standards for American Pit Bull Terriers. 

To determine if a dog substantially conforms to these standards, animal control uses a chart that lists 15 body parts such as "head", "neck", "lips", "chest", "eyes", "tail", "hind legs", etc. The officer places a check mark to indicate whether each characteristic conforms or not to a pit bull. If 3 or more characteristics are checked "conform", the dog is declared a pit bull. The county's pit bull evaluation form is attached at the end of this article and can be downloaded.

Rima Bardawil, the attorney for Apollo, pointed out that there is no such chart authorized by the ordinance and it is not clear what standards animal control is using in making its determinations.

Also, Dahlia Canes, executive director of MCABSL, testified that animal control is "constantly" mis-identifying the breeds of dogs. She told the court about one dog that was declared by an animal control officer to be a pit bull mix and ordered euthanized.  Canes arranged to have the dog re-evaluated and he was determined to be a mastiff mix. The dog was then adopted to a family in Miami-Dade County. 

In this case the animal control officer photographed Apollo from several feet away and then using the photo, picked 3 body parts he said he thought conformed to pit bull standards, whatever those are.

As Canes pointed out later, "Many breeds of dogs and mixes have the same or similar traits. It is impossible to determine breed this way. Seriously, you are going to say a dog is a pit bull based on 3 traits like round eyes, broad shoulders and a muscular body?  Dogs are many times genetically a mix of many different breeds. The judge agreed. This proves breed shouldn't be a factor in deciding whether a dog presents a danger."  

Go here for more on a possible legal challenge to the Miami Dade County pit bull ordinance.

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Miami Coalition Against Breed Specific Legislation was formed in 2008 and its members work for the repeal of the Miami Dade County pit bull ban. For more information visit, http://www.mcabsl.wildapricot.org/   

Frank is not better

Well, last week we had a little setback with Frankie poo. I think it is probably a set back from his neuter and tooth removal but it didn't pop up until he had finished his antibiotics. He got all itchy again and began getting little pimply bumps. So we went back to the vet. Another round of prednisone and a month's worth of antibiotics He's now on day 4 of the prednisone and the itch is completely gone. 

His hair is not so bad looking, it's actually starting to fill in. He still has the coordination issues. That progress has pretty much come to a standstill and while he can stand and keep all four feet under him on a slick floor, he tends to drag instead of lift his feet. He's like a lazy kid wearing flip flops, scuffing along. Except that when he's really tired, he scrapes the top of his toes. A nice long walk yesterday reminds me I need to lay off the exercise on him. 

Today he's outside on the porch enjoying the fresh air along with his fresh breakfast. I am going to switch his food to a limited ingredient although I am not convinced he has a food allergy. I am 90% sure he just had a tenacious skin infection and that he needed more than 14 days of antibiotics to get through it. Last night after looking at his gums (still very pale), I decided that I needed to get over my meat aversion and maybe take him raw for a little bit. So I bought about 10 pounds of ground turkey and beef, skipped the turkey necks and bought some fresh Kale. I cooked the Kale down and then blended it into a paste and I'm going to mix the paste with the pearled barley, sardines and the rest of his duck and potato canned food. That with the gound meat balls should do the trick with the weight gain issue as well as making sure he gets the right nutrition. 

He's a good boy. I'm going to talk to the vet about the possibility of testing for another tick born disease (babesia) and treating his thyroid to see if those are things that would help his coordination.