Are Pitbulls Going to Get a Break in Ohio?

By Admin - Deanna, on April 5th, 2009 |

They will if State Rep. Barbara Sears gets her way. A recently introduced bill, HB 79 proposes to remove pitbulls from the definition of a vicious dog under state law. She believes that pitbull have been unfairly targeted getting a lot of support from animal rights groups and humane societies.

“The only thing this does is removes the term pit bull from the Ohio Revised Code,” Sears told The Evening Leader. “It doesn’t change the definition of vicious dogs or eliminate local municipalities from passing local laws. It’s pretty simple.”

“It’s my belief a vicious dog can be a lot of different breeds if it’s trained to be,” Sears said. “You can have a small, little dog trained to be vicious because its owner chooses to do it.”

House Bill 79 would not prohibit local municipalities from passing legislation targeting specific breeds, including pit bulls. However Sears said she hopes the bill makes people think about other breeds that could be vicious and not just pit bulls.

“What concerns me is if you look at some recent cases, there have been huskies and rottweilers,” Sears said. “Historically dobermans and German shepherds have had periods of time where they were trained to be vicious. There are a lot of dogs that can be attack dogs if that’s the owner’s intent. This just eliminates the automatic (labeling).”

Sears said she has received support from countless humane societies and animal rights groups across the region. Sears cited a 2005 incident in Lucas County where a show dog, that happened to be a pit bull, was euthanized because of its breed.
“It was a highly trained (dog) and our dog warden euthanized it because it was a pit bull,” Sears said. “It got loose and when the owner tracked it down, the dog warden wouldn’t return it.” (The Evening Leader)

Although not everyone supports the proposal, no surprise there, it would be refreshing to see people finally realizing the truth. Stop penalizing dogs by breed!!

The only things that all the media hype and discrimination does is kill dogs, rip apart families and make pitbulls more attractive to the very elements of society that shouldn’t own them in the first place. It’s puts an undue burden on responsible owners with increased insurance premiums which all too often force them to give up the dogs.

We as a society are supposed to be striving toward enlightenment rather then increasingly archaic laws and legislation. Discrimination is discrimination. Any dog can be dangerous or vicious, regardless of the breed.

Ohioans who care about dogs and pitbulls need to write, call and email their legislators and ask them to support State Rep. Barbara Sears and HB 79.