Hundreds Vow to Fight Proposed Mandatory Pit Bull Spaying

A pack of pit bull enthusiasts have vowed to fight Councilmember Steve Madison’s proposed city ordinance requiring the mandatory spaying of pit bulls at tonight’s City Council meeting.

Following the lead of Riverside County that passed a similar ordinance in October of 2013, the proposed Pasadena ordinance would require all pit bulls and pit bull cross breeds over 4 months old licensed inside the city be spayed or neutered.

“It’s not discrimination. We’re talking about a very dangerous breed of dog that year in, year out is responsible for the overwhelming majority of fatal dog attacks. My only interest is preventing that from happening in Pasadena,” Councilmember Steve Madison said. “88 times in the past 10 years a pit bull has killed someone.”

At the time of the Council’s agenda release last Thursday, 138 letters had been sent to the Council about the ordinance — two in support of the new ordinance and the rest asking that the ordinance be reconsidered as discriminatory, as targeting low-income families, or on the grounds that it is not suitable for a “progressive city like Pasadena.”

Two petitions supporting a movement to abandon the ordinance hosted on change.org have garnered a total of 348 signatures to petition for the defeat of the breed specific legislation.

“I think [the Pasadena City Council is] going to realize that they’ve made a huge mistake. I can’t believe [Steve Madison] wasn’t embarrassed. It’s absolutely shocking to me that someone who claims to be educated could quote www.dogsbite.org with a straight face. That’s like the hard news equivalent of TMZ,” animal attorney Marla Tauscher said.

Tauscher says 289 people have committed on Facebook to attend the City Council meeting on Monday to take a stand for pit bulls and pit bull cross breeds who frequently are misidentified, according to several of the articles provided for the Council in a 105 page document.

The document cites sources including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), and the National Canine Research Council (NCRC) to show that breed specific legislation has not worked in other places and has frequently been repealed.

The Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA provided data showing pit bulls comprise a disproportionately high number of unwanted dogs in Pasadena with pit bull breeds accounting for 27% of dogs euthanized and only 10% of dogs adopted out by the Pasadena Humane Society.

In a recent Pasadena incident,  a man was trapped inside his car by an aggressive pit bull in the area of Washington and Lincoln as reported by Pasadena Humane Society animal control officer Lt. Nemesio Arteaga on January 11th. The dog was tasered by responding Pasadena police, but shook off the effects and escaped. It was picked up as a stray two days later and ultimately the owner volunteered to surrender the pit bull to the Humane Society.

Following the incident Artega said  in his 17 years of experience he has seen all types of aggressive dogs and the number of pit bull-related calls in Pasadena does not outnumber calls about other breeds.

There have been no reported pit bull attacks resulting in death in Pasadena.

The Pasadena Humane Society has also spoken against the breed specific legislation, saying that targeting specific breeds is too difficult to enforce and will end up costing more in the long term.

“We do foresee increased costs. One of the reasons is because the definition of a pit bull,” Pasadena Humane Society Vice President Elizabeth Campo said.

Yet if the ordinance is passed the Pasadena Humane Society will be the body to enforce the mandatory spay/neuter of pit bulls and pit bull cross breeds with very few breeding exceptions.

“Pit bulls are a very common breed right now, but in my experience the popularity of dog breed changes. To write an ordinance for a specific type of dog isn’t practical for a long term solution,” Campo said. “Often times it’s the circumstances and not the breed itself that is the cause of an attack.”