The Rap on Pit Bulls Revisited

Odds Improving for the Good Ones at Area Shelters

By Bill Brubaker

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 30, 2007

The black puppies were cute, cuddly and just a day old. But their hours at the Loudoun County Animal Shelter were numbered. If only they had been a different breed, their fate might have been different. But they were pit bulls -- a much vilified animal associated with dogfights, drug raids and vicious bites. And under a decades-old policy, Loudoun bans pit bull adoptions at the county-run shelter

"It was awful, really awful," shelter manager Inga Fricke said of the afternoon last summer when she tranquilized the two puppies, wrapped them in blankets and injected them with a solution called Fatal Plus. "It was awful because they were puppies. I mean, they had just been born here. Their mom had come in stray and pregnant."

Loudoun isn't the only jurisdiction that has singled out the pit bull as the bete noire of its animal adoption facility. But a wave of new policies and proposals is sweeping the Washington region as shelters acknowledge a fact of life that many jurisdictions have long ignored: Not all pit bulls are dangerous.

Policies allowing pit bulls to be adopted after they have been evaluated and cleared by animal-behavior specialists have been implemented in Montgomery and Prince William counties and approved in Arlington County. Meanwhile, Loudoun and Alexandria are considering rule changes that would enable them to join the District, Fairfax County and other jurisdictions that allow pit bulls to be adopted.

More than 160 pit bulls have been adopted at Montgomery's shelter in the 15 months since its policy went into effect. "And not one has been returned," said J.C. Crist, chief executive of the Montgomery County Humane Society, which runs the shelter. "Before, we euthanized every pit bull that was older than 6 months and did not have a history. Now, we make an investment in every dog that walks through our shelter -- because it's the right thing to do."

The Northern Virginia counties were nudged into action by Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R), who issued a nonbinding opinion in October that publicly funded shelters should not euthanize dogs based solely on their breed.

Not taking any chances, a group of shelter directors in Northern Virginia has been meeting to draw up a regional policy. "We want to make it very clear that none of us is discriminating by breed and that we are evaluating dogs based on their own merit," said Karen Diviney, who heads the Fairfax shelter.

In Loudoun, many residents agree it is time for a change. A recent survey by the county shelter in rural Waterford found that residents favored abolishing the current policy -- euthanizing all unclaimed full-blooded and mixed-breed pit bulls after a 10-day waiting period -- 718 to 359.

One self-described 51-year-old grandmother, responding to the survey, wrote: "I have found that my pit bulls have been the most lovable and obedient dogs I have ever owned. They give so much love and I cannot imagine my life without them."

The dogs known as pit bulls originally were bred and trained for sport in early 19th-century Britain. They were tossed into a pit to taunt and do battle with bulls; that's how they got their name -- and perhaps their temperament. Most were trained not to show aggression toward their handlers, so they became an ideal family pet.

But after nearly two centuries of breeding and crossbreeding -- and of mistreatment and even torture by humans -- pit bulls have become an enigma. Some are devoted and trustworthy pets; others are vicious and dangerous. It depends on the dog.

"I inform every patron that this is not a typical dog," Crist said. "But a pit bull that has been evaluated and undergone temperament testing should not be a problem if it's in the right hands."

Long gone are the days, however, when Americans warmly associated the pit bull with Petey, the loveable pooch with the black ring around his left eye who co-starred in Our Gang and Little Rascals movies of the 1920s, '30s and '40s.

Today, these muscular animals are more often identified with the bad-boy culture embraced by some gangs, hip-hop stars and professional athletes.

Witness the recent indictment of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who with three other men has been charged with operating an illegal dogfighting operation on his farm in southern Virginia. Federal authorities said the Bad Newz Kennels,as the enterprise allegedly was known, killed pit bulls that underperformed in fights and training exercises. Some were hanged. Others were drowned. One was wet down and electrocuted.

In the Washington area, street fights pitting one gang member's dog against another's are more the rage, shelter officials said.

"We see more people breeding these dogs to be bigger and badder," Fricke said at the Loudoun shelter on a recent afternoon. "Unfortunately, it's becoming a fad. We also see a lot of dogs come in to our shelter with scars -- evidence of street fighting involving gang-type people."

The shelter sits on 13 acres in Loudoun's rural west but serves a county that has become increasingly urban on its eastern edges, where gang activity is a problem.

"We have had guys walk through our shelter, looking for their lost pit bull, with the teardrop tattoos -- you know, the prison tattoos," Fricke said.

Loudoun's adoption ban has caught the attention of animal activists.

"We get e-mails from around the country, calling us killers and Nazis," Fricke said. "Some people have actually gone to the sheriff to try to get us arrested for not adopting these dogs out. What they don't realize is that we love animals here. We're not the bad guys. And we didn't create this problem. We're just trying to mop up this mess."

This isn't strictly a right-to-life issue because some pit bulls are euthanized for violent acts, shelter officials said. Not easily forgotten is the afternoon in March 2005 when an 82-year-old Spotsylvania County woman was fatally mauled by her neighbor's three pit bulls.

"The consequences of getting it wrong with one of these fighting breeds is really serious," said Kay Speerstra, executive director of the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, which runs the county's shelter.

The District hasn't allowed a pit bull to be adopted from its shelter since its no-breed-discrimination policy took effect several years ago. "The dogs that are not claimed in our shelter are the ones that are -- you know -- the throwaways of society," said Peggy Keller, the District official in charge of the shelter.

Meanwhile, next-door neighbor Prince George's County maintains one of the strictest policies in the nation, banning pit bulls from county homes unless they were acquired before 1997.Loudoun gets all sorts of pit bulls -- many just like Max, a 4-year-old brown brindle German shepherd mix brought to the shelter this summer.

At first glance, Max seemed quite the social animal one recent morning as he wagged his tail in a backroom kennel hidden from the adoption floor.

"Hi, sweetie!" animal behavior specialist Jenny Swiggart said as Max pressed his paws against the kennel bars. "How we doing?"

But Max would be euthanized the next day. "He was brought in here because he bit his owner," Swiggart said. "That's a very hard thing to work through because it shows an arousal. It shows he's quick to bite."

On another morning, Swiggart was less certain about the temperament of a tan pit bull that had been found near the shelter on Route 9. Would he have been a good pet under the proposed policy change Loudoun supervisors soon will be examining? Possibly, Swiggart said. But no one stepped forward to claim him, and he was euthanized a few days later.

And those day-old puppies? Would their story have been different?

"This was a tragic case," Fricke said, standing in the euthanasia room, stocked with syringes and medications and a catchpole, used to restrain aggressive animals.

Under the proposed policy, it is likely the puppies would have been allowed to grow up a bit before their fate was decided, Fricke said.

Her eyes glistened as she recalled the puppies' last moments.

"I did Mom first," she said quietly. "Yes, in a case like that, we'll do Mom first because we certainly don't want to stress Mom out. So I waited until Mom was sedated. And then I sedated the puppies."

None of this was easy, Fricke said as she headed out to the adoption floor, where dozens of animals -- but not a single pit bull -- awaited their day in the sun.

"We want to see them all get a chance," she said. "But we do have a responsibility to the community as well. So it's a fine line, a very fine line."