Punish The Deed Not The Breed Sociology Essay
How would you feel if someone came to your house, took your dog and told you that the breed was dangerous and they had to put it to sleep? And before that your dog had been a good dog, never bothered anyone. But they put it to sleep anyway. Sounds like a nightmare right? Well in some states this is becoming a reality for some families. In certain states Pit Bull owners are having to give up their best friends and pets, because of the actions of other irresponsible owners. Because of some irresponsible people who decided to fight this beautiful dogs the responsible loving owners are losing their pets. Pit Bulls are an amazing, loyal breed of dog, But dog fighting has given them a bad name. BSL( breed specific Legislation) laws are not the solution to the dog fighting problem.
Pit bulls are the most misunderstood breed in the canine world, but most people don’t understand what the real pit bull breed is about. “Pit Bull” is not actually a breed of dog, it several breeds all put into one group. The most recognizable breed is the American pit bull terrier, when most people think of a typical pit bull this is what comes to mind. Second there is the American Staffordshire terrier, and lastly the Staffordshire bull terrier. All these dogs are very similar but are different breeds of dog according the AKC registration. The one thing all these dogs have in common is that they are all part of the bull dog family, same as the English bull dog and the boxer. But yet the “Pit Bull” breed is the most unwanted breed around. But why is that? Probably because there are a lot of myths and rumors that surround this breed. One of the most recognizable rumors is that pit bulls bite more people than any other breed. “The biggest problem with this rumor is that people have a difficult time properly identifying a true “pit bull” breed. The fact that pit bulls are also a very popular breed also changes this statistic. Viewing older statistical reports for the center of disease control, one will see that trends in breed popularity reflect in the number of bites attributed to a specific breed during a specific period of time. Another rumor about “pit bulls” is that because pits have a tendancy to be aggressive towards other animals that they are also aggressive towards people. Other dog aggression and human aggression are entire different. ” historically, humans were always in the pit, handling the fighting dogs” in those times if a pit bull was human aggressive then it was impossible to fight and had nothing to offer. Those same ideas apply to dog fighting today and so human aggression was never bred into these dogs.
Dog fighting has been around for hundreds of years. In England in the early 1800’s “the poor people of England and Ireland started to focus on dog fights because they were cheaper, easier to stage, and easier to hide. The dog fighting history of pit bulls is probably the most important because it still continues today. It is sickening that people, in our civilized world use two innocent animals tearing one another part for entertainment. In the beginning it was just gang members doing it, “but now children are doing it, cheering dogs in fights to the death. When an animal welfare official visited a fourth grade class recently, he asked the kids ‘who has seen a dog fight?’ every hand shot up. Then he asked, ‘I don’t mean molly slipping out of the yard’ and again every hand shot up.” This is becoming a serious problem in our country. It is bad enough that adults do it but now they are dragging our youth into this heartless and cold act. This is one of the most serious forms of animal abuse. The dogs are forced to fight one another to the death or until one of them is dead or seriously wounded. They are trained their whole lives to fight and even if they are rescued they usually have to be put to sleep because they are to aggressive. And the people who train them to fight made them that way. They never even got a chance to have a good life because their owners never let them. It is even worse when some of our favorite celebrities are also getting in on this horrible act. Rapper Earl Simmons (a.k.a. DMX) got arrested in 2002 for fighting dogs. And most recently football player Michael Vick got caught fighting dogs too. People have turned this horrible act into a sport and they kill these amazing dogs for their own person benefit. In these dog fights people bet money and make a night out of it. These people get friends together have a few drinks, party, and then watch to animals rip one another apart. (overview)
Not only do pit bulls have to fight for their lives in rings but they also have to fight by law. Some pit bulls don’t even get a chance to be good loving dogs. Because people are so fueled by fear, That are completely destroying the breed. They are now passing BSL laws (breed specific legislation). Which means that can make laws on what kind of dogs you can have in certain states, and of coarse the first breed they went for was the pit bull. These laws ban, or put restrictions on pit bull or pit bull like breeds. “In the state of Mashapee, MA, under the guise of a new bylaw claiming to protect children, the owner or keepers of any ‘pit bull type’ dog who has a litter (of puppies) must bring them to the town kennel for destruction.” These are puppies. Newborn puppies. They never even had a chance to be good loving pets and friends. Just because of their breed. In other states “a breed ban usually requires that all dogs of a certain appearance be removed from the area where BSL has been implemented. Breed specific restrictions may require an owner to, muzzle the dog in public, purchiace liability insurance of a certain amount, place ‘vicious dog’ signs outside their residence, and make the dog where a ‘vicious dog tag or other identifying marker.” These laws do take to account how the owner has raised, trained, and managed the dog. These dogs have been torn away from their loving owners and homes to be put to sleep for no other reason than pure discrimination. (what is BSL?)
BSL laws are not an effective solution to the dog fighting problem or dog bites. The way dogs behave and are handled are not the responsibility of the dog. That is up to the dog owner. Banning the pit bull breed is not going to stop the dog fighting problem either. The kind of people who fight dogs are ruthless, heartless, criminals. If the state eliminates the pit bull population these people will just find another breed of dog to torture and kill. Today it is pit bulls tomorrow it will be the rottweiler, then the German Shepard. We should not ban the entire population of pit bulls because of the actions of some untrained dogs and some irresponsible owners. “The most frequent dog bite victims are children” and most of the time the parents blame the dog. But any responsible parent knows that you cannot leave a dog alone with a child. Any breed of dog. It is just not safe. Every breed of dog has a sort of primitive mind. Dogs do not know the difference between rough and to rough, they don’t understand the difference between adults and children, and they are not as sympathetic when something is agitating them. No matter how much we would like to think of our dogs as our equals, dogs do not think like humans. And we need to keep that in mind. All dogs have the potential to bite, or turn on you at any moment. But this has never stopped us from having them as our companions so why should we start now? Why would we put innocent animals to sleep for the way they look? This law is fueled by hate, and fear. Instead of completely eliminating these dogs we need to educate owners on how to handle their pit bulls. We need to educate people on what wonderful dogs these are and how much they have been through. If we could do this, less pit bulls would be put down, and pit bull sanctuaries would not be busting at the seams. Instead of using all that money and effort put into getting rid of these dogs, we need to use all that energy and money to put the people who abuse these animals in jail. Instead of passing laws to ban pit bulls, we should put a higher punishment on animal abuse and dog fighting. (pediatricts)
In conclusion I believe the pit bull has been discriminated against long enough. These dogs have been abused for to long and it is time to give them the love and respect they desirve. We would never kill a person for how they look so why do we do it to our four legged companions? We need to stop the hate, and the fear. We all need to stand up and stop BSL before it is to late for these beautiful dogs. We need to stop punishing the breed and start punishing the deed.
