Our dog Bailey would be illegal if our community adopted Breed Specific Legislation - which it thankfully has not.

Folks involved in animal rescue know all about Breed Specific Legislation (BSL), but many average dog owners don’t understand what it really means when communities adopt laws banning dogs of specific breed or physical characteristics.

Then a story like this one hits the front page: retired police officer James Sak is being forced to get rid of  his service dog Snickers, just because the five-year-old is a Pit bull-mix.

Sak was a police officer in Chicago for 32 years, almost half that time as a tactical officer. Now retired, he needs the dog for assistance after he suffered a debilitating stroke that left him with no feeling on the right side of his body.  Sak told the Chicago Sun-Times, “I have spasms on my right side where the leg gives out whenever I get upset or try to do too much. When Snickers sees that my hand is moving, he sits down by me right away and waits for me to tell him what to do. Usually, he goes to get my wife so she can help me get back in the chair. Without him, I feel lost.”

Last month, Sak moved to the town of Aurelia, Iowa to be near his ailing mother-in-law. Soon after, he and his wife Peggy were called to a city council meeting and told they needed to get rid of Snickers the next day or the dog could be seized and euthanized.

The dog was immediately moved to a boarding facility outside of the town limits, and Sak is without his service companion. That means his 87-year-old mother in law is now taking care of him.

The story has obviously captured the hearts of Americans, who are outraged - as they should be. But this isn’t an isolated case. Breed Specific Legislation has been enacted in communities large and small across the nation, essentially outlawing breeds including the American Staffordshire Terrier, American Pit Bull Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and the American Bulldog – or more importantly, any dog that looks likes one of these breeds. People just like you and me have had to surrender their family pets - or move to a new city – because our dogs have broad heads or short tails or otherwise look like a “pit bull.”

Until now, have you paid attention to that? [Read more...]