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Denver Court Reinstates Ban on Pits, Owners Put Dogs into Hiding

August 19, 2005

A few weeks ago, two police cars and two animal control vehicles pulled up at the home of Stef'ny Steffen looking for her beloved 4-year-old pit bull, Xena. Seven officers hauled the animal off to the city shelter, putting her on death row.

Xena became an outlaw after Denver won a court fight and reinstated one of the toughest pit-bull bans in the nation. Since May, more than 380 dogs have been impounded and at least 260 destroyed -- an average of more than three a day. At the city shelter, pit bulls are cordoned off from other dogs in what has become death row. Nearly 100 pit bulls have been released to live outside the county. A nonresident must guarantee the dog will never return to Denver.

Denver is one of three major metropolitan areas, along with Miami and Cincinnati, to ban pit bulls, according to Glen Bui, vice president of the American Canine Foundation. California cities cannot ban specific breeds of dogs, but a bill in the state Legislature would permit them to require certain breeds be spayed and neutered, making them less aggressive. That proposal came after a pit bull that had not been neutered killed a 12-year-old boy in San Francisco in June.

Pit bull typically describes three kinds of dogs: the American pit bull terrier, American Staffordshire terrier and the Staffordshire bull terrier. But Denver's ban applies to any dog that looks like a pit bull. The animal's actual behavior does not matter. First bred for fighting in the 17th century, pit bulls come in many colors and stand as tall as 2 feet and weigh up to 55 pounds. In rare cases, they weigh twice that. With thick necks and huge jaws, pit bulls are known for their strong bites and a refusal to let go. People hearing about a dog attack on a human often assume it's by a pit bull. It's a reputation that Denver's pit bull lovers are furiously fighting to change.

The ban requires pit bulls found within city limits to be held for a week. They are killed if they aren't claimed. A dog is released only if the owner finds someone who lives outside the Mile-High City to take custody. If the pit bull is found again in town, there is no second chance. The dog will be euthanized.

City Councilman Charlie Brown said that in his judgment, "pit bulls are trained to attack. They're bred to do that." Critics of the ban use words like "annihilation" and "genocide," and the city shelter has received e-mails likening animal control officers to Nazis. "Breed bans are just a knee-jerk reaction to something that happened in the community," Bui said.

Owners argue that pit bulls, like any dogs, attack only if trained to do so or if neglected by their owners. They note that pit bulls were once known as exemplary companions for children and the infirm. They say laws that punish owners for the dogs' bad behavior are more effective than outlawing an entire breed.

Dog owners are in a panic. Some are using an underground railroad of sorts, sending their pets to live elsewhere or hiding them from authorities. City officials would not estimate how many people might be violating the ordinance. Some owners, like Steffen, have won a reprieve for their pets with help from a rescue group. The group got Xena released by signing an affidavit stating that the animal would never return to Denver. The group took the dog to Mariah's Promise in Divide, an animal sanctuary that has accepted more than three dozen pit bulls from Denver. For Steffen and her partner, Gina Black, leaving Xena 60 miles from home was a lousy option but the only one they had. "It's safer than animal control, safer than keeping her underground. At least she'll be able to play now," Steffen said. "But she'll miss us. We're her pack."

Some dog lovers have sold their houses and fled the city rather than part with their pets. One man backed out of buying a house and lives out of a camper shell on his pickup with his two pit bulls. Others have stayed in town but lead clandestine existences, dodging authorities and concealing dogs, dashing across city limits when it's time for a walk. Denver banned pit bulls in 1989 after dogs mauled a minister and killed a boy in separate attacks. The public discussion in City Council chambers was so emotional that, at the time, council members said they feared that some speakers were carrying concealed weapons. The Colorado Legislature passed a law in 2004 that prohibited breed-specific bans, but the city sued and a judge ruled in April the law was an unconstitutional violation of local control. Critics of the ordinance say that a blanket ban on an entire breed is misguided that the law should instead target irresponsible owners and all dangerous dogs. "If anyone says one dog is more likely to kill -- unless there's a study out there that I haven't seen -- that's not based on scientific data," said Julie Gilchrist, a doctor at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who researches dog bites. The CDC, the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Humane Society of the United States examined 20 years of dog-bite data and concluded that pit bulls and Rottweilers caused the most deaths. But the researchers also noted that fatal attacks represent a small proportion of dog-bite injuries and that the number of bites per breed simply seems to rise with their popularity. The director of the city's animal shelter, Doug Kelly, said the city had little choice but to impose the ban. "When pit bulls bite, they can be very, very serious bites which can end up more often than other breeds in serious bodily injury and death, and that's something that the city just can't ignore," said Kelly, who has received e-mails and letters from around the world tarring him as a "pit Nazi."