Every day on my way to work, I pass an alarming sign on the road: "Red-nose pit bull puppies for sale."
The uneven letters are scrawled in black felt on a crooked cardboard sign that gets more and more weathered each day.
Neither an animal shelter nor a reputable breeder would advertise in such a cheesy manner; this sign can only be the work of a backyard breeder hoping to make some fast cash on a breeding pair of unfortunate pit bulls that he probably acquired in the same way he's selling their puppies.
It's not what he's selling that I find alarming - it's how and to whom he's selling it.
Pit bulls are a strong and powerful breed, and somehow marketing their availability via a homemade cardboard highway sign doesn't instill confidence in me that these puppies will find their way into safe, appropriate and responsible homes.
Granted, I'm making a doghouse full of assumptions about the creator of this sign, but I don't think I'm far off the mark. And I also don't think it's too much of a stretch to suggest this person and others like him are the reason the rest of the population gets worked up into a frothy frenzy every time there is a story in the media about a pit bull attack (I always find it remarkable that people are able to definitively describe the aggressing animal as a pit bull, especially in those cases where the animal runs away and is never heard from again). These are inevitably followed by calls for a breed ban and the usual arguments for and against such legislation.
I doubt statistics exist on the origin of aggressive dogs, but I bet it's far less likely that a dog or puppy adopted from a shelter or a reputable breeder today will become the tragic news stories of tomorrow.
The Delta Community Animal Shelter, like all B.C. SPCA shelters across the province, conducts a predictive behavioural assessment on every dog that is admitted. The test determines whether rehabilitation is necessary, what kind of training is required and what type of home is appropriate for adoption. Aggressive animals don't go home, and you can read between the lines on that one.
Likewise, reputable breeders have the benefit of cooking up their own gene soup and take the undesirable traits right out of the mix.
Shelters and reputable breeders also do their best to ensure the adopter is a good match. In other words, a frail 90-year-old who uses a cane isn't likely to be given a border collie puppy, never mind a pit bull.
As for Mr. Cardboard Sign with the marketing degree, do you really think he's doing anything like that? Money talks and the puppies walk. Come. Pay. Go home.
It's easy to blame pit bulls when they're the commonality in the headlines. But ban them, and there are plenty of other dogs du jour to take their place among back-yard breeders: rottweilers, Dobermans, cane corsos, presa canarios and dogo argentinos, for example. All are powerful breeds, just like pit bulls.
I'd much rather see a ban on unscrupulous breeders. That's not as easy as banning a breed, but the right answer is rarely the easiest.
