Dear members of Joint Committee on Municipalities and Massachusetts Representatives and Regional Government of Massachusetts;

We are against your proposal to ban pit bulls, rottweilers, or any specific breed of dog.

Any dog can be trained to do anything, and the responsibility of a dog's actions should be put on the owner(s). Please review your research about dog bites and attacks, you will find that the overwhelming majority (over 82%) of the attacks occurred when the dogs were unleashed/unrestrained.

It would be much more effective to enforce proper leashing and licensing than to ban a particular breed.  The law-abiding citizens that have their dogs in the public's eye are being responsible by properly socializing their dogs, as all dogs need this in order to be well balanced members of our society.

The law-abiding citizens that license their dogs in their respective cities and towns, and would rather move out of the Commonwealth than give up their dogs.  This will drive out residents and bring the economy down. 

Those that do not license their dogs or properly socialize their dogs are the problems.  These are the people that even if the ban is passed will continue their practices of unleashing, non-licensing, and non-socializing their dogs.

Any dog with out rules or discipline is a potential case for disaster.  We support proper obedience training for ALL new dog owners, not only "potentially aggressive dog breeds"; as any dog attack can be devastating, even the smallest dog bite can do major damage.

If you review the pit bull ban in Prince George's county in Maryland, it is similar to your proposed restrictions.  The backlash is that now there are labrador retriever breeders advertising their labs as "the new pit bulls" with protection and aggressive tendencies (which is completely the opposite of the labrador's appeal to families).  If a similar ban is passed here, it's only a short matter of time before irresponsible dog breeders will specifically breed aggression into otherwise mild-mannered dogs.

In general if this is passed, you will only be hurting the law-abiding citizens.  Those that do not license or control their dogs will continue to do so.  There are plenty of other dogs that look like the American Pit bull Terrier, like the Boxer, the American Bulldog, Cane Corso, certain types of Mastiffs, certain types of European Bulldogs, and many cross-breeds and new breeds are constantly developing.  How would you enforce this, and how would you determine what a pit bull is?  The answer is impossible.  It is more realistic to have a Dangerous Dog or Unlicensed Dog act, for dogs that are repeat offenders/attackers; but mostly it comes down to the owner.  The person is the one that chooses to bring the dog into their home, they should be forced to license, train and properly keep the dog(s), as all responsible pet owners already do.  If passed, this will cause more abandonment of dogs, and will flood our already overcrowded and poorly funded shelters with more dogs and lower adoption rates.


In summary our points are:

Aggressive dogs are found among any breed or crossbreed;

Breed specific legislation and breed bans are not effective solutions to the problem of dog attacks; and

The problem of dog attacks is best dealt with through a comprehensive program of education, training and legislation encouraging responsible ownership of all breeds.