'We are sick and tired of euthanizing pit bulls'

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'We are sick and tired of euthanizing pit bulls'
COMMENT: Should owners be required to sterilize pit bulls?
RELATED: # Shelter leader seeks pit bull sterilization
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By Josh Sweigart

Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

HAMILTON — Butler County Deputy Dog Warden Don Fugate said he opened the door slowly, after the house's resident had just remarked that there were two pit bulls in the basement, and they hadn't heard one of them for several days.

Fugate and the assembled sheriff's deputies expected a hunger-crazed beast. But instead, out ambled sweet Blossom, her collar hanging loosely from her emaciated neck.

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"You could stick both your hands on either side at the same time," Fugate said. "You would think that a dog that was starved to death would be a little more aggressive." But she wasn't.

They also found another pit bull dead in the basement, and another undernourished one upstairs.

"Those dogs didn't get like that overnight," Fugate said. "That's a long time of animals not being fed properly."

Dog wardens had been called to the home at 145 Pershing Avenue in Hamilton on an eviction call. They left with Denise Colon in tow, facing four counts of animal cruelty, three counts of failure to hold liability insurance — as required by the state for pit bulls — and three counts of not having her dog licensed.

Colon is expected in court today, Feb. 19, on the animal cruelty counts. That's a first degree misdeamenor, punishable by up to $1,000 in fines and six months in jail.

The two surviving dogs are at the Animal Friends Humane Society in Trenton, where they're being treated. Blossom was 25 pounds underweight when she came in, said humane society Executive Director Leland Gordon.

"She was so thin she could barely walk," he said.

But there's no guarantee for a happy ending. After living through all of this, Gordon said pit bulls are rarely adopted, so many of them are euthanized.

"We are sick and tired of euthanizing pit bulls," Gordon said.


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www.western-star.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/02/18/hjn021908PitBulls.html

Shelter leader seeks pit bull sterilization
Says it 'next to impossible' to get them adopted and he's tired of euthanizing
COMMENT: Should owners be required to sterilize pit bulls?
RELATED: 'We are sick and tired of euthanizing pit bulls'
Click-2-Listen
By Josh Sweigart

Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

HAMILTON — Leland Gordon, executive director of the Animal Friends Humane Society, is tired of watching dogs die.

So he is calling on local cities to pass ordinances requiring residents to spay or neuter their pit bulls.

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This weekend, 15 pit bulls passed through the Trenton shelter. This includes Blossom, who came in roughly 25 pounds under weight.

The problem, Gordon said, is pits are bred for money, abused to make them aggressive, and often neglected or abandoned. This can make an otherwise friendly dog mean.

"The husband and wife with two kids with the white picket fence in Butler County are not coming in to adopt pit bulls," he said. "It's next to impossible to get them adopted because most people do not want to adopt pit bulls because of their reputation."

If they're not adopted, the animals are euthanized.

Gordon pointed to San Francisco, where shelters took in a quarter fewer pit bulls after mandatory sterilization.

Butler County Chief Dog Warden Julie Holmes agrees that the county has a pit bull problem.

"Most pit bulls are friendly, loyal animals. But every time you see a breed become popular, there tends to become inbreeding and overbreeding," she said.

Holmes said many inner-city pit bull owners want the dogs as status symbols, or even for dog fighting.

"The moment you tell them they have to have those animals fixed, I guarantee they won't have them," she said. "If you truly love the dog or love the breed, you're going to take care of it regardless of whether they're spayed or neutered, and that's what we want to see."

Pit bull lovers include Sheila Chapman of Fairfield Twp. She has a pit mix named Memphis, and is fostering a pit puppy named Rogue. She said they get along great with her two children, ages 5 and 13.

"Both of mine are sweet and wonderful dogs, and I think it's just how you raise them," Chapman said. "Humans are the same way, you can teach them to be awful, or you can teach them to be nice."

State law already requires Chapman to carry $1,000 in liability insurance — costing her about $150 a year — and to keep the dog in a fenced area and muzzle it when in public.

She supports a spay/neuter restriction. She fears that, if action isn't taken, someone is going to push for a total ban on the notorious breed, such as the one that exists in Fairfield.

"Just totally banning a dog just because of the breed, I don't think that's right," she said.


Contact this reporter at [e-mail].