Do it for all doggies: Repeal pooch profiling

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While all the hoopla about racial profiling is centered on the baddest sheriff in the U.S.A. and his anti-immigrant “crime sweeps” in Arizona, there is wide-spread bias of another kind happening in our own Miami-Dade County.

I’m talking about doggie discrimination. I’m talking about pooch profiling. I’m talking about the ridiculous and arbitrary ban on pitbulls passed in the 1980s that may finally have a real chance at being repealed today thanks to grass roots activists and people coming to their senses.

This will be the first time, and probably the last, that Ladra advocates on the part of dogs. Well, maybe not. But only because they are real dogs. Usually, I am hounding the dogs of the political pedigree. And this election today has a bigger share of dogs than most. So much so, that lots of the more of that later got lost in the mess.

But today, Ladra is coming out on behalf of dogs and asking my readers to give my fellow four-pawed friends a break and repeal the discriminatory ban on pitbulls.

Ladra loves all dogs and doesn’t understand why this breed is getting singled out. Yes, I’ve read the stories about the dog fights and the incidents. Isolated incidents. That, by the way, happens also with other dogs. Many dogs have crossed my path in life and some have been threatening or aggressive. A Doberman or two. A German Shepherd once that my dad had to put a bullet into the ground in front of so it wouldn’t tear a limb from my frozen-in-motion except for the shaking-like-a-leaf part body. But they are not banned.

Yet, I have never personally been put on defense by a pit bull. I’ve come across them from time to time and, generally, they act like most dogs: They love to get their ears or bellies scratched, prefer to sleep on your feet and beg for bacon if they smell it. But they never attacked me.

I’m not the only one who thinks this single-breed selective enforcement is profiling. The Miami Coalition Against Breed Specific Legislation has been working against the ban for years, but has gotten a lot of attention in the last year as they railed against conditions at the Miami-Dade Animal Control facility and have proposed real solutions: a dangerous dog ordinance — which would not racially profile my four-legged friends — and stiffer fines.

Thanks to that organization and to my crazy dog-lover friends on Facebook, God love ’em, this repeal may actually happen today. It’s one of the surer bets on the ballot.

Besides the fact that it’s a waste of money to enforce this ban, if it’s even enforceable — investigators have to answer a complaint, then they don’t go back to verify that someone has gotten rid of the dog, but fine you $500 if you don’t — there is a better reason to repeal this ban. I mean, helllloo? Aren’t we punishing the wrong breed, here?

It seems to be that by criminalizing the canine, you let the creeps who make a few dogs vicious, who abuse and train their dogs to be killers, off the hook. These are the responsible parties for the isolated incidents that always seem to make the news. What doesn’t make the news? Photos of my friend’s kids playing with their three pitbulls, sleeping on the pitbulls, pulling on the pitbulls that just sit there and take the toddler beatings.

They don’t seem innately vicious to me. I think you can take any animal and make them aggressive.

Again, it’s the humans at fault here, not us dogs.

Please vote yes on #500 to repeal this barbaric ban on my brothers and sisters with no tails (that’s about the only bad thing I have to say about them).