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Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Denver
Dogged Outlaws By Nicholas Riccardi
August 02, 2005 in print edition A-1
Roxxanne Vigil rushed home from a barbecue one recent
Wednesday night to find her back door open and the
fugitives she was hiding gone. Neighbors had called her
cellphone, warning that the police were at her house in
northwest Denver. The officers had left by the time Vigil
returned, but they'd left a notice on the front door. The
clock was ticking: She had seven days before the
fugitives would be executed.
Vigil, 19, consulted her sister and mother. There was only
one hope for the family dogs Baby and Chopper:
the pit bull underground railroad, an elaborate rescue
network that spirits condemned canines off death row.
Denver's on-again, off-again ban on pit bulls has driven
some dog lovers to distraction since it was reinstated in
May. 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.
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. In the nearly three months since the ban was
reinstated, Denver has euthanized more than 290 pit
bulls. Baby and Chopper's father, Buck, was caught by
Denver's division of animal control and put to sleep last
month.
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.
The rhetoric can get pretty strong, Kelly added. Pit bull
owners say that's because the city is messing with
family... like, "You can keep one of your children, but this
one is too stocky, too broad a jaw", said Sonya Dias, a
loan officer who helped found the rescue network. As
she gained notoriety for fighting the ban, Dias sent her
pit bull, Gryffindor, out of town. Even though the group
adopted a staid name " Breed Awareness, Not
Discrimination" it has been tagged an underground
railroad. In addition to rescues, the group, which
numbers about 300, stages protests and circulates
petitions against the ban, and has joined a lawsuit to
overturn it.
Denver is not alone in banning the breed. Cities including
Cincinnati, Miami and Lanett, Ala., have outlawed pit
bulls. 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.
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. They 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. Indeed, the national Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, after conducting a 20-year study of
dog attacks, concluded that laws targeting dog
behavior, rather than outlawing breeds, were the best
way to ensure public safety. The CDC study did find pit
bulls and Rottweilers more likely to be involved in lethal
attacks, but noted that that was probably because they
were popular breeds. Nonetheless, Denver officials cite
that finding in their arguments supporting the ban. They
also note another study from the 1980s that found pit
bull bites were more likely to result in fatalities, as well
as their own personal experiences . One councilman was
bitten by a pit bull as a child, another's husband was
recently chased by one. Pit bulls are prisoners of their
own genetic code, said Councilman Charlie Brown, who
supports the ban. Their instincts are never far from the
surface.
The Vigils never saw any killer instinct in Baby or
Chopper. They settled on pit bulls as family dogs after
watching a friend's dog play placidly with a baby and the
Vigil's young cousins, nieces and nephews. Roxxanne
and her sister Robin picked puppies from that dogs litters
last summer and winter. The only problem, they said,
was the dogs need for affection. They lick you to death,
said Augusta Vigil, the sister's mother. They never bit
anyone. The new members of the Vigil family arrived just
as a truce was declared in Denver's pit bull wars.
The city had banned the dogs in 1989, after a 3-year-old
boy was killed and an influential minister was mauled 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. Animal groups long fought
the ban, and in spring 2004 the state Legislature passed
a law forbidding Colorado cities from outlawing specific
breeds of dogs, which nullified the Denver ban. The city
sued to overturn it, but for a year, pit bulls were legal.
Then came the District Court's decision in mid-April:
Denver had the right to regulate dogs. The ban would
return within 30 days.
The Vigils rearranged their lives to hide Baby and
Chopper. Robin had been caring for the dogs at her
father's house, but it had a chain-link fence. She gave
them to Roxxanne, whose rented house had a wooden
fence that they hoped would hide the dogs and keep
neighbors from reporting them to animal control. Just in
case, Augusta Vigil did a little research. That's how she
discovered the pit bull underground. When police arrived
that Wednesday night tipped off, the Vigils suspected,
by a neighbor who heard Baby and Chopper barking ,
Augusta called the underground's Rita Anderson. An
animal rights activist who lives in the famously liberal
university town of Boulder, 35 miles northwest of Denver,
Anderson is known as the woman who gets dogs off
death row. By her count, she has saved more than 30 by
signing agreements to take them out of Denver. City
officials welcome her help. "We want them to get pit bulls
out of Denver, said Kelly, the animal shelter director.
Anderson's day job, which included a recent campaign
against monkey experiments at the University of
Colorado, normally absorbs all her time. But when Dias
became overwhelmed with calls from pit bull owners, she
turned to her activist aunt, Anderson, who agreed to
assist the rescue network. Now Anderson is swamped
with calls for help. "These are people calling saying I
need to get my dog out of here or he'll die, she said. It's
not like you can say "I'm busy, I'll call you back in four
days. Thirty-six hours after Baby and Chopper were
confiscated, Anderson, Dias and the Vigils strode into the
squat concrete bunker in southwest Denver that housed
the city's animal shelter. With dogs yelping in the
background, Anderson and Augusta Vigil read and signed
a sheaf of papers. Dias, a public notary, was there to
certify the signatures. An animal control officer then led
the Vigils into the heart of the shelter's a vast yellow
room packed with cages, each adorned with a mug shot
of its inhabitant. In the back, behind a locked gate, were
the pit bull cages, including those holding Baby and
Chopper. The officer let Chopper out. A hefty brindle,
Chopper pranced up and down as Robin slipped a leash
and muzzle on him. Chopper, called Augusta, smiling and
slapping her knee. Next out was Baby, a lean, brown pit
with shimmering blue eyes. Robin who wore a black
T-shirt with Baby's image stenciled on it & also muzzled
him. The Vigils walked them out to the parking lot, tore
the muzzles off and embraced them. The dogs were
implanted with microchips that would allow animal control
to identify them as pit bulls that had already been
detained.
Baby and Chopper couldn't stay in town anymore. Their
next home would be Mariah's Promise, a 43-acre dog
refuge beneath Pike's Peak founded by Toni and Mike
Phillips, who operate a sheet-metal business in Colorado
Springs. The couple's kitchen features a poster, printed
by a Los Angeles-based dog group, portraying three
hooded Ku Klux Klan members marked Denver looming
over terrified-looking pit bulls. Mariah's Promise sheltered
a dozen or so dogs as well as the Phillips's four cats
until Denver's pit bull ban was reinstated. Now the
property is dotted with spacious, open-air kennels
holding more than 80 dogs, half of them pit bulls. The
refuge's one requirement is that the dogs be neutered.
The couple is trying to build an enclosed shelter to house
the dogs when the mountain winter arrives in October.
There's an emotional investment in these dogs by their
people that is causing them to take the radical measure
of taking them here, said Toni Phillips, wearing a
Harley-Davidson T-shirt and jeans as she strolled
between the kennels of barking dogs one recent
afternoon.
Plenty of dog-lovers are defying the ban. A 29-year-old
graduate student keeps her pit bull, Jack, inside her
house with the blinds drawn. She removed the mailbox
from her front porch so the postal carrier would not be
tempted to peek in. The student, who did not want her
name used for fear of losing Jack, said that when she
drives across city limits to take him for a walk, she
inevitably passes police cars and prays that her outlaw
dog stays down in the back seat. "I don't know how
people on the lam do it", she said. It's stressful. Rich,
who did not want his full name used to avoid being
caught, deals with even more stress because of his
extreme measures. When the ban was first in place, the
38-year-old sound technician hid his two pit bulls for four
years while he lived in a rented house in Denver,
sneaking outside the city for their regular walks. After
the ban was lifted, he came out in the open. He walked
the dogs in the city's parks and was about to buy a
house when the city announced it would resume
rounding up pit bulls. Rich backed out of the house deal,
losing thousands of dollars. Anything's better than being
stuck in Denver and not being able to have my kids in my
house, he said. I love the city of Denver. I wanted to
settle here and they chased me out. Rich had nowhere
to go; his work was still in the city. So he jammed a
mattress and a small propane-powered stove and
refrigerator in the camper shell on his pickup and became
a vagabond. On workdays, he parks in the shade and
leaves his pit bulls in the truck with a cooler of ice and
the sunroof open. He crosses city limits at night to
shower at friend's homes, walk his dogs and sleep with
them in the pickup. Meanwhile, he is looking for a house
in the suburbs. In the Vigil household, Robin also was
trying to find a new place in the suburbs, so she could
live close to Denver with Baby and Chopper. In the
meantime, she planned to take the pit bulls to Mariah's
Promise. Then, at the last moment, her grandparents
drove to Denver from their mountain home and offered to
take the dogs. Baby and Chopper now live in Fairplay,
about 85 miles southwest of Denver. They will stay there
for some time. In the past month, two cities near Denver
have also proposed pit bull bans. The uncertainty has
stalled Robin Vigil's dreams of reuniting with Baby and
Chopper. She has halted her apartment search because
she does not know what town may outlaw pit bulls next.
Denver
Dogged Outlaws By Nicholas Riccardi
August 02, 2005 in print edition A-1
Roxxanne Vigil rushed home from a barbecue one recent
Wednesday night to find her back door open and the
fugitives she was hiding gone. Neighbors had called her
cellphone, warning that the police were at her house in
northwest Denver. The officers had left by the time Vigil
returned, but they'd left a notice on the front door. The
clock was ticking: She had seven days before the
fugitives would be executed.
Vigil, 19, consulted her sister and mother. There was only
one hope for the family dogs Baby and Chopper:
the pit bull underground railroad, an elaborate rescue
network that spirits condemned canines off death row.
Denver's on-again, off-again ban on pit bulls has driven
some dog lovers to distraction since it was reinstated in
May. 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.
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. In the nearly three months since the ban was
reinstated, Denver has euthanized more than 290 pit
bulls. Baby and Chopper's father, Buck, was caught by
Denver's division of animal control and put to sleep last
month.
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.
The rhetoric can get pretty strong, Kelly added. Pit bull
owners say that's because the city is messing with
family... like, "You can keep one of your children, but this
one is too stocky, too broad a jaw", said Sonya Dias, a
loan officer who helped found the rescue network. As
she gained notoriety for fighting the ban, Dias sent her
pit bull, Gryffindor, out of town. Even though the group
adopted a staid name " Breed Awareness, Not
Discrimination" it has been tagged an underground
railroad. In addition to rescues, the group, which
numbers about 300, stages protests and circulates
petitions against the ban, and has joined a lawsuit to
overturn it.
Denver is not alone in banning the breed. Cities including
Cincinnati, Miami and Lanett, Ala., have outlawed pit
bulls. 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.
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. They 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. Indeed, the national Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, after conducting a 20-year study of
dog attacks, concluded that laws targeting dog
behavior, rather than outlawing breeds, were the best
way to ensure public safety. The CDC study did find pit
bulls and Rottweilers more likely to be involved in lethal
attacks, but noted that that was probably because they
were popular breeds. Nonetheless, Denver officials cite
that finding in their arguments supporting the ban. They
also note another study from the 1980s that found pit
bull bites were more likely to result in fatalities, as well
as their own personal experiences . One councilman was
bitten by a pit bull as a child, another's husband was
recently chased by one. Pit bulls are prisoners of their
own genetic code, said Councilman Charlie Brown, who
supports the ban. Their instincts are never far from the
surface.
The Vigils never saw any killer instinct in Baby or
Chopper. They settled on pit bulls as family dogs after
watching a friend's dog play placidly with a baby and the
Vigil's young cousins, nieces and nephews. Roxxanne
and her sister Robin picked puppies from that dogs litters
last summer and winter. The only problem, they said,
was the dogs need for affection. They lick you to death,
said Augusta Vigil, the sister's mother. They never bit
anyone. The new members of the Vigil family arrived just
as a truce was declared in Denver's pit bull wars.
The city had banned the dogs in 1989, after a 3-year-old
boy was killed and an influential minister was mauled 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. Animal groups long fought
the ban, and in spring 2004 the state Legislature passed
a law forbidding Colorado cities from outlawing specific
breeds of dogs, which nullified the Denver ban. The city
sued to overturn it, but for a year, pit bulls were legal.
Then came the District Court's decision in mid-April:
Denver had the right to regulate dogs. The ban would
return within 30 days.
The Vigils rearranged their lives to hide Baby and
Chopper. Robin had been caring for the dogs at her
father's house, but it had a chain-link fence. She gave
them to Roxxanne, whose rented house had a wooden
fence that they hoped would hide the dogs and keep
neighbors from reporting them to animal control. Just in
case, Augusta Vigil did a little research. That's how she
discovered the pit bull underground. When police arrived
that Wednesday night tipped off, the Vigils suspected,
by a neighbor who heard Baby and Chopper barking ,
Augusta called the underground's Rita Anderson. An
animal rights activist who lives in the famously liberal
university town of Boulder, 35 miles northwest of Denver,
Anderson is known as the woman who gets dogs off
death row. By her count, she has saved more than 30 by
signing agreements to take them out of Denver. City
officials welcome her help. "We want them to get pit bulls
out of Denver, said Kelly, the animal shelter director.
Anderson's day job, which included a recent campaign
against monkey experiments at the University of
Colorado, normally absorbs all her time. But when Dias
became overwhelmed with calls from pit bull owners, she
turned to her activist aunt, Anderson, who agreed to
assist the rescue network. Now Anderson is swamped
with calls for help. "These are people calling saying I
need to get my dog out of here or he'll die, she said. It's
not like you can say "I'm busy, I'll call you back in four
days. Thirty-six hours after Baby and Chopper were
confiscated, Anderson, Dias and the Vigils strode into the
squat concrete bunker in southwest Denver that housed
the city's animal shelter. With dogs yelping in the
background, Anderson and Augusta Vigil read and signed
a sheaf of papers. Dias, a public notary, was there to
certify the signatures. An animal control officer then led
the Vigils into the heart of the shelter's a vast yellow
room packed with cages, each adorned with a mug shot
of its inhabitant. In the back, behind a locked gate, were
the pit bull cages, including those holding Baby and
Chopper. The officer let Chopper out. A hefty brindle,
Chopper pranced up and down as Robin slipped a leash
and muzzle on him. Chopper, called Augusta, smiling and
slapping her knee. Next out was Baby, a lean, brown pit
with shimmering blue eyes. Robin who wore a black
T-shirt with Baby's image stenciled on it & also muzzled
him. The Vigils walked them out to the parking lot, tore
the muzzles off and embraced them. The dogs were
implanted with microchips that would allow animal control
to identify them as pit bulls that had already been
detained.
Baby and Chopper couldn't stay in town anymore. Their
next home would be Mariah's Promise, a 43-acre dog
refuge beneath Pike's Peak founded by Toni and Mike
Phillips, who operate a sheet-metal business in Colorado
Springs. The couple's kitchen features a poster, printed
by a Los Angeles-based dog group, portraying three
hooded Ku Klux Klan members marked Denver looming
over terrified-looking pit bulls. Mariah's Promise sheltered
a dozen or so dogs as well as the Phillips's four cats
until Denver's pit bull ban was reinstated. Now the
property is dotted with spacious, open-air kennels
holding more than 80 dogs, half of them pit bulls. The
refuge's one requirement is that the dogs be neutered.
The couple is trying to build an enclosed shelter to house
the dogs when the mountain winter arrives in October.
There's an emotional investment in these dogs by their
people that is causing them to take the radical measure
of taking them here, said Toni Phillips, wearing a
Harley-Davidson T-shirt and jeans as she strolled
between the kennels of barking dogs one recent
afternoon.
Plenty of dog-lovers are defying the ban. A 29-year-old
graduate student keeps her pit bull, Jack, inside her
house with the blinds drawn. She removed the mailbox
from her front porch so the postal carrier would not be
tempted to peek in. The student, who did not want her
name used for fear of losing Jack, said that when she
drives across city limits to take him for a walk, she
inevitably passes police cars and prays that her outlaw
dog stays down in the back seat. "I don't know how
people on the lam do it", she said. It's stressful. Rich,
who did not want his full name used to avoid being
caught, deals with even more stress because of his
extreme measures. When the ban was first in place, the
38-year-old sound technician hid his two pit bulls for four
years while he lived in a rented house in Denver,
sneaking outside the city for their regular walks. After
the ban was lifted, he came out in the open. He walked
the dogs in the city's parks and was about to buy a
house when the city announced it would resume
rounding up pit bulls. Rich backed out of the house deal,
losing thousands of dollars. Anything's better than being
stuck in Denver and not being able to have my kids in my
house, he said. I love the city of Denver. I wanted to
settle here and they chased me out. Rich had nowhere
to go; his work was still in the city. So he jammed a
mattress and a small propane-powered stove and
refrigerator in the camper shell on his pickup and became
a vagabond. On workdays, he parks in the shade and
leaves his pit bulls in the truck with a cooler of ice and
the sunroof open. He crosses city limits at night to
shower at friend's homes, walk his dogs and sleep with
them in the pickup. Meanwhile, he is looking for a house
in the suburbs. In the Vigil household, Robin also was
trying to find a new place in the suburbs, so she could
live close to Denver with Baby and Chopper. In the
meantime, she planned to take the pit bulls to Mariah's
Promise. Then, at the last moment, her grandparents
drove to Denver from their mountain home and offered to
take the dogs. Baby and Chopper now live in Fairplay,
about 85 miles southwest of Denver. They will stay there
for some time. In the past month, two cities near Denver
have also proposed pit bull bans. The uncertainty has
stalled Robin Vigil's dreams of reuniting with Baby and
Chopper. She has halted her apartment search because
she does not know what town may outlaw pit bulls next.
| DenverKillsDogs.com |
Challenge to Denver Breed Ban
(taken from www.AKC.org)
[Wednesday, July 30, 2008]
The American Kennel Club® (AKC®) will be joining Karen R.
Breslin of the Progressive Law Center, LLC of Lakewood,
Colorado and the Washington D.C. office of Kaye Scholer LLP
in representing dog-owning plaintiffs Sonya Dias and others
who are asserting that the Denver ordinance banning pit
bulls within the city limits is unconstitutional.
In March the United States District Court for the District of
Colorado, where the plaintiffs' 2007 lawsuit was originally
filed, dismissed the suit without granting a hearing. A brief is
being filed today in the United States Court of Appeals for the
Tenth Circuit asking to reverse that court's decision and grant
the plaintiffs/appellants a hearing on the unconstitutionality
of the Denver breed ban. The original lawsuit stated Dias and
the other owners were forced to move out of Denver with
their dogs because of the ban which they asserted was a
violation of, among other things, their constitutional rights.
The Denver ordinance bans ownership or possession of the
Staffordshire Bull Terrier, the American Staffordshire Bull
Terrier and the American Pit Bull Terrier and/or any dog with a
majority of physical traits of one or more of these breeds
within the city or county of Denver. Since 2005, as a result of
this ordinance, several hundred dogs within the city limits
had been euthanized.
The AKC supports reasonable, enforceable,
non-discriminatory laws to govern the ownership of dogs.
The AKC believes that dog owners should be responsible for
their dogs. We support laws that: establish a fair process by
which specific dogs are identified as "dangerous" based on
stated, measurable actions; impose appropriate penalties on
irresponsible owners; and establish a well-defined method
for dealing with dogs proven to be dangerous. We believe
that, if necessary, dogs proven to be "dangerous" may need
to be humanely destroyed. The AKC strongly opposes any
legislation that determines a dog to be "dangerous" based
on specific breeds or phenotypic classes of dogs.
(taken from www.AKC.org)
[Wednesday, July 30, 2008]
The American Kennel Club® (AKC®) will be joining Karen R.
Breslin of the Progressive Law Center, LLC of Lakewood,
Colorado and the Washington D.C. office of Kaye Scholer LLP
in representing dog-owning plaintiffs Sonya Dias and others
who are asserting that the Denver ordinance banning pit
bulls within the city limits is unconstitutional.
In March the United States District Court for the District of
Colorado, where the plaintiffs' 2007 lawsuit was originally
filed, dismissed the suit without granting a hearing. A brief is
being filed today in the United States Court of Appeals for the
Tenth Circuit asking to reverse that court's decision and grant
the plaintiffs/appellants a hearing on the unconstitutionality
of the Denver breed ban. The original lawsuit stated Dias and
the other owners were forced to move out of Denver with
their dogs because of the ban which they asserted was a
violation of, among other things, their constitutional rights.
The Denver ordinance bans ownership or possession of the
Staffordshire Bull Terrier, the American Staffordshire Bull
Terrier and the American Pit Bull Terrier and/or any dog with a
majority of physical traits of one or more of these breeds
within the city or county of Denver. Since 2005, as a result of
this ordinance, several hundred dogs within the city limits
had been euthanized.
The AKC supports reasonable, enforceable,
non-discriminatory laws to govern the ownership of dogs.
The AKC believes that dog owners should be responsible for
their dogs. We support laws that: establish a fair process by
which specific dogs are identified as "dangerous" based on
stated, measurable actions; impose appropriate penalties on
irresponsible owners; and establish a well-defined method
for dealing with dogs proven to be dangerous. We believe
that, if necessary, dogs proven to be "dangerous" may need
to be humanely destroyed. The AKC strongly opposes any
legislation that determines a dog to be "dangerous" based
on specific breeds or phenotypic classes of dogs.
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| Watch the Full Video Here |
| Vet Warns Dog Owners: Stay Out of Denver, CO |
| The First Two Denver Death Row Survivors: Forrest & Kane |
have her pit bull, Lumpy, left, flown by military helicopter to Oregon after Lumpy was seized in Denver. Tufto’s other dog, Nigel, is to the right. Nigel is not a pit bull. |
Denver kills dogs. That’s the message being spread by ROVERlution, a California-based group
working to overturn breed-specific legislation in cities like Denver. The Mile High City in May 2005
placed a ban on pit bulls, which has resulted in a backlash from dog lovers across the globe and
hundreds of dead dogs.
A new Web site, DenverKillsDogs.com, and companion billboards across the city aim at informing the
public that Denver is currently killing family dogs, according to backers of the campaign. The Web site
features an image of a fireplace with photos of pit bulls and their families plastered across the mantel.
“Denver wants family dogs executed or exiled,” states the Web site.
adorable looking pit bull. The idea is to motivate people to continue hammering city officials to repeal
the breed ban. The posters can be found at the Pepsi Center, the Convention Center and at Coors
Field. In fact, Denver had killed 1,918 pit bulls as of October since the breed ban was reenacted.
David Edelstein, founder of ROVERlution, said as many as 3,100 pit bulls may have been killed when
taking into account private shelters that are contracted by the city when city shelters are full.
No certainty
Animal Control Director Doug Kelley could not say yesterday with any certainty that the ban on pit
bulls has made Denver a safer city. “It’s a hard question to answer,” Kelley told the Denver Daily
News. “We have not had a severe mauling or fatality involving a pit bull since its gone into effect. But
then again, we continue to get more pit bulls every year … it depends on how you define success.”
There has actually not been a serious pit bull attack in Denver since the 1989 mauling of Rev. Wilbur
Billingsley, who was left with more than 70 bites and two broken legs. The incident resulted in the
City Council banning pit bulls from the city. In 2004, Gov. Bill Owens signed a bill prohibiting local
municipalities from enacting breed-specific legislation. Denver challenged the statute and
enforcement resumed in May 2005.That year, the city impounded 1,011 pit bulls; in 2006, 952; 2007,
459; 2008, 315. Kelley added, however, that there’s likely hundreds of others throughout the city.
Animal Control usually does not know about a pit bull in the city until a neighbor complains.
Hoping to change the world
ROVERlution is hoping to convince the public that pit bulls have gotten a bad name because of
negative media coverage and misinformation. “We’re not trying to burn anyone at the stake,” said
Edelstein. “What we’re trying to do is bring about positive change.”
Edelstein rescued Forrest the dog back in August after the pit bull was picked up twice and
subsequently condemned to death. The story made national headlines because Forrest did not
actually live in Denver, but instead wandered away from his Adams County yard and across city lines
into Denver. Since the Forrest incident, Animal Control has changed its policy to work with rescue
groups to find a safe home for pit bulls picked up twice. The dogs must leave the state to be trusted
with a new owner.
The tidal wave of pit bull negativity, however, could be turning on the national level. Take “Sports
Illustrated,” for example. In 1987 the magazine ran a cover photo of a vicious pit bull with the
headline, “Beware of this dog.” But the magazine’s Christmas Eve issue features a cute photo of
Sweet Jasmine, one of the pit bulls rescued from former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick’s
dog fighting operation.
The ‘gestapo?’
Meanwhile, Army Staff Sgt. Heidi J. Tufto is focusing solely at the local level. She was left with a bad
taste in her mouth about Denver politics when in 2001, just days after moving to Denver, a white van
rolled up on her while she was walking her pit bull, Lumpy, and two other dogs in Riverfront Park.
As animal control officers grabbed Lumpy’s leash, allowing Tufto’s other two dogs to run loose into
traffic around the park, Denver police officers rushed to the scene to assist. With guns drawn, Tufto
was ordered to the ground. Lumpy was thrown in the van and driven away.
Tufto is used to guns and violence — she dealt with it all the time serving America in Iraq — but she
couldn’t handle watching her beloved Lumpy taken from her grasp. Lumpy happens to be a certified
therapy dog and an American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen. An elderly immigrant from Germany
who witnessed the incident equated it to the “gestapo,” said Tufto.
Lumpy was saved — flown to Oregon on a CH-47 Chinook military helicopter.
Still bitter
But Tufto remains bitter, wanting desperately to change the minds of city officials.
“What citizens want is an effective piece of legislation to protect everyone and that’s proven to
work,” she said, pointing to cities that have beefed-up their dangerous dog ordinances to hold dog
owners both criminally and civilly liable.
Kelley himself agreed that on a personal level he would like to see more stringent dangerous dog
ordinances. He said before overturning the ban, city officials would first need to look at that aspect of
its code.
Sonya Dias, lead proponent in Denver for overturning the ban, said she has been fighting for three
and a half years to have officials hold owners responsible over their dogs. While she has found
herself pinned up against several walls during the fight — including a complicated lawsuit to overturn
the ordinance — she promises to never stop fighting.
In fact, Dias is in the process of launching a new campaign that will reward towns and cities like
Lakewood and Englewood for choosing not to impose breed-specific legislation. The campaign will
bring veterinarians into the municipalities to spay and neuter pit bulls that have graciously been
allowed to live and breathe.
“For some reason, I just keep going and don’t stop, I don’t know why,” she said. “I may change my
direction, but I won’t stop.”
working to overturn breed-specific legislation in cities like Denver. The Mile High City in May 2005
placed a ban on pit bulls, which has resulted in a backlash from dog lovers across the globe and
hundreds of dead dogs.
A new Web site, DenverKillsDogs.com, and companion billboards across the city aim at informing the
public that Denver is currently killing family dogs, according to backers of the campaign. The Web site
features an image of a fireplace with photos of pit bulls and their families plastered across the mantel.
“Denver wants family dogs executed or exiled,” states the Web site.
adorable looking pit bull. The idea is to motivate people to continue hammering city officials to repeal
the breed ban. The posters can be found at the Pepsi Center, the Convention Center and at Coors
Field. In fact, Denver had killed 1,918 pit bulls as of October since the breed ban was reenacted.
David Edelstein, founder of ROVERlution, said as many as 3,100 pit bulls may have been killed when
taking into account private shelters that are contracted by the city when city shelters are full.
No certainty
Animal Control Director Doug Kelley could not say yesterday with any certainty that the ban on pit
bulls has made Denver a safer city. “It’s a hard question to answer,” Kelley told the Denver Daily
News. “We have not had a severe mauling or fatality involving a pit bull since its gone into effect. But
then again, we continue to get more pit bulls every year … it depends on how you define success.”
There has actually not been a serious pit bull attack in Denver since the 1989 mauling of Rev. Wilbur
Billingsley, who was left with more than 70 bites and two broken legs. The incident resulted in the
City Council banning pit bulls from the city. In 2004, Gov. Bill Owens signed a bill prohibiting local
municipalities from enacting breed-specific legislation. Denver challenged the statute and
enforcement resumed in May 2005.That year, the city impounded 1,011 pit bulls; in 2006, 952; 2007,
459; 2008, 315. Kelley added, however, that there’s likely hundreds of others throughout the city.
Animal Control usually does not know about a pit bull in the city until a neighbor complains.
Hoping to change the world
ROVERlution is hoping to convince the public that pit bulls have gotten a bad name because of
negative media coverage and misinformation. “We’re not trying to burn anyone at the stake,” said
Edelstein. “What we’re trying to do is bring about positive change.”
Edelstein rescued Forrest the dog back in August after the pit bull was picked up twice and
subsequently condemned to death. The story made national headlines because Forrest did not
actually live in Denver, but instead wandered away from his Adams County yard and across city lines
into Denver. Since the Forrest incident, Animal Control has changed its policy to work with rescue
groups to find a safe home for pit bulls picked up twice. The dogs must leave the state to be trusted
with a new owner.
The tidal wave of pit bull negativity, however, could be turning on the national level. Take “Sports
Illustrated,” for example. In 1987 the magazine ran a cover photo of a vicious pit bull with the
headline, “Beware of this dog.” But the magazine’s Christmas Eve issue features a cute photo of
Sweet Jasmine, one of the pit bulls rescued from former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick’s
dog fighting operation.
The ‘gestapo?’
Meanwhile, Army Staff Sgt. Heidi J. Tufto is focusing solely at the local level. She was left with a bad
taste in her mouth about Denver politics when in 2001, just days after moving to Denver, a white van
rolled up on her while she was walking her pit bull, Lumpy, and two other dogs in Riverfront Park.
As animal control officers grabbed Lumpy’s leash, allowing Tufto’s other two dogs to run loose into
traffic around the park, Denver police officers rushed to the scene to assist. With guns drawn, Tufto
was ordered to the ground. Lumpy was thrown in the van and driven away.
Tufto is used to guns and violence — she dealt with it all the time serving America in Iraq — but she
couldn’t handle watching her beloved Lumpy taken from her grasp. Lumpy happens to be a certified
therapy dog and an American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen. An elderly immigrant from Germany
who witnessed the incident equated it to the “gestapo,” said Tufto.
Lumpy was saved — flown to Oregon on a CH-47 Chinook military helicopter.
Still bitter
But Tufto remains bitter, wanting desperately to change the minds of city officials.
“What citizens want is an effective piece of legislation to protect everyone and that’s proven to
work,” she said, pointing to cities that have beefed-up their dangerous dog ordinances to hold dog
owners both criminally and civilly liable.
Kelley himself agreed that on a personal level he would like to see more stringent dangerous dog
ordinances. He said before overturning the ban, city officials would first need to look at that aspect of
its code.
Sonya Dias, lead proponent in Denver for overturning the ban, said she has been fighting for three
and a half years to have officials hold owners responsible over their dogs. While she has found
herself pinned up against several walls during the fight — including a complicated lawsuit to overturn
the ordinance — she promises to never stop fighting.
In fact, Dias is in the process of launching a new campaign that will reward towns and cities like
Lakewood and Englewood for choosing not to impose breed-specific legislation. The campaign will
bring veterinarians into the municipalities to spay and neuter pit bulls that have graciously been
allowed to live and breathe.
“For some reason, I just keep going and don’t stop, I don’t know why,” she said. “I may change my
direction, but I won’t stop.”
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NOTE- Bill Bruce will speak at Animal Control Officer's
Conference in Denver Spring 2009
Conference in Denver Spring 2009
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