I’m putting this together as part of a college project looking at breed-specific legislation (BSL), mainly focusing on NYCHA’s pet policy, which includes breed-specific restrictions. According to their policy, certain breeds like Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, and Doberman Pinschers are restricted, along with a 25-pound weight limit, regardless of how the individual dog actually behaves. From what I’ve been researching, these policies don’t really fix the problem they’re meant to solve, and even in places where BSL has already been implemented, there isn’t strong evidence showing that it actually reduces dog bite incidents over time. A big issue with dog bite data is that it doesn’t account for how common certain breeds are in specific areas. If a breed is more common in a community or a country, it’s naturally going to show up more in reports than other breeds in the area, which has created a misconception that these breeds are more dangerous than others. There’s also a lot of research showing that dog behavior is influenced more by factors such as environment, training, socialization, and how they’re raised, rather than by their breed.

Even with that, policies like this are still in place, and they end up creating other issues. Many dogs are displaced from their homes, surrendered, or euthanized, and entire breeds are given a negative and unfair bias. A lot of these dogs haven’t done anything wrong individually, but are still treated like they have.

The goal of this petition is to get NYCHA to review and reconsider these breed restrictions and look into policies that focus more on behavior and responsible ownership instead of the breed.

I also created a fundraiser connected to this issue to support rescues and shelters that take in dogs affected by these kinds of policies, and that will be linked here as well. This is mainly to raise awareness and try to push for a fairer approach. Thank you for your support, and please don't forget to share both!

NYCHA Pet Policy: https://www.nyc.gov/site/nycha/residents/pet-policy.page

Fundraiser for rescues and shelters: https://gofund.me/bc326e227

Photo credit: Nico Santos (my dog Wrench, Pitbull - passed October 2025)