All I want in life is my passion, my family, and my pit bull... But breed specific legislation makes it very difficult for owners to keep their pets in Prince Georges County. Banning the breed does not solve the problem of the animal getting in the wrong hands.

  Furthermore it is impossible to look at an animal and determine what breed it is. Which means if you bring your dog to the PG shelter to get a breed evaluation and your dog looks anything like a pit bull (whether it is a pit bull or not) they will ban your dog from the county, give you just a week to find your pet a new home, move out of the county, or send it to the shelter. If you bring your pit bull in to be evaluated and your dog is actually a pit bull but the evaluator determines he is another breed you get to then legally keep you pit bull in the county.

  Obviously this is a flawed system, this legislation is preventing loving owners from being able to keep their pets and is causing the owners to uproot their lives to protect their loving pets. We should respect the breed and punish the deeds of the humans that beat, mistreat and fight these animals.

  We should not discriminate a breed based on the way it looks or by the actions of others. Would you blame cars for people who die from being hit by a drunk driver? Almost 30 people die from drunk drivers per day in the U.S. (Statistics say every 53 minutes someone in America dies from drunk driving). No, you blame the driver... and banning cars or alcohol for that matter is not going to stop people from drinking or driving drunk.

  Would you blame guns for someone shooting another person? In 2011, there were 12,664 homicides that were committed involving guns, and as we have learned banning guns only increases the violence because that keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens which means they are unable to defend themselves against the criminals who are still able to obtain firearms.

  On a more extreme note, if multiple men of a certain race committed rape you can not condemn the entire race/gender to be rapists then ban the whole group of people who look like them. If multiple woman of the same race had been found guilty of child abuse, you can not condemn the whole race or gender to be child abusers.

  Animals are animals and at the end of the day they will still be animals. All animals even those of the same breed are different some with better temperament than others. You see a video of a Chihuahua aggressively barking and agitated because you put your hand close to it. That is deemed funny or cute and even if it bites the person nothing happens because it’s small and therefore deemed nonthreatening. But if it is a large dog (not just pit bulls even though their breed is targeted more than others and is the only breed that has been banned) that animal is more likely to be put to death, even if it reacted to defend an innocent being.

  Although there are no accurate or even near accurate census records for dogs in the U.S, in some populations pit bulls are estimated to comprise some 30-40% of the dog population, making it a very popular breed. Considering that there were an estimated 53,000,000 dogs in the U.S., and assuming that pit bulls make up 10% of that population, there would be approximately 5.3 million pit bulls in our society. In 2000, 13 pit bulls were involved in 8 fatal attacks. That is roughly ONE dog out of 204,000 - or .000385 percent of the pit bull population. So basically you are more likely to die from having a heart attack, being killed in a car accident, struck by a falling brick or drowning in your own bathtub than to die at the paws of a pit bull.

  We should respect each breed as we should respect and treat each other with understanding, an open mind and most importantly love. The burden should not fall on innocent animals and the responsible pet owners for the actions of a few.

  Let's set a new path to protect the community and help prevent abuse of all animals. As a community let us Report neglected and abused animals. Also encourage potential owners to do the proper research before owning any animal. Owners should not only take their dogs to obedience training, but to study and go through training themselves

 I just want PIT BULLS to be treated as EQUALLY as other breeds of animals. So let’s start the movement for breed equality. Stop the killing of innocent Pit bulls and help these animals find responsible homes by lifting the ban on pit bulls.

Thank you :-)