Breed specific legislation (BSL) is discriminatory, ineffective, and costly.

This ordinance specifically names three individual breeds, American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, and The Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and then goes on to state that “any dog of mixed breed which has the appearance and characteristics of such breeds” is also banned. This leaves identification of these breeds open to easily made mistakes. As many Lakewood residents have found out the hard way, there are roughly twenty breeds of dog often erroneously identified as “pit bulls”.  A mislabled dog is an unnecessary expense to the city and the constitutients of Lakewood.

A much better alternative to breed-specific legislation is to support reasonable, enforceable, non-discriminatory laws to govern the ownership of dogs and to hold irresponsible dog owners to a higher social, legal, and financial accountability.