Friday, September 12, 2008

West Liberty is a little crazy

West Liberty, Iowa is looking to ban pit bulls because of three -yes, three - incidents involving two "pit bull specific breed dogs". One dog accounts for two of those three incidents. No human was injured. In fact, no one was harmed, animal or human.

The city isn't even bothering with a grandfather clause
, because the logistics were going to be too difficult for the city to handle.

This is because West Liberty does not require anybody to license their dogs.

Here we have a city that wants to ban dogs who look a certain way based on the behavior of two dogs who never actually bit anyone or anything. Wait, not based on the behavior of the two dogs, based on what they look like! Then they won't grandfather in current pit bulls b/c "it's too big to handle" due to a lack of licensing.

And a pit bull ban is going to be easy to handle? Lawsuits are very cheap, I hear. So is enforcing a law that often increases the costs to animal shelters and the strain to their holding capacity.

West Liberty has a leash law. They have a vicious dog ordinance. Enforce them, for cripes sake.

Contact West Liberty - let them know, politely, that there are alternatives and that they don't have a pit bull or dog biting problem in West Liberty.

City of West Liberty
409 N. Calhoun Street
West Liberty, Iowa 52776
Telephone: 319-627-2418
Fax: 319-627-6523
City Manager: cward@lcom.net

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