Good Job Ohio

I would like to introduce you to my ex-boyfriends dog Penny (Short for Penelope.)

Penny is a 3-year-old, rescued Pit Bull (you know, the "vicious" breed that mauls off babies faces.) Before Kyle adopted her, she was abused. Her previous owner had bred her a couple of times before she was even a year old (which apparently is very unhealthy for dogs,) took her puppies, and tied her to a tree. She was left outside through harsh weather conditions, and after he was arrested, she was left without food. Out of desperation she broke free of the yard, and as the person who rescued her told my ex, laid down on the sidewalk to die. She was taken in, nursed back to a health and was posted in an add on Craigslist. This is when Kyle found her, and upon meeting her it was love at first site.

Penny is a big, lovable baby. She loves to cuddle, bark at the cat, she howls at you when you come home from work and showers you with doggy kisses. She NEVER once hurt another living thing.

I have met several pit bulls, all of them are well behaved and loving. So why the bad reputation? IT'S NOT THE DOG! IT'S HUMAN BEINGS!! Any dog can be trained to be violent, even your grandmothers shih tzu.

In the big scheme of things, Penny's abuse was not that severe. Some dogs endure the most horrific pain. For perspective please check out Noah's Ark Resuce. (Warning: The images on that site are very graphic, I do not suggest reading it if you have a weak stomach.) For those of you that have decided to investigate further, and followed the link... Tell me, do you think an animal would ever subject it's self to something so awful on it's on accord? No, domesticated dogs will fight to defend themselves, and honestly... even when abused by their owners, most will lie down and take it. They are a lot like children, they love unconditionally.

Here's the kicker... even though a lot of these dogs become violent through abuse and conditioning by humans, the state of Ohio passed laws labeling the breed it's self as vicious, instead of creating harsher punishments for animal cruelty. To me, this is the same thing as racial profiling. You wouldn't go around calling African Americans the "N" word and talking about how they are all ill educated criminals, would you? Well some of you would, and shame on you.

For years pit bull owners in Ohio had to relocate to cities where the breed was permitted to reside, buy extremely expensive insurance policies and muzzle their dogs any time they left their homes.

A couple days ago, this changed. The state of Ohio passed OB 14, which removed the state wide classification of pit bulls as a dangerous breed.

There are now three classifications for ANY breed:

1. Nuisance Dog: A dog that while off its owner’s property threatens, menaces or attempts to bite a person.
   
2. Dangerous Dog: One that has caused an injury to a person, killed another dog or had 3 violations as a nuisance dog. Once a dog is classified as dangerous, the owner must register the dog, purchase liability insurance, microchip the dog and afix a tag to its collar.
   
3. A Vicious Dog: Is one that has caused serious injury to a person through a bite.

Local governments can still enact BSL (breed specific legislation) laws as they see fit, but this paves the way for change. It gives a cities citizens a chance to stand up, and speak for creatures that do not have their own voice.

Punish the deed, not the breed!