DANGEROUS-DOG ORDINANCE

Wichita may limit owners to 2 pit bulls

BY BRENT D. WISTROM

The Wichita Eagle

As the Wichita City Council considers a new dangerous-dog ordinance aimed at making sidewalks safer, the battle over whether to single out pit bulls continues.

On Tuesday, the City Council will discuss in a workshop whether to limit people to owning two pit bulls, which would have to be sterilized and have an implanted microchip.

For months, the city's proposal has included pit bull-specific rules because the city has an exceptionally high rate of euthanization for the dogs, said Kay Johnson, the city's director of Environmental Services.

But at least two City Council members and local dog groups say that all dogs should be treated equally in the new law.

Under the proposed change, a dog can be deemed dangerous if it acts aggressively, chases people or is otherwise believed by animal control officers to be a threat.

Each case would have a hearing.

"We're trying to get at the heart of the selling of dogs for fighting," Johnson said.

Johnson said she's worried that if pit bulls don't have specific rules, the city may continue to find scores of the breed abandoned by owners and have to euthanize them.

Of 5,400 dogs housed in the city shelter last year, about 1,500 -- 28 percent -- were pit bulls. Seventeen of 23 dogs shot by Wichita police last year were pit bulls. Pit bulls account for one-third of all dogs euthanized by city staff and nearly one-third of reported animal bites or attacks.

One group opposing the pit bull law is the Wichita Kennel Club, whose members say they support reasonable and enforceable laws governing the ownership of dogs. But the group said it thinks the ordinance should focus "on the deed and not the breed."

Wichita Kennel Club vice president Pat Deshler said she doesn't doubt that pit bulls are disproportionately represented as problem dogs for the city. But, she said, the city would be better off to better -- and earlier -- designate dogs as vicious and dangerous, regardless of their breed.

"The gangs and the Michael Vicks of the world have made an effort to make a bad dog out of what might not have been a bad dog at all, if they hadn't teased them and trained them to be the bad dogs they are," she said.

"What's going to happen, I think, with their limiting pit bulls and restraining them is... (irresponsible owners are) just going to make other breeds of dogs just as dangerous, to take their place."

Wichita Independent Neighborhoods, on the other hand, has been pressing for more than a year to change the dog ordinance to make residents safer. Bob Wine, president of the organization, said the group has no problem singling out pit bulls.

"We have a pit bull problem, and that problem could be helped by this ordinance being breed-specific," he said. "They are more problematic than any other breed in the city of Wichita -- and nationally, for that matter."