Recently Chris and I have been talking a lot about our plans for 2015. We want to buy a house so we will have plenty of room when we start to expand our family. Of course there will be many decisions to be made on a budget, whether to build or buy and on size and style. But the ultimate question is location. And that is heavily dependent on Chaos.
Most of you have probably at least heard about Breed Specific Legislation, aka BSL. Many of the cities and counties in Northern Kentucky have unfortunately bought into this idea and jumped on the Pit Bull haters train. BSL does not only affect Pit Bulls and “Pit Bull type dogs” but also other breeds such as Rottweilers, Dobermans and Mastiffs. Lawmakers believe that if owning these breeds is not allowed, or least comes with heavy restrictions, the general public will be safe from attacks. Even though countless studies done over the course of time these laws have been in effect have produced results showing BSL enforcement efforts have not shown any correlation with lower attack numbers from the targeted breeds, these laws continue to be passed.
When deciding where we would like to live, BSL automatically rules out many locations for us as a family with a Pit Bull as a member of it. Some people would think it’s crazy to base where we live on our dog. Well, we think it would be crazy to do anything otherwise. Chaos is a part of our family and giving him up to live in a specific city or county would absolutely never be an option. Would someone give up a child just to move closer to work? Ridiculous question, right? We think so.
Neither the city nor the county we currently reside in have any BSL in place or in the works, as far as we know. Chaos is labeled exactly as he is, a regular dog. But we are surrounded by cities with BSL and some of our friends and family live in these areas. Technically Chaos isn’t even allowed to visit their homes, but Chris and I always carry our IDs showing we live in another city so we do take him on trips fairly often.
The home he most frequently visits in a BSL city is my parents’ place. They have lived in their house for 20 plus years and are either friends or friendly with nearly the entire neighborhood. We don’t have to worry about anyone getting upset when Chaos visits, but according to the city, once he crosses that imaginary boundary he is considered a vicious dog. Yes, really.
I could go on a lengthy tirade about BSL, but I won’t. It’s not fair that dogs can be banned or labeled simply for being a certain breed. It’s not fair that the dogs are getting blamed instead of the owners. And it’s not fair that we can’t live anywhere we want simply because Chaos happens to be a Pit Bull. But while we are working against BSL, the best thing we can do is stop complaining about how unfair it is and just show people what amazing dogs Pit Bulls and other misunderstood breeds can be.
I can’t tell you how many people who have either been on the media’s side of the fence about Pit Bulls or simply were not sure one way or the other due to lack of experience with them, that have told us we have a great dog after meeting Chaos. His sweetness even comes across in his pictures. It’s always those sensitive golden eyes that just draw the awwwws. When people can see passed the big head, wide chest and muscle bound body of a Pit Bull, they get to see the waggly tailed, smiley faced, people loving dog who just happens to be a Pit Bull.
When we do decide where we will live, our first order of business will be ruling out anywhere with BSL. Of course living somewhere without the laws in place does not mean we won’t run into people who are of a mind to have them. All we can do is hope our future neighbors can see our sensitive snuggle bug as a just another dog and not Mr. Vicious, ready to attack their children.
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