Livingston Animal Control moving forward with positive and humane changes
By Jim Totten • DAILY PRESS & ARGUS • March 9, 2010
Livingston County Animal Control is moving in a new direction to address concerns raised by local residents, and this had many animal supporters feeling the holidays had arrived early.
At a Livingston County Board of Commissioners subcommittee meeting Monday evening, Animal Control Director Anne Burns unveiled sweeping changes at her facility, including revising two items that were controversial with animal activists — a 14-day euthanization policy and a bully-breed policy.
The facility plans to increase the discount to rescue groups, seek out more groups to help with adoptions and create a volunteer program.
“When she was going through everything, I thought it was Christmas,” Cyndi Beauchamp said. The Genoa Township woman heads up the grass-roots group Concerned Citizens for Livingston County’s Homeless Pets, which has been pushing hard for changes at Animal Control for close to a year.
“We’re getting everything we wanted,” she said. “I was speechless. … I’m shocked.”
The 14-day policy was eliminated, and animals will now be held for 30 days. If the facility fills to 70 percent capacity, the period would be shortened.
In May 2008, the county adopted a bully-breed policy that specifically targeted certain breeds — pit bull terriers, American pit bull terriers, American Staffordshire terriers and American bulldogs. The rule prohibited Animal Control from adopting out any of these breeds. The county board adopted this policy after two county residents were killed by some American bulldogs.
Burns said the revised policy eliminates the term “bully breed” and replaces it with “aggressive animal.” She said the facility has always followed a policy of not adopting out aggressive animals. She said her department will be working with the Humane Society of Livingston County to test an animal’s temperament.
Roughly 50 residents attended the meeting Monday, and many applauded when Burns talked about eliminating the bully-breed references. Residents had been upset because specific breeds were being singled out, and they noted any animal can be
aggressive.
A fact-finding committee — comprised of County Commissioners Dennis Dolan and Steve Williams and acting County Administrator Belinda Peters — hammered out the changes with Burns during the last three months. The group visited two other shelters, spoke with representatives from animal groups and sought the input of all the county commissioners.
Several residents thanked the commissioners for working with the animal supporters.
Burns said she’s “very excited” about the changes and improving relationships with rescue groups. “If we can work together, we can complement each other,” Burns said.
Howell Township resident Donna Dunn, who rescues cats, said the 30-day policy is good but “not good enough.” She doesn’t believe there should be a time limit on how long Animal Control holds a dog or cat so long as there is space.
While she also would like no time-limits on animals held at the shelter, Beauchamp and others left the meeting happy.
“It looks like there’s positive in the future,” she said.
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It is important to remember that the media is not an accurate source for information on dog attacks
NCRC Comment: The Flint Journal Staff penned the article posted below. It should be noted that Flint, Saginaw and Genesee County have all had the misfortune to have had a fatal dog attack in their community—None of which involved a pit bull or pit bull-type dog.
Therefore, it is disturbing to see the Flint Journal only cite pit bull attacks in Saginaw, Flint and Genesee County— in which all the victims recovered—and to use this “information” as a call to ban the breed.
Is it that the Flint Journal ignores or is ignorant of the fatal attacks by other types of dogs in their own area? Or is it that fatalities by non-pit bull-type dogs are less newsworthy than non-fatal attacks by pit bulls?
What does the Flint Journal truly hope to accomplish with this type of (mis)information?
Our Voice: Stop the canine carnage: Outlaw pitbulls and punish irresponsible owners of any dog
By Flint Journal staff
November 15, 2009: Two violent incidents in October involving pitbull-type dogs in Genesee County have reignited a perennial debate.
Some people say these dogs are bred for aggression, are unpredictable and vicious in their attacks.
Ban the breed, they say.
Their owners and others claim they’re wonderful, loving, loyal pets.
Ban the deed of poor training and irresponsible ownership, they say.
Both approaches are warranted, in light of dog attacks in the county and around the state in recent years, many of them involving pitbull type dogs.
Ban the breed, and punish the owners of any type of dog that runs loose, and those that attack people, pets and livestock.
The proven danger to the public is just too high to do nothing anymore.
The reputation for the vicious, sudden attacks of some pitbull dogs doesn’t come out of nowhere.
In mid-October, two brothers ages 11 and 13 rescued a 3-year-old girl in Flint from the jaws of a pitbull. The dog was running loose, and clamped its powerful jaws around the girl’s head, shaking her like a doll. After the little girl was rescued, the dog turned on a 37-year-old neighbor running to help and bit through her arm to the bone.
Thankfully, everyone was recovering from their injuries.
On Halloween, Mount Morris police officers responding to several 911 calls of pitbulls running loose and threatening children shot and killed a pitbull that bared its teeth and snarled at the officers.
Up in Saginaw, a good Samaritan is still trying to heal months after pitbulls pounced on him when he came to the rescue of a neighbor, who the dogs attacked first.
These are just recent, mid-Michigan incidents involving pitbulls.
The pages of newspapers statewide too often carry stories of horror after dogs, many of them pitbulls, attacked and maimed or killed little kids and big adults.
Whatever gentle temperament pitbull breeds display within their families is overshadowed by these kinds of attacks.
Worse, pitbulls are known as a tough guys’ dog. Some are mistreated for illegal dog fights or to make them as mean and scary as possible.
In the light of all this, how is any person supposed to discern that any particular pitbull wouldn’t suddenly snap, and attack?
That’s the trouble with pitbulls — you can’t reliably tell which one will live a gentle life and which one will, for whatever reason or no reason at all, go after a person.
So ban them.
But don’t stop there. Many other breeds can and do bite people.
Fine the owners of dogs found running free.
Because, no matter the dog, it is at root a self-propelled jawful of teeth.
The potential of a bite is always there, with any dog. They should be under the control of their owners — in a fenced yard or on a leash — whenever outdoors.
Merely banning pitbulls for the bad acts of its type isn’t enough.
Ban the breeds, plus punish the deeds of irresponsible owners.
National Canine Research Council