Pit bulls are a dog breed surrounded by controversy.
Some consider the dogs dangerous or even deadly. This belief has prompted 31 Mississippi counties and municipalities — including Greenwood, Leflore County and Carroll County — to pass laws regulating the breed. Twelve places have banned pit bulls altogether.
Some owners, however, say breed-specific regulation is unnecessary and discriminatory.
Tabitha Mulvihill of Carroll County says her boyfriend’s pit bull, Sue, is sweet, kind, loving and is considered a member of the family.
“I don’t understand the ordinance,” Mulvihill said. “There shouldn’t be an ordinance just toward a single breed. Any dog can be aggressive. People have given pits a bad name.”
Mulvihill has two sons, Kaleb, 6, and Jaxson, 4, who both enjoy play and snuggling time with Sue. Mulvihill said breed-specific regulation is unfair for responsible pet owners such as herself and Sue’s owner, Cody Winters.
“So many people blame the aggressive behavior on the dog’s breed,” she said. “It’s not the dog at all. You can bring any dog up to be aggressive and fight. You can do that to any kind of dog. If you bring it up that way, and you play fight and make them aggressive, that’s the way they are going to be.”
Mulvihill said Sue has also been friendly with the other dogs at her home, a dachshund, a terrier and a pomeranian.
“People bring them up to fight to make money. They see the dog as a money source and not as a family companion,” Mulvihill said.
To many, a friendly disposition such as Sue’s is the norm for the breed.
Leah Thomson of Jackson is now known as a crusader for pit bulls and advocate against breed-specific legislation.
Thomson, who fosters neglected animals, was recently in Clinton Municipal Court after being cited for harboring Penny, a pit bull, with another foster owner in Clinton, where pits are banned.
Penny was being housed at the Clinton home to keep her from being bothered by the other foster dogs while she recovered from injuries suffered in an attack by another dog. Thomson was found not guilty for want of proof she violated the ordinance.
She told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson that she thought “a lot of positives came out of this.”
A number of attacks, some of them fatal, increased the push for regulation and bans.
Earlier this year, Christopher Malone, 3, was attacked by two pit bulls in Holmes County and died at the scene.
The pits had been locked in a pen and managed to escape. They attacked the boy, who was playing nearby. His mother was injured by the dogs as she tried to get them away from her son.
Later, in Simpson County, 4-year-old Victoria Mullins was severely injured in an attack by three pit bulls at her grandfather’s home. The child also made national news after her family claimed she was turned away from a Jackson KFC because of her scars.
The Leflore County Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance in July 2008 regulating ownership of pit bulls. The ordinance followed a week after a woman was attacked by a pit in Itta Bena. A few weeks later, the Greenwood City Council approved a similar ordnance. The Carroll County pit bull ordinance was passed this July and took effect Aug. 9.
Carroll County Sheriff Jerry Carver and Hope Animal Sanctuary owner Doll Stanley and operations manager Sharon Stone talked to the Carroll County Board of Supervisors about the need for pit regulation.
This followed a call to the Sheriff’s Office about two pit bulls that were mauling livestock in the north part of the county. They attacked a full-grown bull and ripped its ear off.
The county had no way to deal with this matter and the other numerous complaint calls about pit bulls.
“I think it was just the right time for this,” said Stone. “Had that man tried to intercede, he would have probably been attacked, too. It was a wake-up call.”
Stone said Hope has had several pit bulls at the animal refuge in the past. Currently, it only has one — Leonard, a pit that had been neglected and abused. Leonard was found on a chain, emaciated, with his legs splayed backward.
Stone said the ordinance will allow Hope to respond to cruelty calls in Carroll and help dogs like Leonard.
“In the past, if we got a cruelty call and the dog was on a short chain, unless it was starved, we couldn’t do anything,” she said.
Stone said the Carroll ordinance, similar to the Leflore pit regulation, will help the dogs that are not being taken care of properly.
“What the ordinance does is ensure that the dogs have a better quality of life and keeps people safe,” she said. “We don’t want any dog to live on a chain. The dog must be kept in a minimum of a 10-by-10 cage. That’s better than most of those pits have had their entire lives.”
Leonard, a dog that had displayed no inclination toward aggressive behavior, recently attacked another dog.
“People don’t see what we see on a daily basis,” Stone said. “If they could, they would understand why we need it.”
Pit bulls are a descendant of the original English bull-baiting dog. They were bred to bite and hold bulls, bears and other large animals around the face and head.
When baiting large animals was outlawed in the 1800s, people turned the dogs into fighters. The larger, slower bull-baiting dogs were crossed with smaller, quicker terriers to produce a more agile and athletic dog for fighting.
Dogsbite.org, a research and education nonprofit organization, reported that from 2005 to 2013, two dog breeds accounted for 74 percent of the attacks that resulted in death: pit bulls and rottweilers. In 2013, 32 U.S. dog-bite-related fatalities occurred, despite the increase in regulation. Pit bulls, a breed that makes up about 6 percent of the total U.S. dog population, contributed to 78 percent of these deaths.
Debbie Clark of the Leflore County Humane Society said the shelter no longer adopts out pits locally.
When the shelter gets a stray or neglected pit, it will evaluate the dog and contact a pit rescue group that the Humane Society has been working with for the past three years.
Clark said she has noticed a decrease in the amount of pit bulls the shelter has received since the Leflore County and Greenwood ordinances.
“Most of the pit bulls we get are strays that have been mistreated. Sometimes the owners can’t continue to take care of them, but a lot of them come here emaciated,” said Clark. “We get them healthy and spayed or neutered. It takes months to get them to be able to be adopted.”
Currently, Humphrey, a pit puppy successfully rehabilitated by the shelter, is waiting for the rescue to pick him up so he can be adopted.
Clark said pits are no different from German shepherds or rottweilers.
“Pits are just like any animal, and you always need parental supervision when they are around children, even small house pets,” she said. “I think people who get a pit bull need to do a lot of research on them. I think they need to talk to someone who has had experienced with pits and talk to their vet.”
• Contact Ruthie Robison at 581-7233 or rrobison@gwcommonwealth.com.
