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Woman to address ban of certain dogs at police assembly



Ledy VanKavage with two of her three rescued brindle pitbulls, Clarence Darrow (left) and Che.

Ledy VanKavage continues to spread her message that banning breeds of dogs does not make a difference in public safety.

On Sunday she will speak at the Winter 2008 Training Conference on Police Ethics for the Illinois Chiefs of Police in Collinsville at the Gateway Center.

"I'm talking about breed specific legislation and whether or not canine profiling is effective," she said.

It is a topic she addresses frequently.

"I'll talk about how it doesn't work," she said.

VanKavage is an attorney and the senior director of legislation and legal training for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She has a long history of activism in animal welfare matters and has founded and served on the boards of several organizations.

She lives in Collinsville and she practices what she preaches. She has rescued some pit bulls, a breed that many want banned because of viciousness. VanKavage has three rescued brindle pit bulls named Clarence Darrow, Che and Bella.

At the conference she will offer alternatives for police to help get dangerous dogs under control.
"There are dangerous dog laws in Illinois that a lot of police don't know about," she said. "Under Illinois law, it is very easy to get a dog declared dangerous. Not vicious. That's a much more involved procedure involving the court system."

VanKavage said dangerous dogs should be identified by behavior, not breed.

"I'm working on trying to get the police to focus on that," she said. "That is what I will be educating them about."

She said experience has shown that banning specific breeds doesn't change the number of dog bite incidents.

"Specific breed laws don't work," she said. "We've seen it in several different countries where they enacted breed restrictions. Even with the breeds restricted, their bite statistics don't change."

She offers her rescued pit bulls as an example of how a supposed dangerous breed can be handled. She said her cats dominate the much larger animals.

People used to go off trail to avoid the dogs when they were walked. But when the pit bulls have on some sort of costume, people come over and talk to them and are fascinated, she said.

"A lot of it is perception," she said.

At the conference, a pair of rescued pit bulls who are drug sniffing dogs for the Washington State Police also will perform a demonstration.

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NEW: Doggy defenders


By Elizabeth A. Lehnerer

Pit bulls get a bad rap. Some believe the dogs are bloodthirsty attack animals ready to pounce at any moment.

On Sunday, three pit bull defenders, and two fuzzy mascots, showed that, in most cases, the owners, not the dogs, are to blame for bad behavior.

During the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police conference last weekend, officials from Washington state and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals worked to change the preconceived notions about pit bulls.

Ledy VanKavage, senior director of legal training and legislation for the ASPCA, has the task of trying to pass additional laws that will protect animals in Illinois. VanKavage's other job is preventing laws that are dangerous to dogs from being passed.

"You can't profile dogs," she said. "Dogs are just like individuals and should be judged on an individual basis."

VanKavage said that reckless owners, not particular breeds of dogs, are to blame for nearly all of the dog attacks in the country. She also said that dog who attacked came from homes where more than one pit bull is being kept, and that in nearly all dog attacks, the dogs are intact males and typically trained to fight or attack. She said that there are no accounts of single, neutered or spayed dogs kept as pets attacking a person.

VanKavage also said that media attention to pit bulls over other breeds has increased a bias within communities about the specific breed.

She said that canine profiling and making specific breeds of dogs illegal to own in certain areas only increases the breed's marketability.

"Getting rid of a breed of dog doesn't get rid of the problem," she said. "Whatever breed of dog that is in fashion will be blamed every time."

She said when pit bulls were banned in Europe in 1991, the number of dog attacks didn't decrease.

VanKavage said she's worked to implement laws in Illinois that can help police keep reckless owners from keeping dogs.

One such law says convicted felons cannot keep unsterilized dogs; another fines owners for having dogs that have been deemed dangerous unmuzzled, unleashed and unattended.

"If you enforce animal abuse laws you can get the bad guys off the street," she said.

Trooper Steve Gardner is using pit bulls to do just that.

Gardner, a canine training officer/handler for the Washington State Patrol, brought Bree, a 4-year-old pit bull, to the conference.

The Washington State Patrol currently uses 50 dogs to find drugs and explosives throughout the state's highway and ferry system. Ten of those dogs are pit bulls.

Gardner said his dogs are "invaluable" when it comes to finding drugs hidden in automobiles.

"There is a direct correlation between narcotics trafficking and terrorism funding," he said. "A dog is a lot less intrusive than a bunch of cops tearing a truck apart."

His explosive detection dogs spend most of their time on Washinton State's ferry system.

"Our ferry system is the third largest in the world and the federal government says that Washington is a viable soft target for terrorism so we've become very serious about explosive detection."

Gardner said that there are very few agencies that will use pit bulls because of the stereotype that they are vicious dogs. He has found just the opposite.

"They are very eager to please and their small statures work great for us because the majority of our work is inside of vehicles," he said.

Diane Jessup, trainer with LawDogsUSA in Washington state, helped Gardner find many of the pit bulls in his department.

Jessup works specifically with pit bulls and trains the dogs to search for drugs, explosives, and work on arson and cadaver cases.

"We're trying to pitch pit bulls as a resource," Jessup said. "Dogs are dying in shelters every day. No one wants to give them a chance, but when you do, they're really good at what they do."

Jessup said narcotic detection dogs have to have a really high drive - have to like the work - and also have to be "ball driven," meaning that they are never happier than when they have their chew toy. She said pit bulls make great narcotics dogs for those reasons.

"It's a good life for a dog because they get to live with their handler and to them, it's a lifelong game," she said.

Jessup, who has been training dogs since 1977, started with LawDogsUSA in 2004. The organization offers trained and untrained American pit bulls to police agencies throughout the country free of charge.

For more information on Jessup and LawDogsUSA, visit www.LawDogsUSA.org.


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