[Purple]

Bull terriers still deemed dangerous by Gladstone
By Jeffrey M. Salem



Kirk Forslund of Gladstone walks Quincy, his bull terrier, the afternoon of Feb. 14. Forslund and his wife fought the Gladstone City Council after its decision to include the bull terrier breed on its list of dangerous dogs. The Forslunds recently lost that battle.

Gladstone couple’s year-long attempt to alter the city’s Animal Control Ordinance finally failed.
Kirk Forslund had repeatedly asked the City Council to omit the bull terrier breed from the ordinance’s definition of a pit bull, which is considered pre-emptively dangerous and requires certain restrictions to be allowed in the city. The City Council, after directing city staff to investigate Forslund’s claims that bull terriers should be separate from other pit bull breeds in the ordinance, chose to do nothing at the present time. The inaction by the City Council essentially muzzles the discussion.
Councilwoman Carol Rudi, who initially voted unsuccessfully against the breed-specific legislation on Feb. 26, 2007, said it was too early to reconsider the ordinance, as it had not even been on the books for a year.
“I still don’t support this breed-specific legislation, but I will support the council’s decision to go ahead and maintain that,” she said at the Feb. 11 meeting.
Forslund has owned Quincy, a bull terrier, since 2006, and the dog is therefore exempt from the restrictions added to the animal control ordinance passed last year. Although the new language does not forbid Forslund from purchasing another bull terrier, he would have to follow several stipulations. Those include keeping the dog on a shortened leash with a muzzle when off the owner’s property and secured in a pen when outside of the house.
Any breed can be deemed dangerous, but dogs defined as pit bulls are pre-emptively deemed dangerous. Those defined breeds by the ordinance include the Staffordshire bull terrier, the American pit bull terrier and the American Staffordshire bull terrier along with any similar mixes.
Gladstone’s ordinance was molded from similar legislation in Liberty and Grandview, city staff said. That is where Forslund said he had a problem.
“I think that it just so happens they copied Liberty’s ordinance, which had bull terriers unfairly listed,” Forslund said.
Though Forslund offered a handful of letters from area veterinarians in support of his stance, the city research found enough conflicting reports regarding the breed’s aggressiveness to suggest the ordinance go unchanged.
“The literature probably weighs in at about 50-50,” City Counselor Dave Ramsay said. “It appears that bull terriers probably pose less a threat than the more aggressive of the pit bull breeds. But at the same time, the literature warns that they do have those same characteristics and the same genetic ancestry that put them in a category of fighting dogs and dogs that are bred for aggressiveness.”
Forslund said he and his wife, Kim, respected the council’s decision not to change its ordinance.
“Even though we don’t agree with the council, I do think they want to do the right thing about vicious dogs,” he said. “But we do think they’re misguided to look at specific breeds.”

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