A petition has been created in Jacksonville that would require owners of “pit bulls” to be “trained and certified” to own the “breed.” The petition creators intend to present this petition to their Texas Senator, Robert Nichols, in an effort to get a state law created to this effect.
Contact information for Senator Robert Nichols can be found here: http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/Senate/members/dist3/dist3.htm
Pit bull attack bolsters petition
BY QUINTEN BOYD
[…] Jacksonville woman thinks legislation is needed
The incidents were enough to make some citizens stand up and call for legislation on the breed. Susan Walczak, who manages City Pawn Shop in Jacksonville, started a petition to train potential owners of pit bulls after the incident involving Justin Clinton.
[…] Ms. Walczak said that the petition currently has well over 400 signatures.[…]
Full article retrieved 9/2/09 from http://www.thecherokeean.com/news/2009/0902/front_page/002.html
Fred M. Kray
krisdiaz9
Stop BSL 
I’m reading in today’s paper where the family of Justin Clinton is suing the dog’s owners.
To quote:
“The mother of a 10-year-old Leveritt’s Chapel boy mauled to death by two pit bull dogs, also known as American bull dogs, filed suit Thursday against the couple who owned the dogs.”
Were these Bull Dogs or Pit Bulls?
Maybe the EXISTING laws should be enforced, such as leash laws, animal abuse laws, etc. These dogs just don’t come from nowhere… either it belongs to someone who’s letting it run loose, or someone abandoned it (which in my mind, constitutes abuse of an animal).
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This is rediculous. I live in east texas myself and I own more than one pit bull. Dogs don’t just go around attacking people or other animals. If the dog attacked someone, evidently something caused it. Perhaps the person was messing with the dog causing it to feel in danger and it did what any form of life would do and protected itself? It is unconstitutional to try and ban an ENTIRE breed when it wasn’t all of the dogs involved in the act. What about all the therapy dogs? Or the ones that sleep next to our children at night and protect them? You want to ban those too?? Instead of trying to ban the whole breed, how about try and fight against the ONE DOG that you have problems with?? My dogs didn’t do a thing to anybody, and I will not stand around and let anybody take them away from me because irresponsible owners allowed THEIR dogs to run loose and cause havoc.
I am Aginst the Ban but I am 110% for Owners taking test & classes as well as the dogs.
THAT WILL STOP THE BITES !!!!!!!!!!!
I am a Proud APBT owner & have no problem getting a Certification in order to own my APBT’s.
Who are fixed and Trained ………
If only BSL thought this way – they might be successful
On Sunday morning January 31/10 as it became light enough to see we became aware that our flock of sheep had been attacked during the night by predators. A group of three mauled dead ewes could be seen by looking out the kitchen window.
Grayce ran out of the house for a closer look and yelled back at me to get a gun. She screamed “There is a big black dog in the sheep lot behind the barn.” I grabed the nearest loaded gun. A single shot 20 gauge with buckshot. As I almost got close enough to shoot two more big dogs appeared and all three headed south toward the fence. South is where people who let their dogs run free all live. It was a long shot but I thru down on the group of three,shot, and hit one. Out of ammo, I had to run back to the house, By the time I got back the two I missed found their way out of the fence and the dog I hit was put down for good with another shot. The escape by the others from the well fenced padock was thru a hole under the fense that they had dug to get in.
The dog I shot was a German Shepard cross wareing a coller with a rabies tag identifying the owner. The other two appeared to be Pit Bull crosses.
These other two need to be picked up and destroyed. All these dogs live less than a half mile away. Animal Control of Rusk County Texas is dragging their feet to locate the owner of the Pit cross sheep killers. We need to know who the owners of these other two are to have any chance at compensation for loss of our livestock
The three dogs in a very short time killed 11 full grown ewes. They were badly riped open and most but not all had severly mangled muzzles. All their bodies were still very warm.
It is not right that owners of any breed of dog be allowed to let them run free off their own property. I can’t say for sure but I don’t think Rusk County Texas will ever get a law protecting anyone or their property from free ranging unsupervized pets unless public opinion forces the court to comply with a majority.
Instead of picking a particular breed to focus on. Ban all free ranging pet dogs of all bloodlines and hire Animal Control officers that have the right to shoot to kill any dog found free ranging day or night with or without a coller and ID tags. Protect the rights of citizens to take the law into their own hands if animal control is not doing their job.
We have dogs. Always had dogs. If we got a free range roamer it was put down. We will never be asked to make compensation to anyone for damages caused by a dog we own