At last nights meeting, Riverside City California passed the changed to their already active spay/neuter ordinance that would target dogs officials declare to be a “pit bull.”
Riverside City already has a spay/neuter law in place. By officials own admission, this law is not enforced with any regularity. The only time it is enforced is if a dog is picked up by animal control or they receive a complaint about a dog and they find it is unaltered.
With a mandatory spay/neuter law already in place, we need to ask, what is the point of deciding to only actively target dogs based on their appearance?
Targeted dogs include Staffordshire Bull Terriers, American Pit Bull Terriers, American Stafford Terriers and “mixes in which those breeds can be easily identified.”
The new law includes medical exemptions, exemptions for registered breeders and law enforcement dogs. There are no exemptions for service dogs, show dogs, or other branches of working dogs.
Officials have not said how they will be “actively enforcing” the spay/neuter law, how much money it will cost to do so or how they will be identifying dogs for enforcement.
This all seems a moot point, aside from the cost, considering that it is already a law to have your dog altered in Riverside City.
The changing of the law for targeted enforcement is bizarre. It would seem to be common sense that the already existing spay/neuter law should be enforced if they are going to have it on the books.
Likely officials know that broad-based enforcement would be expensive, and have far-reaching detriments to shelter populations, so instead of enforcing what is already there, they have added more regulations.
Fred M. Kray
krisdiaz9
Stop BSL 
Reblogged this on Sherlockian's Blog.