No matter how many silly "would you ban all Fords?" arguments are made, protection of the public from pit bulls is coming, because the public's common sense says pit bulls are a too dangerous breed that is now widely-owned.

Widely-owned is the key here. As for the argument that other breeds will replace pit bulls? They are now... as we speak... joining the ranks of pit bulls, and their numbers are increasing too, just as pit bull's numbers increased in the last ten years. They will have to be banned too. Does Stanley Coren seriously think that taxpayers are going to pay to "go after breeders"? Go after breeders in what way? Does anyone intelligent seriously think that taxpayers are going to pay to "educate" pit bull owners? The average pit bull owner is neither educated nor very bright, or has no intention of being "educated" - they know why they own a pit bull and have no intention of changing anything. And waiting for education to work (if it ever did) is to wait for the next child victim, and that is unacceptable.

Stanley Coren writes books about how breeds behave - he knows that breeding for traits works. He says so many places, and in "What Do Dogs Know?" (Free Press, New York, 1997, pgs. 47 and 48), he writes, "Even scientists are amazed at how much of a dog's behaviour is genetically controlled"...Because so much of a dog's behaviour is determined by its genetic makeup, its breed becomes an important means of predicting its nature. Indeed, the central concept of a "purebred" dog involves controlling a dog's genetic makeup through selective breeding."

To say that pit bulls are no more dangerous than other breeds is to put one's own interests ahead of public safety. I am constantly berated by pit bull defenders for my stand, and without a doubt, donations are withheld because of my position, but then, I've never given a damn what my monetary self-interests are, it's animal suffering that interests me, and pit bulls suffer more than any other breed. To say nothing of my anguish at every account of a child being slowly ripped to death.

Society will protect itself and rightly so. We can all indulge ourselves in canine love and friendship with any of the other 400 or so breeds of dogs that aren't bred to fight. I ignore those who say that I must not love dogs because I am not in favour one whole breed, even though I have rescued many of its individual members. I am not in favour of bulldogs, bassets, dachsunds, and pugs either, because of the illnesses that breeding has made them victims of. I am not in favour of keeping the breeds of animals (as they are currently), that suffer unduly because of the selfishess of humans who wish a certain look or a certain behaviour, and do not care how much the dog suffers.

All traits that tend to create suffering ought to be bred out of dogs. Over-protection traits, fighting traits, and perversions of anatomy ought to outrage real dog-lovers. Instead, anyone who wants this suffering to end, is accused of not being a dog-lover. It is a perversion of common sense to deny the proof of selective breeding and to say that pit bulls are no more dangerous than other dogs: It is a perversion of love to defend the suffering that most pit bulls endure.