On October 24th it will be National Pit Bull Awareness Day for dog lovers across the country. True to trollish form, a co-opting of the day from the anti-dog internet hate group is in order. Their energy, while everyone else will be celebrating the amazingness of dogs or just going about their usual business, will be on pushing fear and horrific imagery to conjure up negative and irrational emotion. That irrational emotion will then be used to promote intrusion, promote prejudice, promote bans, promote death; and only on platforms where the promoter cannot be intellectually challenged by people that disagree with them.

Surprisingly (or not), PETA has officially aligned themselves to the effort stunt. Imagine that, the “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals” being completely unethical.

^What the commenting Brian Christ fails to realize is that PETA also seeks the destruction of Pit Bulls. And look at the response by PETA!! Actually claiming that this “advocacy coalition” wants to “help, not hurt, Pit Bulls.” Um, wow. Yeah, either they have literally no idea in the world who they just aligned themselves with or they are simply lying. I’ll go with lying.

So who are these groups and what is their deal?

Well first, we have the unabashed crowd of anti-Pit Bull deceptive internet aliases, known to follow and parrot the Mount Rushmore of dog hate (Colleen Lynn, Merritt Clifton, “Craven Desires,” Jeff Borchardt). The poisonous ideology they push is dedicated to violence against dogs, really by any means but mainly through collective blame and calling for legislation that mandates multifaceted violence from the state. Many of these folks will go so far as to justify initiated violence against any animal looking (to the perpetrator) like a “Pit Bull.” To these individuals it does not matter what the dog has or has not done. It does not matter that 99.9% of all dogs, no matter the grouping, will forever be innocent of any and all charges made against them. Abhorrent to the extreme but their hate is obvious, which is why they have no support among the general public.

With PETA, their dog ideology centers on sanctioned violence against Pit Bulls (ending their life) in order to save Pit Bulls from potential future violence. They are far more sophisticated about their messaging and will literally lie to your face about their objectives. They’re also helped by their wide-ranging positive work in other animal-related realms, which produces useful idiots that will blindly defend them against their own quotes and commentary on this specific issue.

Now with PETA’s brass in tow, the hate group has come together and created a website for their hijack. And there’s some interesting and telling tactics on full display within the website…

On the page titled “partners and friends” you will see a perfect representation of how repetitive visuals and links aim to give the illusion of unanimous agreement and wide-ranging support for the idea that Pit Bulls are evil and the nation’s bogeyman that should be banned. In reality, these are a handful of blogs and Facebook pages run by the same 10-15 people.

Among these “partners and friends” are 33 Facebook pages, Merritt Clifton’s website, Colleen Lynn’s DogsBite.org and her 3 spinoff websites, Craven Desires’ Blogger page and then 11 more Blogger pages run by the same 3 people, Tony Solesky’s e-book website, Jeff Borchardt’s Daxton’s Friends website, Daxton’s Friends Facebook page, Jeff Borchardt’s WordPress page, Jeff Borchardt’s personal Facebook page, and rounding everything out is PETA. For those counting at home, that’s 5 or 6 separate websites, PETA, and then 50 or so shadow pages.

This is the manifestation of a virtual echo chamber.

In reality, damn near every actual dog and human safety expert organization as well as nearly all mainstream animal welfare groups (except PETA) have publicly stated that breed-specific legislation is both ineffective and wrong.

Regarding the victims of individual dog attacks, it’s always a tragedy when someone truly gets hurt. No one wants other people to get hurt, let alone killed. But with that, every unfortunate scenario is its own happening and comes with its own set of circumstances, and the narrative of the one size fits all response is emptier than uninformed empty. Continuing to scapegoat groups that equate to millions upon millions of dogs does nothing for public safety. It does nothing for getting to the root of a problem. It does nothing for making this world a better place. It does nothing for actual justice.

So there’s this new piece of writing coming from a South African citizen that the pro-BSL crowd is super into right about now. I swear, they find “logic” in the weirdest of ways. Anyways, it was published a few days ago by someone named Hauke Liefferink and is now being spread around by Pit Bull hatemongers as a retort to anyone who says that dogs are individuals or that 99.9% of whatever the breakdown of dog breed/type is actually innocent. These are both facts, by the way, and they are reality-based facts that will continue to be impossible to retort. Sure, they can be ignored by someone with a crackpot agenda, but they can’t be repudiated at any level.

Liefferink begins by referencing Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, The Black Swan, as a way to align this theory written about in the book to Pit Bulls and Pit Bull owners.

So first, to explain what a “Black Swan” event is… The book’s author uses the example of turkeys, and how from their vantage point they live rather happy and content lives for 364 days out of the year. Each day goes by, they know their routine, they have come to trust the person that feeds them, and they have no reason to think that this will ever change. Then comes a day prior to the Thanksgiving holiday where they are all basically slaughtered in mass, turning their world upside down. To the turkey, they never saw this coming nor expected it. To the butcher, he knew that this was always going to be the case eventually. This is an example of what’s been coined by Taleb as a “Black Swan” event. Okay, that makes sense.

Now Hauke Liefferink comes along, grabs this concept, and starts to blatantly bastardize it. Right out of the gate he claims:

It is in this little fraction of time (0.001%), that Pit Bull owners and turkeys get it very, very wrong, with death being the penalty paid.

Okay, first of all, that sentence alone makes no rational sense. In the example of the turkeys being raised for food, they all die. They all die each and every year. Every single one of them. How in God’s name does this in any way apply to Pit Bulls? It doesn’t. Unless this man can show that every single Pit Bull eventually kills someone, his point falls flat on its face. Reality is almost 100% opposite of what he is implying. He obviously cannot show any of this because 99.9999999999% of all dogs at any level deemed to be a “Pit Bull” (or otherwise) have not killed or seriously mauled someone. This is indisputable.

Liefferink goes on to reference the Colombian child-murderer, torture-killer, and rapist known as “La Bestia,” who has apparently confessed to killing at least 140 children and is suspected of murdering over 400 victims. Liefferink says that he is the most successful serial killer of all time. What does this have to do with anything, you say? Hauke Liefferink goes on to say that “in La Bestia’s 42 years of life prior to apprehension, he killed 0.001% of the time (if he spent 1 hour killing each of his 400 victims).” He then compares “most Pit Bull owner’s reactions” to any attack that may happen in the universe with those same Pit Bull owners “being surprised when a man like Luis ‘The Beast’ Garavito kills another victim.” After all, he’s “already proved his tremendous ability and affinity to do so.” Liefferink ends his paragraph by stating that Garavito may have been a nice guy 99.999% of the time.

Holy wowza, what an incredibly ignorant stretch. The fact that anti-dog folks online are holding this guy’s ludicrous perspective up as a proper response to scientific obviousness just shows you what kind of irrational, non-objective individuals we are dealing with.

The Colombian serial killer is 1 man. He is 1 man that has repetitively committed heinous acts of violence and murder, a total criminal, an obvious piece of filth. I don’t care if 99.999% of the time he wasn’t out physically killing people. He still murdered over 400 people. How in the hell that is relatable to 1 dog, let alone millions, is absolutely beyond me. I mean, it’s so absurd. If any dog, no matter the breed, goes out and kills a human being, whether provoked or not, that dog is usually euthanized almost immediately! Again, if a dog kills 1 person then the dog dies. That’s how that story goes. Yet this Liefferink guy, now being cheered on by anonymous dog-haters across the internet, is trying to compare a psychopathic man’s repetitive criminal intent with any dog’s alleged intent after a singular incident. But I thought that dogs don’t have any comparison to human beings, folks? This is what any Pit Bull-hater that I’ve ever come across will say when they need to dodge any direct or philosophical points that are being made, that at any level involve any kind of a human reference. You can’t have it both ways. Now dogs have criminal intent? Lol. Worse, he’s scapegoating every dog (millions) as being like an individual serial killer with 400 notched kills!

This guy continues…

Thus when Pit Bull owners are telling us that their dogs are so loving, timid and haven’t eaten any kids yet, what they are actually saying is that they haven’t experienced their day 1,000 yet.

We haven’t experienced our “day 1,000” yet? Liefferink says that as if millions of people will inevitably face this day 1,000; never acknowledging that almost all people with Pit Bulls (or any dog) never face such a day. Take me, for example. I’ve lived every day since early 2001 with at least 1 dog that we can go ahead and categorize as being a “Pit Bull-type” dog. It’s now 2015. Since 2010, I’ve been living with 3. I lived nearly 3,285 days with Sway. She did nothing negative to anyone, ever. I’ve since lived over 1,825 days and counting with my 3 current dogs. They’ve did nothing negative to anyone, ever. My mom, my girlfriend, a few cousins, my old roommate, numerous close friends of mine and about 200 acquaintances that I could name-drop in about 20 minutes, from just Los Angeles County alone, would have the same kind of testimony to give about their own dogs. Testimony based on actual history. Testimony based on actual reality. Testimony based on fact. Yet we don’t count to anyone with the agenda of exterminating all dogs that look like Pit Bulls. It’s funny how that works.

He then accuses “Pit Bull owners” of denying science. Denying science? Every peer-reviewed publication that I’ve ever seen in my life not only clearly explains that breed is not the issue, but it then breaks down why it isn’t. Further, quite literally every single dog or human safety expert organization in North America as well as all professional animal welfare groups have come out publicly stating that breed-specific legislation is not only ineffective but unjust.

Liefferink sources numerous Wikipedia links referring to dog fighting and bull-baiting, both totally illegal, mind you. He wants you to believe that every single dog mixed at any level with a Pit Bull is a “fighting dog” that comes from an actual dog fighting background and environment. In reality, so few dogs, Pit Bulls or otherwise, even fit that history. Actual dogs coming from a fighting environment are incredibly rare, and those that do, most of them are bait dogs or dogs that don’t show the ability to be the kind of fighters that scumbag dog fighters even desire. This notion that every Pit Bull is a dog fighting dog is completely untrue. It’s fear-mongering. It’s a lie. He then sources a study from 1990 which involved 168 Philadelphia children. Only 12 of those 168 children were hospitalized following their incident with whatever dog they encountered. German Shepherds were identified in this study as being the most common “perpetrator,” yet they go unmentioned in Liefferink’s rant. The study explains in no way how they went about identifying any of the dogs, and the unreliability of Pit Bull identification has been made quite clear by, wait for it, scientific studies. It states that 46% of the dogs were “provoked” prior to biting. It states that over half of the dogs were freely roaming at the time of incident. None of these things are even highlighted by Hauke Liefferink.

Are we noticing the trend of outright ignoring any and everything that overwhelmingly contradicts the Pit Bull-hating narrative?

Upon viewing this trash heap of an article being shared around Facebook by the DogsBite.org klan, I couldn’t help but take note of some of the comments rolling in from their echo chamber. One commenter posted a YouTube video link showing Andrew Millard, an investment advisor out of North Carolina, taking a few minutes to explain what a “Black Swan” event is to his subscribers. At around 1:58 in the video he says this… “On the other hand, we should never let fear dictate our actions.” Well said. Apparently they didn’t even watch it.

For BSL-advocates, dog-banners, dog-hating exterminators, collective blame ideologues and prejudicial control freaks, fear is the only thing that dictates their every move.

So recently Jeff Borchardt published a post on his website where he attempts to demonize everyone who opposes his anti-dog tactics, and in the same group-type response in which he demonizes all Pit Bulls. What’s clear is that if you’ve ever attempted to engage Jeff and said anything that he didn’t want to hear, well, you’re basically then accused of “attacking a victim.” That’s his narrative, anyways.

That’s not to ignore or seek to justify some very reprehensible comments that he has received from others. It’s within his post that he shows you some of the cataloged screenshots. But again, people are individuals and some folks are just senseless assholes. An unavoidable fact of the matter is that there’s senseless assholes from every group of people, from every race or type of people, from every city, state and country of people. There’s no perfect fix for that, and that’s what makes people human. People are individuals, and there’s some shitty people out there from all walks of life.

But anyways, Mr. Borchardt routinely lumps valid criticism of his tactics and ideology in with ludicrous criticism and heartless commentary. This is quite obviously done so that he can avoid ever having to take accountability or have an intellectual back and forth with anyone about the actual issues, and instead just ignore all criticism across the board or use 1 person’s crappy comment to paint everyone else as insensitive or discredited. It’s a tactic, it’s obvious, and it’s lame as hell. It’s sort of like how 99% of a protest is peaceful and then you have the less than 1% that go around busting out store windows and setting fires. Then in the media the hundreds or sometimes thousands of protesters get condemned as an entire group for being “rioters” and “looters.” It’s no surprise coming from a character like Borchardt, but just pointing it out as being his mode of operation.

For instance, it was pointed out to me that he was ranting about me in the comment section of this post. I went over to both read his post and then read the comments.

It’s within Jeff’s main post where he attaches screenshots of disgraceful comments coming from (as mentioned above) senseless assholes. One person suggests that he get to “play kickball with Jeff’s son’s head.” That comment is clearly embarrassing, mental, crude and heartless. Another person tells him to “put a gun to your head and join your ugly son.” Embarrassing, mental, crude and heartless. Another person posts a photo of Jeff’s son with the caption “my dartboard.” Embarrassing, mental, crude and heartless.

Jeff uses these screenshots to typecast ALL PIT BULL-TYPE DOG OWNERS. That’s millions of people, folks. Apparently everyone is to blame for some fucking asshole making a psychopathic comment about his son! Actually, the only person to blame for whatever piece of shitty commentary that was made is the person that said it. That’s it.

Do you see a pattern with Borchardt’s world-view? He just scapegoats everyone for the actions of an individual. You disagree with him on anything regarding Pit Bulls? Well, then you’re an insensitive “nutter” who apparently rejoices in the death of his son… Complete bullshit and utter lunacy, but that is the narrative that Borchardt pushes.

Borchardt actually included a screenshot of something that I sent him on Twitter, and places it alongside some of the statements referenced above. Lovely. What did I say?

That’s not my video. No clue who ‘foamertalk’ is. Address them, not me. Also, you call that an ass-handing? That’s interesting. Clifton has ducked just as you’ve ducked for 2 months. Your online bravado does nothing for you outside of the hate group. Fire up your webcam and stop being a coward.

Mind you, this was in response to him attempting to mock me on Twitter, not the other way around. He referenced me daring to go up and engage Merritt Clifton at a conference, which I did, with my camera rolling. That video has obviously pissed a lot of people off. He said that I got my ass handed to me. Okay. Right. I then pointed out that Clifton has actually ducked getting back to me on the proposed debate that was referenced numerous times in the video. I also point out that Jeff has done the same kind of avoiding, as I proposed publicly talking to him about the issues on webcam about 6 months ago. This was suggested because Jeff most definitely has a working webcam, as he does media interviews using Skype while pushing breed-specific legislation. I then call him a coward because he constantly avoids discussing public safety issues with anyone that doesn’t either 1) give him a softball television segment or 2) totally agree with him.

Borchardt’s post then gets even more passively aggressive. In the comment section someone named Brian Adamson offers a pretty level-headed paragraph towards Jeff, which then pulls in numerous anonymous (surprise!) commenters in response, and then Jeff himself. Someone with the alias “Who Else” states that the Adamson guy is a “shill for Pit Bull breeders” who “helps dog fighters get kids and pets killed.” Um, wow. In his next comment he states that Brian Adamson is “hooked up” with me. What the heck? I am described as “that creepy guy who has Lisa Camuso telling him what to do.” Lol. I’ve never met or talked with Brian Adamson, I have no clue who he is. I’ve also never met or talked with Lisa Camuso, although I’ve seen her comment below my Merritt Clifton video. I have literally zero link with either person. I most definitely don’t have anyone telling me what to do, Lisa or otherwise. Jeff then comes on and starts shouting at me in the comments, as if I’m actually on the comment section, which I’m not. He then accuses me of posting on a Facebook page called “Truth Be Told,” which I don’t. Borchardt goes on to state that this page is where myself, Lisa Camuso and Brian Adamson go to “associate.” Jesus Christ. He then refers to us as the “Pit Bull lobby.” This is his term for anyone that has a Pit Bull-type dog or disagrees with BSL or breed bans. Again, in reality this is millions of people, folks! I’m a dog owner. I have dogs that are Pit Bull-type dogs. That’s it.

This was partially the Brian Adamson guy’s reponse to Borchardt’s claims, found further down within the comment section:

I have never had a single conversation with Josh Liddy. I mentioned him in one comment, one time and all of a sudden we are brothers in arms. That is a glaring example of how flawed your thought process is. You draw wild conclusions based on a fractional amout of evidence and research. You then present these conclusions as though they are proven, undeniable facts.

That’s actually pretty spot on.

Jeff Borchardt has no ability to actually stick to specific facts and instances. He seeks to blame everything on everyone, and link everything with everyone, and paint everything with the same brush. He fundamentally rejects the fact that people are individuals and dogs are individuals. This is a fact, he can ignore it all that he wants. When I criticize people they are being specifically criticized. I do not post for any Facebook page other than SwayLove.org. This is also my website. I write here. I do not have any aliases. I try to engage everyone. I’m 1 person who stands up for not only my dogs but tries to stand up for everyone’s dogs. My dogs have done nothing to anyone. Nothing that Jeff Borchardt has to say has anything to do with my dogs or millions of other dogs. Nothing. I am not funded by any other organization. I do not take marching orders from anyone. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Jeff. I also have a working webcam. I’ve invited you to have a public conversation, talk, debate (whatever you want to call it), as human beings. I will talk to you about anything that you want to talk about, and at any time. If you’d “school me,” as you like to say, then what exactly is the problem? Wouldn’t it be of benefit to you to publicly school me on these many issues? I am not scared of you or your information. I can stand on my own feet. You can spin things however you want to spin them, but deep down you know that’s being done to make yourself feel better and reaffirm what you already believe. Step outside of your comfort zone. Have the conversation.

Honestly, the people that scare me the most are the one’s that don’t even want to hear anyone else’s opinion unless it’s something that they already agree with. I don’t live in an echo chamber. People can say a lot of things about me, but they can’t say that. I engage, I respond, I communicate. I try to do as much of that as I can, both here and on my Facebook page. Those concepts are healthy for lifting discussions, or they should be. Bottom line.

Duck … Duck … Duck … Duck … Duck … Duck … Duck … Duck … Goose?

The recent opinion piece submitted by Susan Robinson on Friday was both offensive and confusing. It was offensive because she was taking a massive group of dogs, millions of them, and condemning them as a whole. It was confusing because she claimed to be big on “facts” and “evidence,” when she clearly isn’t big on either.

From what I can tell, Susan seems to only pay attention to the sliver of her reality that reaffirms what she already believes, rendering her first 3 paragraphs pretty much irrelevant.

First off, let’s attempt to deal in actual facts. Pit Bulls are dogs. They are domesticated dogs. They are not wild animals. They are dogs, just like any other breed or type of dog. They are not “different,” as the title claims, they are simply dogs. “Pit Bull” (as used by most Americans) isn’t even a breed of dog, it is a slang term used to represent groups of dogs that look a certain way. So Susan Robinson’s definition of what a Pit Bull is likely wouldn’t fit mine, yours, or the random person pulled off of the street.

Also, Susan Robinson, unless she left it out of her description of herself, is not a geneticist. So when she references genes and what they are “bred to do,” she’s simply feeding you a soundbyte. Actual geneticists refute her made claims, but that doesn’t make it into her diatribe because it doesn’t align with her message of painting every Pit Bull as a fighting dog.

Robinson then references her sheltie and her son-in-law’s Pit Bull Odin as if they were inanimate objects that are reflections of every other thing coming from the groupings that she’s placed them in. Again, facts go against her painted narrative, because dogs are actually individuals and not mirrors or carbon copies of each other. Meaning that Odin is Odin, Odin is not my dog or your dog. She also interestingly claimed that Odin was a “Pit Bull mix” but doesn’t ever reference what he was mixed with, if she even knew. Robinson’s happy to saddle the Pit Bull portion of that Odin equation with all of the negative stuff and let whatever other fraction off scot-free. How convenient.

Her desire to hitch Odin’s behavior to the back of my dog is nothing but fearmongering. That is not scientific. That is not factual or rooted in actual evidence, whether broader evidence or individualized evidence concerning the life that my dog (or any other dog) has lived. What Susan Robinson presents is simply emotion driving fear, plain and simple. She’s had a bad experience with Odin, wants to rehash his misgivings, and then blame millions of other dogs for it.

Further, she wants to scapegoat all Pit Bulls because 4 dogs, alleged Pit Bulls, killed Modesto resident Juan Fernandez last month. 4 loose dogs, mind you. Where was the owner of the dogs? Nowhere to be found. Why were they out and running loose? No answer is apparently worth focusing on. Were the dogs living inside of a home or simply yard dogs, unsocialized and normally living on a tether or chain? These are all circumstances that matter but none are sexy enough to ever become a media focus. Actual dog behaviorists and animal welfare professionals will tell you that these things are precisely what you should focus on if you genuinely care about improving public safety, not breed.

Robinson goes on to say that she doesn’t support “solving any animal problem with killing.” But then in the very next paragraph suggests breed-specific legislation, which results in the wholesale killing and condemnation of Pit Bulls and mixes, as the answer. Apparently they don’t count.

To close, she kept saying that docile Pit Bulls don’t exist. I’ve got news for Susan Robinson, millions of them do exist, and she certainly knows it. She will point to the 30 or so dogs that kill human beings every year, and then highlight how many of those 30 or so the media have tagged as being Pit Bulls. Okay, subjectively fantastic. What she is ignoring though is the 5 million Pit Bulls in the United States right now that have never done anything to anyone! And that number could easily be double that depending on how one opts to identify the dog. With that context, how are her hysterics even remotely factual? She talks “evidence,” but by whatever mathematical equation she can put forth, it will still show that 99.9% of the grouped dogs do not fit her murderous characterization.

Her piece was empty on evidence. It was full of fear. I agree that people acting recklessly should be held accountable. But shouldn’t the recklessness be the focus? Robinson speaks of accountability without ever taking into account all of the innocent dogs that she’s scapegoating with her words. You can’t selectively apply your definition of “accountable.” It’s either account for all aspects of the topic or fail to address the topic. I don’t ignore that up to 4 dogs ended up killing Juan Fernandez. She shouldn’t ignore that my dogs, or millions of other dogs, had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Breed-specific legislation is point blankly profiling for dogs. It is group-blaming for dogs. It is making all from whatever grouping guilty and then forcing each to prove their innocence afterwards. It is the rejection of treating dogs as individuals and the rejection of punishing individuals based on the crimes and/or actions of those individuals. Instead, breed-specific legislation lumps hundreds/thousands/millions of dogs together, based solely on how they appear to a subjective eye, and condemns them, then seeks to justify their prohibition based on that blanket condemnation.

What group of people are most often profiled in American society? That’s simple: African Americans.

So what, in this satirical and thought-provoking effort, am I going to do? I’m going to look at numerous Prop 2D news editorials from Aurora and neighboring city Denver (both where Pit Bulls are currently banned) and simply replace any word referencing “Pit Bull” with “black person.”

Most all people will understand this exercise, but I will disclaimer this post with this statement anyways: I am quite obviously not saying that dogs are people, but rather highlighting the prejudicial doctrine/ideology that’s being put into work by those seeking to scapegoat millions of individual dogs for things that they never did. The few with track records of calling for Pit Bull bans, their killing, their elimination, etc., they will loudly scream that dogs are not people and thus this point is null and void. Well, they either intellectually have an inability to grasp a basic point or just seek to make as much counter-noise as possible in an effort to distract from the fact that their reaction is the act of collective blaming. The only folks “offended” by such an exercise are those being called out for their ideology. Black people, above all others, are likely to understand this point the easiest.

Here’s a post-election editorial by the Denver Post Editorial Board:

Aurora right to keep Pit Bull black person ban

Aurora voters made a sensible decision when asked by the city whether they’d like to repeal a controversial Pit Bull black person ban.

They said no, by a 2-to-1 margin.

The breed race-specific ban is an issue of local control, and if voters want to continue the prohibition that was instituted in 2006, that should be their choice.

The number of bites shootings attributed to Pit Bulls black people has dropped significantly since the ban went into effect nearly a decade ago. Apparently voters didn’t want to mess with what seems to be working.

Here’s an op-ed from Dave Perry’s Aurora Sentinel, a few weeks prior to the vote:

No on Proposition 2D: Putting an end to Aurora’s dangerous Pit Bull black person charade

Of the 38 people who were killed in the United States by dogs people last year, two-thirds of those deaths involved Pit Bulls black people, which make up about 4% 12% of the U.S. dog human population. Get it?

Who in Aurora wants to live next to a Pit Bull black person?

Of course not. We don’t either. Your answer to that question tells you how you need to vote on the ill-advised city ballot question, Prop 2D, asking Aurora residents to rescind an 8-year-old ban on Pit Bulls black people.

Vote no.

Most Aurora residents were wrong when they thought this has long been a settled matter. The city council prohibited Pit Bulls black people in 2006 after a particularly unnerving spate of maulings shootings in and near Aurora. Denver, too, had banned the dogs blacks, and Aurora was quickly becoming a dumping gathering ground.

And here’s Dave Perry, writing for the Sentinel, back when the Proposition was being considered:

Aurora has already decided to ban Pit Bulls black people, no need to let pit bullies (insert your choice of derogatory name here) have an election

OK, Aurora. Who wants to live next to a Pit Bull black person?

I thought so. Me neither.

Not convinced that Aurora is very, very pleased with its ban on keeping Pit Bulls black people out of the city, Aurora council members are poised to ask voters whether they want to repeal the longstanding ban.

At first glance, you’ve got to ask yourself just how crazy and stupid such an idea is. I mean, really, will you vote “yes” to bring a flood of these dogs people back? Do you really believe in your heart of hearts that these dogs people aren’t any more of a problem than any other dog person?

I don’t buy it.

Public safety fraudster Jeff Borchardt was recently on Wisconsin public radio spreading his sensationalized misinformation about Pit Bulls as a guest on the Joy Cardin show.

Most offensive of all is that during his 42 minutes on the air there was absolutely no mention of any of the reckless circumstances that are consistently shown to be involved in serious dog bites or fatal incidents. None. Not 1 mention. Not 1 mention of loose or roaming dogs as being a circumstance that could lead to a fatal incident. Not 1 mention of chained yard dogs as being a circumstance that could lead to a fatal incident. Not 1 mention of leaving young children alone with any dog as being a circumstance that could lead to a fatal incident. None. Not 1 mention. Not 1 mention or suggestion that people should contain their dogs and not let them run free. Not 1 mention or suggestion that people should socialize their dogs and not leave them chained or tethered to a constant location, playing the role of a moving alarm system. Not 1 mention or suggestion that parents/adults should always supervise their children around any dog, especially dogs that out-weigh the child. Not 1 mention. None.

This, while the just passed calender year of 2013 showed that 26 of the 32 dog bite-related human fatalities from that year involved at least 1 of these 3 circumstances, and many of the fatalities involved more than 1 in tandem. Further, the dogs involved are primarily being subjectively breed-identified by media mentions and over half of the reported incidents never even show the alleged dog in any fashion! 32 fatalities in a country that has between 75-80 million dogs and over 300 million people. 2014 has circumstantially shown much of the same. When you delve into incidents happening prior to 2013 you will also see much of the same. Circumstantial recklessness and/or an element of blatant irresponsibility usually leads to about 75% of all dog bite-related human fatalities. Not just for any specific year, but for every year.

Instead, all we heard from Jeff was “Pit Bull, Pit Bull, Pit Bull, BSL, Pit Bull, dog fighting, breed, Pit Bull, fighting dog, killers, Pit Bull, don’t get one, Pit Bull, fighting dog, Pit Bull, Pit Bull.”

The mere suggestion that Jeff Borchardt is a public safety advocate is one of the most ridiculous oxymorons that could dare be suggested. Unbelievable. Borchardt seems to have blood lust in his heart, thinking vengeance masked as public safety might give him some satisfaction. Well, desiring to kill, attempting to ban, and further ostracizing millions of innocent dogs and their owners will not fill the hole that the tragic loss of his son has created. One day he will wake up and realize that his grief is being used for an end.

At PETA headquarters, at the request of this reporter, Ms. Nachminovitch led the way to a cinder-block building in the back and then to a windowless room where the dogs and cats are killed. It looked like a well-maintained examination room in a doctor’s office. There was clean bedding on a countertop where the dogs and cats are placed for the intravenous shot from a certified euthanasia technician.

“It’s a humane exit from a world that’s treated them like garbage,” said Ms. Nachminovitch, a vegan who does not use animal products. “It’s very sad, but in these cases, it’s the best we can hope for.”

Death is not “the best” we can hope for. That is bullshit. Whatever happened to the notion that we actually help those “treated like garbage,” assisting them in ways that show them what not being “treated like garbage” actually looks and feels like? The exploitation defeatists that head PETA are breathtakingly wrong on this golden rule.

Simply take their backwards philosophy and apply it to a 12-year-old girl that’s been kidnapped and then repeatedly raped by someone that keeps her in their basement. Apply it to a 15-year-old boy that’s been sold into the sex trade. Apply it to a 24-year-old girl that’s been forced into doing prostitution after becoming homeless. Apply it to a 35-year-old guy that’s been tormented by a serious mental illness since graduating high school. Apply it to a 40-year-old housewife that’s endured a decade of domestic violence. Apply it to a 42-year-old man that’s been addicted to hard drugs ever since losing his entire family to a fatal car accident. You get the picture. Do we just kill them to rid them of their “suffering”? I think not.

PETA, on issues of shelter animal killing and Pit Bull extermination, are like the satirical people in the “Mercy Killers” skit from a 1978 episode of Saturday Night Live.

Isn’t it cute that when a city like Miami or Denver opts to double down on their Pit Bull bans, the celebratory narrative then coming from anti-dog websites like DogsBite and Animals24-7 is plush with phrases like “crushed,” “destroyed” and “overwhelming.” Says Pit Bull-hating Merritt Clifton about the 64.7% to 35.3% defeat of Aurora, Colorado’s Prop 2D: “Attempt to repeal Pit Bull ban crushed in Colorado.” Crushed. Crushed? It’s convenient though, that these kinds of descriptive phrases are only rolled out when the result is beneficial to a campaign supporting continued Pit Bull eradication.

If any result is favorable to that concept then it’s something like this… “Citizens turn out,” or “population weighs in,” or “communities make it known,” etc. On the flipside, if the result is the exact opposite then their narrative morphs into something more like this… “Pit Bull lobbyists come out,” etc.

Always aiming to normalize themselves while villainizing anyone who opposes their desire to kill, eliminate and/or criminalize millions of dogs. Everyone with a Pit Bull or a dog mixed at any level with a Pit Bull-type becomes a “lobbyist.” That means millions of people. Everyone with a Pit Bull or a dog mixed at any level with a Pit Bull-type becomes a “dog fighting supporter.” So grotesquely offensive and void of even the slightest sliver of common sense or truth. And if you oppose breed discrimination in the form of mandatory sterilization laws, being pushed from a ban-mentality? Well, then you’re characterized as a “breeder” or a “lobbyist” for puppy mills or for breeders. Worse, the folks saying this will then attempt to blame you for the shelter deaths of Pit Bulls, and pose as saviors to the Pit Bulls, all while openly trying to kill/ban/eliminate them. This is 1984, indeed.

To follow up on this last paragraph… Do I think that everyone in Aurora who voted to keep this ban shares the vitriolic anti-Pit Bull mentality of say a Colleen Lynn or a Merritt Clifton? Of course not! Not even close. Not even remotely close. This is just another issue to most, one that they’ve been conditioned to view from a certain perspective, and without ever having any personal experience with a Pit Bull or being exposed to any alternative viewpoints. Does that make them bad? No! That makes them human. How many issues in the world is any random one of us well-informed on? How many issues in the world do I, or you, or he, or she actively seek to consistently follow? How many issues do we passively accept? Finally, how many issues go unacknowledged because there’s not enough time in our day? Ask yourself these questions. And as many would likely change their views with a little information and experience, some wouldn’t, and that’s totally fine, because this is America after all. The bottom line is that Aurora is filled with good folks, just as Denver and Miami are filled with good folks. They voted to not undo a wrong, a very complicated and multifaceted wrong. This happens. This is life. I’m not saying that I like it, but I’m not going to blame Aurora as a whole or else I’d be no better than Colleen Lynn or Merritt Clifton when they repetitively seek to blame my dog (and millions more) for something that 1 individual dog may do, either down the street or from 3,000 miles away, for example.

This is also why using Denver or Miami as a yardstick for the nation, and ignoring the 98+% of American cities and towns that DO NOT HAVE BSL, is a disingenuous exercise of the tallest order. See the below conversation as an example…

In respect to what I chided at the top of my article, I actually call Colleen and Merritt lobbyists within this pictured communication. That’s because they openly lobby for legislation that seeks to ban and kill dogs. Legislation doesn’t exist and then they push to create it. They desire legislation that, in a perfect world (to them), would disappear a quarter of the dog population (and based solely on how that massive group appears to a subjective eye). On the contrary, everyone in Aurora who cast a vote to keep the ban, they are not lobbyists, nor are the people in Aurora who wanted to lift the ban “Pit Bull lobbyists.” Neither is true. Most everyone are simply citizens taking a position on an issue. But it’s always a sweeping reaction when certain anti-dog individuals open their mouths against Pit Bulls, against their owners, against anyone who doesn’t totally agree with them. Speaking for myself and my opposing of BSL: I’m taking a reactionary stance against someone who wants to ban, kill, marginalize, criminalize, screw over my dogs and millions more that look in some way like them. That’s a reactionary position. I’m not initiating any overreaching legislation, I’m not initiating any legislation! I’m a good person. I’m responsible. I speak out against recklessness. I want to live in peace. My dogs have done nothing. Millions of dogs have done nothing.

To that point, to support collective blame and punishment onto groups of anything that have committed no crime, that’s an incredibly wrong misappropriation of power. How do you condone a Minority Report-styled world where individuals are going to be judged and then convicted based on how they might look or what list that they might be on? That’s what tyranny is. I’d much rather individuals be dealt with based upon crimes that they’ve actually committed. Once again, this is America after all.

Circling back the the beginning, and the notion that numbers are somehow showing us that a concept is being “crushed.” With millions of Pit Bulls in the United States, and millions more that may be lumped into that certain category (depending on who is doing the categorizing, and for what end), one concept that is being absolutely “crushed” by reality is that (by whatever metric or calculation that you use) 99.99999% of these dogs have not killed or attacked anyone. This goes very conveniently ignored by the few eugenic exploitation artists that foam from their mouths at the thought of a Pit Bull mass genocide, but it’s a fact nonetheless.

Click here to purchase Scout’s book on Amazon!

00:29 Michael Bryant’s BSL
03:22 The process of adopting Scout
04:28 Enforcement in Ontario
06:46 What happens to the dogs that end up in shelters?
07:47 Scout’s book, “Stuff on Scout’s Head”
10:04 The response to the book
11:08 Are Ontario politicians aware of Scout?
12:49 Getting rid of the ban
13:45 Movement to repeal the ban
14:35 The Buehrle’s move to Toronto
14:58 Take the initiative to show your dog in a positive light
16:59 What does that have to do with my dog?
19:27 Scout’s Great Dane sister
20:09 Traveling to NYC to be on the Rachael Ray show
24:27 What happens if police stop you on the street?/Housing restrictions
26:22 Outreach from the UK and Australia
26:51 StuffOnScoutsHead.com, stuffonscoutshead.tumblr.com

There’s many things that irrational dog-hating and BSL-pushing exploitation artists say and do that will never add up, make any kind of sense, or be backed up by actual reality and evidence. That aside, it’s still comical when these persons act in such ways that clearly show their bias and their hypocrisy to the core. I present to you… The “nanny dog” and Bad Rap commenting on the “nanny dog”!

Okay, so let’s see here. How many things has Bad Rap ever said in regards to Pit Bulls that a dog-hating, BSL-pushing exploitation artist would ever agree with? Close to nothing, right? Instead, they’d likely spend a lot of their time and energy mocking and/or trying to discredit Bad Rap and anything that they do in regard to advocating for Pit Bulls… Yet as soon as Bad Rap posted the below Facebook comment from a few years back they were all of a sudden being held up by their mockers as 100% accurate and completely “right” on the topic of Pit Bulls never being nanny dogs.

This comment continues to be rolled out by random anti-Pit Bull scaremongers as “proof” that Pit Bulls were never “nanny dogs.” They’ll then try to use this narrative to imply that Bad Rap has had a hiccup of dignity while the rest of us (millions of people) continue endangering all of America by allowing our “landsharks” to walk public streets as the innocent dogs that they actually are.

Let’s unpack this nanny dog topic a little bit, shall we? First off, whoever got the opportunity to wake up 1 morning and unequivocally proclaim that there was even such a thing as an entire breed of canine being labeled as nanny dogs? Did this factoid make it into a presidential speech from the past? Was there some kind of parade that I missed? I mean, they do realize that this term grew from different people referring to their own INDIVIDUAL dogs as nanny dogs, right? Yet somehow this label gets placed on an entire group or breed or characterization of dog as if it was/is 100% fact 100% of the time. Everyone who actually knows anything about dogs, and thus knows that dogs are individuals, knows that this isn’t true. Yet the Pit Bull haters will act as though everyone who has no problem with Pit Bulls believes it is true so that they can then try to discredit those same people through denying this dumbed down soundbite/talking point. See how that works?

All that Bad Rap is basically saying by posting what they did was that you can’t look at any group of anything and state with specificity that all of those individuals making up whatever group are each going to be like “x.” That’s blatant common sense. Dogs are individuals. So to imply that every dog from any breed or group of breeds/types is completely safe left around children unattended would be doing a disservice to reality and thus public safety. Bad Rap is simply saying supervise your kids around any dog! That’s the responsible thing to do. Know your individual dog, know your individual child. Don’t excuse potential recklessness by justifying that reckless with a false sense of security. It’s that simple, and quite obviously.

So… I mean, my God, what is wrong with that? Does that mean that all of those vintage photos showing kids and dogs didn’t exist? No! Obviously they exist. Does that mean that those Pit Bulls pictured didn’t serve as nanny dogs in those individual households? No! Obviously many did.

Still, the mentally ill who want nothing more than to see piles and piles of dead Pit Bulls will spin and take out of context and flip and flop and turn on a dime any comment, so long as it allows them the opportunity to fool useful idiots into supporting their scapegoating nonsense. Truth be told, they don’t believe nor have they moved to validate a single thing that Bad Rap has ever said about Pit Bulls… Unless, of course, it aligns (out of context) with something that they already believe! Then they’ll comically move to treat Bad Rap (in this instance) as if they are the grand poobah on the topic… Just picture someone who wants all Pit Bulls banned or dead running down the street saying “see, Bad Rap said it, it must be true!” Um, okay… But yet nothing else that Bad Rap has ever said gets acknowledged as “factual” by these same persons. That’s what we call a confirmation bias. End scene.