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PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) has sent the Legislative Assembly of Ontario’s members of the Provincial Parliament a letter in the wake of recent pit bull dog attacks in the Canadian province.

The two-page letter states in the first paragraph “We want Ontario leaders to know that PETA strongly supports regulations and restrictions on the ownership of pit bulls.”

The letter goes on to to say:

“Our office receives calls on a daily basis about pit bulls who are neglected and abused. Not Surprisingly, many “retaliate” by attacking, injuring and sometimes even killing humans and companion animals as has happened recently in Alberta where a woman was killed and a toddler injured when a pit bull in the home attacked them, and Montreal where Christians Vadnais was killed in her own backyard by a roaming pit bull.”

The letter PETA sent to Ontario officials.

The letter PETA sent to Ontario officials.

PETA also goes on to cite a report from the April 2011 issue of the medical journal Annals of Surgery where doctors and nurses and the University Hospital in San Antonio examined 15 years of medical records from their patients with dog-bite injuries.

In that report, the staff found that attacks by pit bulls were associated with a much higher risk of death caused by more serious injuries and were more likely to require hospitalization that resulted in higher medical-care costs than an attack by other breeds.

After examining national statistics in comparison with their study the authors reported the following:

One person is killed by a pit bull every 14 days

Two people are injured by pit bulls every day.

One body part is sheered and lost every 5.4 days because of pit bull attacks

That same report PETA quotes in their letter even goes so far as to say “These breeds should be regulated in the same way in which other dangerous species, such as leopards, are regulated.”

Let me be clear here that both this author and Vegan News’ stance on pit bulls DO NOT follow suit or agree with PETA at all. I and we also disagree with PETA on their stance for feral cat populations and TNR (Trap Neuter Release) as well.

Breed Specific Legislation or BSL as it’s widely known unfairly targets groups of dogs like pit bulls based on their actions from what humans have done to them not how they really are as individuals and that’s the reality.

As with so many things we run up against in fighting to liberate animals this issue about demonizing pit bulls comes back to humans and what we do to them.

Animal cruelty legislation needs to be enforced and expanded not Breed Specific Legislation. Humans need to be held accountable for training, fighting, and breeding aggression purposefully.

If any “breed” needs to be held accountable it’s Homo Erectus (the human species) that treats animals as objects for entertainment, food, or “guard dogs” that live their lives chained up outside.

Blaming these attacks and risks on the dogs is like blaming climate change on fossil fuels instead of the humans who are greedy or dumb enough to continue using them.

PETA is an organization I respect and Vegan News supports but we will point out and be very outspoken about the things we don’t agree with them on especially if it has the potential to hurt innocent animals.

While I understand the utilitarianism philosophy PETA follows in this instance I think we should not be seeing the dogs themselves as the root of the problem because they obviously are not.

We should instead be holding the humans causing their behavioral problems responsible for their despicable and life-shattering actions. Those who abuse, train, and fight dogs should be made examples of in courts across the country.

PETA and other organizations should be campaigning for the cruelty these dogs endure and actions like dogfighting or training these animals to be vicious living weapons to carry harsh penalties with long prison sentences that make these monsters think twice about what they do to them.

Speciesism is the core reason 50 billion land animals are killed for so-called “food” each and every year. Speciesism is what we as vegans fight against every day and it’s the reason animals are treated like an object, like an afterthought, an inconvenience.

To perpetuate that speciesism through Breed Specific Legislation against pit bulls does a disservice not only to pit bulls but to all animals who need us to be their voice.

If we want a vegan world we have to show pre-vegans that all animals are equal in their value to each other and to humans.

Please reconsider your position on this PETA.

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