After Garden City, Kansas recently repealed their breed-specific legislation (BSL) which had declared so-called “pit bull” “breeds” vicious, El Dorado, Kansas now endeavors to do same and is currently looking into repealing their 25-year old “pit bull” ban. In fact, El Dorado’s breed ban is so old, Commissioner Bill Young has requested a history of the ban to find out why it had been passed in the first place.

In El Dorado, a “pit bull” has historically been defined as,

“a pit bull as a bull terrier, Staffordshire bull terrier, American pit bull terrier, American Staffordshire or a mix of those breeds.”

We know and have said ad nauseam that “pit bull” is not a breed, but oddly neither is American Staffordshire. Do they mean American Staffordshire Terrier? Because a law banning breeds of dog should at least get those breeds’ names right, dontcha think?



It’s odd too that Bull Terrier is defined in El Dorado’s ordinance as a “pit bull,” because we don’t see Bull Terriers being called “pit bulls” too often. Maybe thanks to Spuds McKenzie and Bull Terriers being the Target stores’ mascot,

the Bull Terrier just has better PR than other “pit bull” “breeds.” But perhaps that PR didn’t extend to El Dorado.

Regardless, we await the findings of the El Dorado City Commission to discover why El Dorado passed BSL in the first place, which will most likely lend credence to community activists’ arguments that it should be repealed.