Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Denver mis-identification process update

Denver newspapers are a-buzz with questions about whether thousands of family pets have been slaughtered simply because of the mis-identification process.
Well, duh?
Check out this quote from The Denver Daily News.
This snippet is Doug Kelley (director of animal control in Denver) defending the “system”.

System
defended

Doug Kelley, director of animal control, defended the system yesterday, arguing that the appeals process is proof that it works.
“The administrative hearing process is there, it’s designed to allow owners to appeal,” he said. “That process worked in this case — the dog, upon further information, was found not to be a pit bull. So, that’s why the process is there.”
Kelley also defended the training animal control officers receive in order to label a dog.
The training is actually a voluntary program that animal control officers must opt into. The checklist to determine if a dog is a pit bull is almost entirely physical characteristics, such as lips, eye color and shoulders. If a dog matches the majority of criteria for a pit bull, then the dog is a pit bull in the eyes of city officials. 
Critics of the system, however, point out that there are dozens of traits that can be applied to several breeds. In many cases, the evaluators are unable to agree on several of the criteria.

So what if you don't have a couple thousand to blow on legal fees? Your dog is killed!
Training for breed identification? No such thing! You can't identify something that is fictitious. “Pitbull” is a slang term for a non-purebred dog or cross bred dog.
Checklist… see previous post! Opinion based descriptions.
Try this…
Identify the following pictures on Denver's “pitbull” checklist. Just open the attachment on the previous post and keep it open so you can do your own checklist of each of the animals below. See if you come up with a similar result for the following animals.
Animal number 1.


Animal number 2.


Animal number 3.

Ok, freak me out! I calculated more common criteria with animal number 3 when going through the checklist with each animal! Here are a couple other links to other articles on this topic.
The Denver Channel
Denver Post


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