Within a few days of Hurricane Katrina flooding New Orleans, animal rescue teams—including the Oregon Humane Society (OHS)—descended on the Louisiana town to try and save numerous pets left behind during the evacuation. Great for New Orleans, but for Oregon that meant that all of OHS’s animal cruelty investigators made the trip, leaving our state’s abused pets high and dry.
For example, a North Portland resident recently discovered that her neighbor was keeping five pit bulls on chains in the backyard with little to no food or water. Concerned, she called the county and OHS—but received no help. The neighbor finally contacted representatives from the Northwest Chapter of In Defense of Animals (IDA)—a nonprofit agency that tracks animal cruelty, but has no enforcement power. That organization did respond and showed up almost the very next day. Standing in the neighbor’s backyard, IDA peered over a fence dividing the lawns, videotaped the dogs, and took notes throughout one afternoon.
While it’s impossible for the organization to confirm that the dogs were being trained for fighting, the conditions had certain telltale signs: large, industrial chains were being used to strengthen the dogs’ necks and several puppies were stuffed into one small cage. Even if the dogs were not being trained for fighting, they were being left outside at all hours, with little or no food and water.
But unfortunately, there is little that IDA can legally do to help the dogs. In turn, all IDA and the neighbor can do is present their evidence to OHS or the county—and hope someone follows up. But when they reported the abuse to the OHS’s cruelty hotline, they were greeted with a message saying that all of the investigators were in the Gulf Coast. After touting all the great things the team would accomplish—2,600 miles removed from Portland—the message declared, “We are temporarily unavailable to help your local concerns.” The message concluded with an inconclusive promise to be back in touch around October 5. As an alternative, callers were directed to contact Multnomah County Animal Services.
But that alternative has yet to provide any remedy for the five pit bulls in North Portland. Although the county remains fully staffed (they did send one representative to Louisiana for a week), the hotline to report animal abuse has severely limited hours and, even then, has excessively long hold times.
At press time, it was unclear how the county would respond to the case in North Portland—if at all. But reviewing the department’s annual numbers gives a bleak indication: Out of the more than 1,000 animal abuse calls the county received in fiscal year 2004, the county only cited 50 dog keepers for neglect, 11 for physical mistreatment, five for “tethering” (chaining their dogs in a yard for more than 10 hours), and two for abandonment. Of those, 16 rose to the level of a criminal charges—12 for abuse and four for neglect. And despite encountering frequent evidence that dogs are being trained or have engaged in fights, there have only been two successful prosecutions in Multnomah County for dog fighting within the past several years. By contrast, 564 citations were handed out for dogs being off leash at parks in fiscal 2004.
And, as if the lackluster protection of pit bulls and other breeds isn’t bad enough, local ABC-affiliate KATU News has recently attempted to whip up hysteria over a possible breed-specific dog ban in Oregon. In addition to several killer pit bull stories (gleaned from the nation at large), the station conducted an online poll and hosted a town hall forum asking for viewer input on banning the dogs—similar to recent pit bull bans in Denver and Ontario, Canada.
Perhaps the only good news recently for pit bulls is that during the last legislative session, state lawmakers modified a dangerous-dog bill that would have required pit bull breeders to register with the state. Instead, Senate Bill 844, which was signed by the governor and goes into effect January 1, removes all references to breeds and requires stiffer penalties—including felony charges—for keepers of dogs who have proven to be dangerous.