{"id":285847,"date":"2010-02-06T03:31:06","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T08:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef0128776bd887970c"},"modified":"2010-02-06T03:38:23","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T08:38:23","slug":"riversides-quick-fix-for-pit-bull-population-explosion-free-sterilization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/285847","title":{"rendered":"Riverside’s quick fix for pit bull population explosion: free sterilization"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

<\/p>\n

The pit bulls sprawled around the Riverside
\nCounty Animal Control office this week were an unusually tranquil lot
\n— more fluffy the cat than hound from hell.<\/p>\n

\nEach had been sedated before its turn on the operating table to get
\nfixed, part of an ambitious project aimed at putting a dent in their
\nexploding population here.<\/p>\n

\n“We always knew we had a lot of pit bulls, but when we analyzed the
\ndata we saw that half our population was dominated by this breed,” said
\nRobert Miller, director of Riverside County Department of Animal
\nServices. “It’s a problem born out of community decisions. Sometimes
\nit’s machismo or the dogs are highlighted in the latest rap video or
\nsome young men think it’s cool to own them.”<\/p>\n

\nPit bulls have been responsible for a number of vicious attacks, including one Monday in which three children were badly mauled.<\/p>\n

\nThe high-energy, powerfully built dogs can be difficult to handle.
\nMales will leap 6-foot-high fences to mate with females, who can bear
\nas many as 14 puppies. The result has been a pit bull boom.<\/p>\n

\nIn 2008, Riverside County shelters euthanized 3,000 of them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That led Miller to launch the Pit Bull Project last month to try to
\nstem the tide. Under the new program, county residents with a pit bull
\nor pit bull mix can have it spayed or neutered for free, but must pay
\nfor a license and microchipping if they haven’t already.<\/p>\n

\nSo far more than 300 people have signed up and 60 dogs have undergone the free surgery.<\/p>\n

\n“Lots of people are calling but we don’t have the staff to get back to
\nall of them so we are asking them to be patient,” said John Welsh, an
\nanimal control spokesman. “If you call, we will get back to you
\neventually.”<\/p>\n

\nWelsh said most pit bulls in the shelters were found roaming the streets.<\/p>\n

\n“They languish and they are not adopted, not even those with the
\nsweetest dispositions,” he said. “The average person walks in and takes
\na look at the pit bull and says, ‘That’s a big dog,’ and they have
\nheard bad things about them so they go for the Labradoodle.”<\/p>\n

\nThe puppies are often sold at swap meets for as little as $20.<\/p>\n

“In my neighborhood, at the age of 12 or 13 it’s almost a rite of
\npassage to give a boy a pit bull,” said Chris Alderson, a veterinary
\ntechnician from Riverside who was prepping a woozy pit bull for
\nsurgery. “They buy it at the swap meet. Then the boy gets tired of it
\nand ties it to a tree in the backyard.”<\/p>\n

\nThe Inland Empire is awash in dogs, many of them feral.<\/p>\n

In the Coachella Valley, thousands of ragged canines roam rural
\nareas, especially Indian reservations where they scavenge for food and
\noccasionally menace residents. Many are pit bulls or pit bull mixes.<\/p>\n

\nThe dogs are often found in low-income areas, where many are used to guard people and property.<\/p>\n

\nA Fontana family walking to a park Monday was attacked by five dogs,
\nincluding a pit bull and pit bull mixes, leaving 5-year-old Destiny
\nColon on life support at Loma Linda University Medical Center.<\/p>\n

\n Her two siblings were badly injured and required hundreds of stitches. Police had to shoot one pit bull at the scene.<\/p>\n

\nIn January, 3-year-old Omar Martinez of Apple Valley boy was killed by
\nthe family’s pit bull. And a Hemet woman, who was attacked along with
\nher dog, recently asked the City Council there to ban the breed, as
\ncities such as Denver have done.<\/p>\n

\nLast year, the city of Lancaster adopted an ordinance requiring owners
\nof pit bulls, Rottweilers and mixes of the two to have the dogs spayed
\nor neutered.<\/p>\n

\n“Pit bulls are a macho dog,” said Cynthia Comer, operations chief for
\nRiverside County animal services. “They can be trained to be quite
\naggressive. Most are very friendly toward people, but they are a pack
\nanimal. If you get two or three together and one is aggressive the
\nothers will jump in with it.”<\/p>\n

\nDr. Terry Maltz was busy in animal control’s operating room doing his
\nbit to change that behavior. He was working on his eighth dog of the
\nmorning: a pit bull on its back, a ventilator in its mouth, its legs
\ncurled. “There are multitudes of advantages to this and almost no
\ndisadvantages,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It makes them less aggressive and less likely to roam. I don’t
\nthink they are any more difficult to manage than any other large breed.
\nThe ones with the temperament problems are the ones that are tied up
\nall day.”<\/p>\n

\nGeorge Hernandez and girlfriend Charlene Holt of Riverside brought their dog, Frankie, in for spaying.<\/p>\n

\n“I don’t want Frankie to have a lot of puppies who then wind up in dysfunctional homes,” Hernandez said.<\/p>\n

\nLike many pit bull owners, he blames the way a dog is raised and not the breed for its sometimes aggressive behavior.<\/p>\n

\n“She gets along great with kids and I have a 3- and 7-year old,” he said. “Besides chewing on the table leg, she’s awesome.”<\/p>\n

\nAny Riverside County resident interested in getting a pit bull sterilized can call 951-358-7387 or 951-358-7135.<\/p>\n

— David Kelly, Reporting from Riverside<\/p>\n

Top photo: Christopher Alderson carries a pit bull after surgery. Riverside County hopes to reduce the number of pit bulls on the streets.
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Middle photo: Under Riverside County’s Pit Bull Project,
\nresidents with a pit bull or pit bull mix can have it spayed or
\nneutered for free, but must pay for a license and microchipping if they
\nhaven’t already. So far more than 300 people have signed up and 60 dogs
\nhave undergone the free surgery. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Bottom photo: Cindy Bevill, left, gives a shot to sedate a pit
\nbull held by its owner before surgery at a mobile unit for spaying and
\nneutering. In the Coachella Valley, thousands of ragged canines roam
\nrural areas, especially Indian reservations where they scavenge for
\nfood and occasionally menace residents. Many are pit bulls or pit bull
\nmixes.
<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Credit: <\/span>Irfan Khan \/ Los Angeles Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pit bulls sprawled around the Riverside County Animal Control office this week were an unusually tranquil lot — more fluffy the cat than hound from hell. Each had been sedated before its turn on the operating table to get fixed, part of an ambitious project aimed at putting a dent in their exploding population […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}