A short post today as I’m busily printing almost 600 postcards (!!!), but I’d love to have a discussion about this topic because my own personal jury is still undecided…
As ridiculous and hard-to-believe as it is, Denver is facing a class-action lawsuit because the city’s breed ban is affecting disabled citizens who use bull breeds as their service dogs.
Change.org has a petition circulating to end breed-specific legislation in Denver, which I’m really excited about. As of this posting, it had 584 signatures – almost the exact same number of postcards I’ve received!
One thought, though, and I could be way off base here, but…
Do you think the message this sends to a city like Denver is that, as long as they allow their disabled citizens to have a service dog of any breed, the rest of the city must still adhere to the breed ban? In other words, as long as Denver doesn’t violate ADA, they can still uphold BSL for their non-disabled citizens?
I’ve been wrestling with this question for a few days now. Please weigh in! I’d love to hear other ideas and opinions!
The way I read the ruling, the DOJ came down firmly on the side of “a dog must be judged by its actions, not the way it looks.” Luckily, they didn’t just say “you can’t discriminate against any breed of dog.” They actually went in-depth about WHY they came to this decision and I think that’s HUGE because it attacked the very foundation that BSL is based upon. The DOJ can’t do anything to remove BSL on a state or community level as it applies to non-disabled citizens. But the wording of its ruling gives those who are fighting BSL another tool to use.
Amber