City’s pit bull ban impacts West Tenn. rescue groups

BROWNSVILLE, Tenn. — Animal rescue groups start to feel the impact from a city-wide ban on pit bulls.

“People don’t have a place for them to go,” said Teresa Covington with the Borwnsville Haywood County Animal Shelter.

In the past 72 hours, the kill shelter has had more than 20 pit bulls seized or surrendered to the facility.

“We haven’t had to euthanize a dog in several weeks, maybe longer,” Covington said.

Wednesday afternoon, the shelter is close to max capacity. Nearly half of the dogs are pit bulls, according to Covington.

“We don’t really know much about him, but he shows no signs of aggression here,” Covington said of a pit bull with obvious “war marks,” or scars, on his shoulder, neck and face.

Since 2008, Brownsville has had an ordinance banning pit bulls in the city. Mayor Bill Rawls said the code enforcement had gotten lax and the city voted to begin re-enforcing the law earlier this year.

“At that time, there was a lot of incidents of misuse and handling of this particular breed of dog,” Mayor Rawls said. “It was abusive to the dog and presented a danger to the community.”

Mayor Rawls said he stands by the city’s decision to keep the breed ban.

The ordinance required pit bull owners to register them with the city, get the dogs microchipped, vaccinated and spayed or neutered. Shelter staff estimate the cost to meet all requirements would have been around $350.

Records show only four dogs were registered by the June 1 deadline.

Animal advocates argue the restriction won’t cut down on dog-related injuries such as bites. Mayor Rawls said he doesn’t know if the ordinance will deter the number of attacks but that the city had to make a decision to protect dogs and residents.

“It’s not the dogs’ fault. It’s the owners and the mishandling of the dogs that have created the situation, so now in the city limits they are banned,” he said.

For some of the dogs taken into the shelter, Covington said they are likely to have a better future.

Four pit bulls surrendered Wednesday were found chained to logs without water. “They don’t really show any affection. They probably haven’t been messed with a lot,” she said.

The dogs both appear to be young and unsure of what to do when Covington attempts to feed the pups dog treats.

Other animals in the shelter are family pets. “They didn’t want to get rid of them at all, but they didn’t have any other option because they didn’t meet the deadline,” Covington said.

The shelter said other animal rescue groups in West Tennessee have been pulling the pit bulls into foster care to save them from being euthanized.

Beyond Bars Animal Rescue pulled four dogs that would have been put down Wednesday. “We’ve never really had a lot of pit bulls rescued from here,” Covington said.

Covington said the shelter would like to see as many animals as possible go to rescue groups or foster homes.

Of the shelter’s 90 intakes in May, only 10 percent were released back to their owners with the majority going to rescue groups.

Covington said she anticipates at least 100 more pit bull surrenders through the summer.