January 18, 2006

Success!  And a nice surprise.

By a  unanimous vote, the Parker Town Council decided to scrap the
BSL  ordinance.  A combination of residents, experts, vets, and dog 
fanciers, came together and gave great and factual testimony.  The 
hysterical folks were pretty much non-existent. 

Many thanks to  those who came out and spoke.  It was a lot of
work...I know I pretty  much had to drop everything in order to work
towards defeating this thing in  my own backyard. Now I have a lot of
catch-up!  But it was worth it. 

I spoke of how BSL in more of a historical context.  BSL was the 
brainchild of militant AR's such as PETA types, i.e. one breed at a 
time, and how AR's have been lobbying for it all over the country.  
Other speakers talked about temperament, facts versus fiction, etc.  
Thankfully reason won out this evening.

Hopefully it will help put  the breaks on this stuff in other
Colorado  communities.

HOWEVER,

as an alternative, the Town is forming a  citizen committee of
volunteers to come up with ways to strengthen dog  laws.  This has me
a little concerned because Parker's existing  ordinances are already
vague and already very strict...albeit not well  enforced.  Sometimes
being a model city is NOT a good thing.

If  things get even more Draconian, then this could have the same
consequences  as BSL, just in a different way: making pet ownership
increasingly more  difficult.  As if you should need permission from
some bureaucrat  anyway!  Argh!

So stay tuned.  At least the AR's and hysterics  were defeated on
this turf...for now anyway.

Nick Van  Duren
Parker Resident
Dog Fancier
GSD Owner