[Vicomte13]

"'definition by subjective appraisal of appearance' which has been the fatal inherent legal flaw in most such laws"

Which subjective appraisal system do you prefer instead?

Biologically, a dog is a dog. There is no biological difference other than those things evident from appearance between a pound mutt and a purebred whippet.

You speak of "recognized breeds"...recognized by WHOM? The KC, the AKC or the CKC? And why should the opinions of some dog collectors be the basis for law? They say that a breed is based on a pedigree chart. The lawmaker says that a breed is based on a visual evaluation. Two completely subjective bases for dividing up the united genus species of canis familiaris.

Biologically, a dog is a dog. The division of dogs into breeds is pure subjectivity. Appearance is a better basis for it than anything else, because then you can just look at a dog and tell what breed it is. Any other categorization requires special knowledge of arbitrary documents.

[Old_Mil]

Biologically, a dog is a dog. There is no biological difference other than those things evident from appearance between a pound mutt and a purebred whippet.

Of course anyone who knows dogs knows that this is ridiculous. Herding dogs have certain innate behaviors, as do retrievers, spaniels, pointers, and so on. Unfortunately, so do Pit Bulls and Presas and so on. The behaviors of the former breeds are quite harmless which the instinctual behaviors of the latter breeds are qutie dangerous.

[GMMAC]

"Which subjective appraisal system do you prefer instead?"

My point is, I don't prefer any subjective appraisal system.

Under such systems & related 'breed ban' laws, if your Siamese cat got loose & managed to get itself picked-up & some moron at the pound arbitrarily decided to label it a 'pit bull', it would be up to you to prove otherwise.

I know a rather odd looking old dog - he's now 10 & has never caused anyone a lick of trouble - who, to me, looks virtually nothing like the stereotypical 'pit bull' but who was so designated years ago at an animal shelter. For many years, this presented no real problems for its kind & responsible owner ... until about 2 years ago when the local law changed.

Accordingly, my point is that governments should rightly be going after individual humans based upon their personal misconduct and not after dogs in general based upon often untrained and/or unduly subjective perceptions as to their particular appearance.