Tomorrow from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., anti-pit bull activist Ellen Taft, president of the organization Families and Dogs against Fighting Breeds (FDAFB), is staging a rally in Westlake Park entitled Protect Pets in Parks. The rally announcement specifically calls to ban fighting breeds from the city’s off-leash areas. Want proof that such a ban is necessary? Taft points to a pro-pit website that “does not recommend dog parks” for pit bulls because they may “be drawn into ‘pack behavior.'”
“Often the public pays for the expense of dog bites, since these dogs are owned by judgment-proof people,” says Taft, who was bitten by a pit bull two mixed-breed dogs 29 years ago. “All of us in the United States have to think of the high cost of medical care.” Although the pit-bull debate has raged in public forums, Taft says that she’s currently the only scheduled speaker at the event. In addition to Taft says she’ll spend the hour reading from an informal online petition aimed at the Seattle City Council that asks for the municipal code to take some basic precautions against fighting breeds like sterilization, liability insurance, and public muzzling.
The petition is based on an initiative Taft considered in 2008, but Taft says she never took it to the streets “because all the signatories would be public information and would be harassed.”
Although the event is targeting Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen*, his office confirmed today that he’s currently out of the country. “Like everybody else on city council,” Taft notes, “he is claiming to be out of town for the rally.”
UPDATE: As has been noted on Slog, the event is cancelled, but a quick clarification. The rally was not specifically targeted at Rasmussen, though Taft’s recent lobbying efforts have been, if not explicitly, in practice mostly directed toward Rasmussen.
“anti-put bull activist Ellen Taft” ?
What is a “put bull”? A new more evil pit bull variant?
I don’t really care what happens with pits one way or the other….but a rally with one speaker spending an hour reading from a petition sounds a lot like crickets from here. Maybe it’s just the printer in me but what she (“they”) need to do is get some dough, print out some big color posters (24×36 minimum) of dog bites if they want some juice.
First the War on Cars.
Now the War on Pitbulls.
Next you’ll be marching against pointed sticks.
Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be there with my pit bull.
Yes, go and hear what a total crazy-pants she sounds like.
@4 – I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously. I was attacked by a pointed stick just the other day. I died. It sucked.
A dog breed ban would make it look like the city council was doing something, in the midst of a recession when funding for a functioning animal control program is nonexistent. Sort of like harassing immigrants when unemployment is high and everybody in office is fresh out of ideas.
It is unfortunate that Paul Holmes wrote many factual errors in his story.
First of all I was not attacked by pit-bulls, but two mixed breed dogs owned by a drug dealer, who later told me that he had vicious dogs to “get the blacks” and that if I had the dogs euthanized that he would “get more dogs and train them to be just as vicious”. The dogs charged me, after they bit me from behind, I turned and faced them and swung my shoulder bag at them, the two dogs cowered which Pit-bulls would not have done because in the words of http://www.PBRC.org they have “terrier” tenacity. The owner was the worst possible owner, but the dogs were not genetically predisposed to kill. It is always a combination of DNA and environment, not just environment.
Also I had a speech prepared in which I quote http://www.Pit-bull Rescue Central, which agrees with most of what the Protection of Animals and People Act does. I certainly was not going to quote from an as yet non-existent online petition.
Unforuntately, the rally has been canceled because Seattle Security felt that the liability would be too much, so I was unable to hire off-duty police to guard me. Neither Animal Control nor the police department would send anyone.
We need public hearings.
Ellen Taft, info@FDAFB.org
It is unfortunate that Paul Holmes wrote many factual errors in his story about the rally
First of all I was not attacked by pit-bulls, but two mixed breed dogs owned by a drug dealer, who later told me that he had vicious dogs to “get the blacks” and that if I had the dogs euthanized that he would “get more dogs and train them to be just as vicious”. The dogs charged me, after they bit me from behind, I turned and faced them and swung my shoulder bag at them, the two dogs cowered which Pit-bulls would not have done because in the words of http://www.PBRC.org they have “terrier” tenacity. The owner was the worst possible owner, but the dogs were not genetically predisposed to kill. It is always a combination of DNA and environment, not just environment.
Also I had a speech prepared in which I quote http://www.Pit-bull Rescue Central, which agrees with most of what the Protection of Animals and People Act does. I certainly was not going to quote from an as yet non-existent online petition.
Unforuntately, the rally has been canceled because Seattle Security felt that the liability would be too much, so I was unable to hire off-duty police to guard me. Neither Animal Control nor the police department would send anyone.
We need public hearings.
Ellen Taft, info@FDAFB.org
Ellen Taft is well known as an anti-DOG-activist. If she’s found a breed that will get her a better reception for her cause, I’m sure she’ll grab it with the tenaciousness of a pit bull (ha!), but her real platform is dogs in general.
Can we ban young black males from city parks too? Like pit bills, they are statistically more likely to hurt you.
How about some damn strict laws that would land the owners of pit bulls in jail if their dog bites someone?
Let the responsible owners have the dogs and punish the idiots.
She’s not seeking a breed ban. She’s seeking laws requiring sterilization, liability insurance, public muzzling — you know, the things dog fans always recommend instead of breed bans.
Taft once again twists the facts to fit her campaign. Pit Bull Rescue Central DOES NOT agree with most of what her ridiculous piece of “legislation” says. The main reason it says pit bulls shouldn’t be allowed in dog parks is because they can learn bad habits from other dogs and be drawn into confrontations they don’t initiate.
The website also says that “If something does go wrong, whether or not the pit bull instigates it, the pit bull is usually blamed; every negative incident reflects not only on the individual dog, but on bull breeds as a whole.”
The website does not believe, as Taft does, that pit bulls are inherently dangerous. And it is opposed to any legislation that discriminates against pit bulls. Ms. Taft wants to ban the breed.
This legislation is not simply a ban on fighting breeds in parks. It includes ALL dogs that have ANY TRACE of a fighting breed in it’s ancestry. It orders Animal Control to stop issuing new licenses to owners of these dogs so that they will eventually be banned from the city completely. If your dog has a trace of a fighting breed in it, Taft’s legislation will ban it from parks, off leash areas, and eventually, the entire city.
The legislation also bans fighting breeds registered outside of Seattle from being anywhere in the city except a locked car. It bans all these breeds from all retail establishments and public buildings. It requires the dogs to wear waterproof jackets with their license numbers sewn on them. It requires parks and rec employees, teacher, principals, and other employees to enforce the regulation – if they don’t they will be punished.
I could go on but you get the idea. This is a ridiculous, crazy piece of legislation that is going nowhere.
It’s too bad that every time Taft makes one of these crazy proposals the media gives them credibility. She should be ignored.
oh, ellen, i had an inkling you were batshit crazy when i met you at pilgrim all those years ago. this just confirms it. still married to that disheveled british bloke?
I, for one, am heartbroken that I have lost the opportunity to hear Ellen Taft speak for a full hour.
I did a bit o’googling and found this rundown on Ms. Taft from the Weekly last year:
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweek…
She was not bitten by a pitbull…..she was bit 20 yrs ago by a collie and shep/lab mix that was supposedly a drug dealers dogs these were her own words recently on the radio
Ellen,
Please give it a rest, you don’t know my girlfriend, my dog or me. Yet you want to BAN our dog in public. Have you met him?, no. You judge by what you deem “breed standards”,
I saw a woman attacked by a standard poodle yesterday in a park. Are you going to ban poodles next?. No. you pick on Pits because they’re an easy target. Shame on you.
Please go somewhere else.
I hear Singapore’s nice.
@20, your doggie is ADORABLE! let me know where you walk this cutie canine so i can meet her/him someday. pit bulls ROCK!!!!
Perhaps the police wouldn’t send anyone at Taft’s request because they have better things to do with their time and money than protect her from the voices in her head. BTW, I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Beauty and the Pit Bull.” It made for some fantastic comedy when I shared it with family and friends.
Hey Scary,
His name is Scout, he’s about 16-18 months old. Sweet as a nut. He does look a bit of a goofball in the photo taken on the Edmonds ferry after a long weekend out on the Peninsula running on the beach. You can reach my GF and I on NYBairn@yahoo.com and we can set up a meet at Magnuson sometime after Labor Day. Well that’s unless Ellen thinks that’s a little to threatening.
BTW, Ellen if you’re still here at all, I’m very serious when I say you have an open invitation meet with us and Scout at any time. I’d like you to experience the positive side of APBT ownership. Let’s all not let this get out of hand. I’m sure we have common grounds we can discuss. Bad dogs inevitably come from bad owners, let’s see if we can start by penalizing them, eh?.
It’s the holocaust for dogs! Why is society so hell bent on this topic? Media spits it out and everyone eats it up like a mama bird feeding her babies. No this isn’t a typical “it’s not the dog, it’s the owner” rant, but for the love of god, when are people going to grow up and take accountability? Genocide of an animal is the best they can do? If you were attacked by a dog, be it a pit bull or the some 20 other mixed breeds that look an awful lot like them or the poodle mentioned above, the fact remains that any dog can do that and there are 100’s of attacks by greyhounds, Jack Russels, labs, boxers (yes, that have resulted in deaths) that go unreported because they are not pit bulls. The majority should not have to pay for the minorities mistakes and even State Legislation will tell you there are more good owners than bad. And some attacks DO happen because the person was a moron and approached the dog on their own. Duh stupid…if you approach a dog you don’t know chances are YOU’RE GOING TO GET BIT! (Bitten, whatever) I was at work today and watched a gaggle of moms w/ their toddlers walk by my window. Outside some guy left his St. Bernard in the back of his truck and was inside the other bldg eating. ALL of the moms picked their kids up and shoved them in the dogs face to let them pet him. Had he attacked…HE’D have been blamed. Maybe not all attacks are the persons fault but if dumb owners would keep better tabs on their dogs and stupid parents would stop letting their kids roam free (Like the 4 yr old that was killed 3 yrs ago for getting out of his house because his mother didn’t lock the door) these things would happen a lot less. But no, we have to blame a dog for being a dog. Stupid society and it’s sense of entitlement. Bogus. PS-Ellen Taft was bitten over 20 yrs ago by a Collie and a Lab/Mix and has never ever been attcked by a pit bull. She admitted herself on Kiro’s Monday show w/ Don what’s his butt. The podcasts are on KIRO’s website. She gets hit by a civic and wants to sue the owner of the lexus. She’s insane.
@20 he is beautiful!
I’ve owned pitbulls and pitbull mixes my entire life. Our first family dog when I was 1 year old was a pitbull/german sheppard. I used to ride him like a horse. My dog Zeus(RIP) was my bestfriend and guardian. He was a sweet, wiggly goofball unless you did something that made me nervous or threatened me in any way. He then stopped wiggling but he never bit anyone, never even tried. But he’d pin ya to a wall if you tried to hurt me. He took orders from my cat and would lick the face off any child. How dare you Mrs. Taft presume to tell me what kind of dog I can own. You have no right. If you want our children and parks to be safer then work on having leash laws enforced, work on having stiffer penalties for people who actually own a vicious dog(not just a dog you assume is vicious). Blame the deed, not the breed! Banning pitbulls is nothing more then racial profiling.
She needs to give it a rest. It is obvious that NO one not even the police care what she has to say.
There are more responsible pit bull owners in Seattle then there are bad ones, That does not mean there aren’t any bad ones,they are out there.
But from my knowledge there hasn’t been an attack by a pit bull in this area in forever.
There have been “alleged” attacks,where stupid people like Ellen have seen a pit bull and shot it,then claimed the dog”charged”
But that is all BS, cause if a dog had charged you,you would have never made it back inside the house.
Stupidity like this only shows how easy it is to doctor and manipulate statistics and media. Ellen has found a way to do this and actually has some support, personally, I wish an animal would shoot her, just to show that she’s anti-human.
Ellen, spend five minutes on Google, look up Calgary Animal Control model. Now, see? Something sensible!
Ellen, I could have sworn you used to say that the dogs who did the attacking where Pitbull type dogs. Your new and improved story is almost better in that you are attacked by dogs and decide to go by the word of a drug-dealer that you “would have been dead” if he would just have spent the extra $5.00 to own American Pit Bull Terriers. Following this escape from almost death (if it would have been an American Pit Bull Terrier), you don’t decide to have an issue with loose dogs, irresponsible dogowners or drug-dealers owning attack dogs.. NO, you decide to take an issue with dogs that weren’t even at the scene… because a drug-dealer told you that his dogs have nothing on Pit Bulls (after he just stated that he wants to own the meanest dogs on the block).
Am I the only one who finds this a little… warped?
Ellen, I could have sworn you used to say that the dogs who did the attacking where Pitbull type dogs. Your new and improved story is almost better in that you are attacked by dogs and decide to go by the word of a drug-dealer that you “would have been dead” if he would just have spent the extra $5.00 to own American Pit Bull Terriers. Following this escape from almost death (if it would have been an American Pit Bull Terrier), you don’t decide to have an issue with loose dogs, irresponsible dogowners or drug-dealers owning attack dogs.. NO, you decide to take an issue with dogs that weren’t even at the scene… because a drug-dealer told you that his dogs have nothing on Pit Bulls (after he just stated that he wants to own the meanest dogs on the block).
Am I the only one who finds this a little… warped?