Dog profiling costs family pet
To the editor,
Due to the harassment of the City of American Falls, Chief of Police, and paranoid and irresponsible neighbors and pet owners, we have lost a beloved member of our family. With the city’s new vicious dog law purposefully profiling pit bulls we have been subject to false police reports, accusations, and citations for loving and having a pit bull as a pet.
Our neighbor’s dogs, notice plural, twice came into our yard and got into a fight with our dog. This neighbor, neither time, was cited for dog at large, but we were cited for vicious dog. I was bitten both times by these dogs and the police did nothing. Every time there have been problems with these dogs in our neighborhood we are the ones to be cited even though the other dogs were at large and on our property.
The police treat us as the criminal because we have a pit bull and let our neighbors get away with their dogs roaming the neighborhood without a leash. We feel it is not only dog profiling but also because our neighbors are friends with the police officer that always seems to be the one called when their dogs are in trouble.
Now our other dog who has had a companion these many years is feeling the loss and is refusing to eat. If we can’t get her to accept this loss we might indeed be losing another beloved pet to the uncompassionate harassment of our family and pets by the city, police and neighbors.
By writing this, we hope to bring to your attention the dishonesty of the people that govern our city and enforce the illegal laws they put in place. Why can’t the city and police go after those who actually use these gentle animals for dog fighting and leave the peaceful, loving, pet owners of pit bulls alone? We are not the criminal.
If you are being harassed by the city for having a pit bull as a pet, please e-mail us at powellvickie@hotmail.com and tell us your story.
Trevor Hunstad
American Falls