Pit bull popularity grows in Seattle

Seattle's pit bull population has exploded in recent years, with the controversial dogs, originally bred for fighting, now the fourth-most-popular dog in the city.

City officials chalk it up to a fad.

"It's just like fashion. Everything kind of goes in cycles, I believe," said Don Baxter, a supervisor at the city's animal control department. "You look at the breeds in the '70s and '80s, and they'll be totally different from the breeds in the '90s, which will be totally different from the breeds in the 2000s."

In the past decade, the number of registered pit bulls in the city has more than tripled to 1,505. And based on registration data analyzed by the Seattle P-I, the proportion of pit bulls compared with other breeds has gone from 1.2 percent of Seattle's licensed dogs to 3.1 percent. Only Labs, golden retrievers and German shepherds are more popular.

Pit bulls are filling area animal shelters -- where they typically represent 30 percent of dogs, according to one shelter manager. In Seattle, they are more likely than any other dog to be classified as a danger to the community: Almost one in five dangerous-dog citations and warnings are for pit bulls, an analysis of city records shows.

"We do have a pretty constant number of pit bulls that come through the shelter," said Ann Graves, a supervisor at Seattle Animal Shelter. "If you have more (in the community) because they're popular, you're going to see more in the shelter."

Anne Holte of the Pit Bull Project, a rescue group, said the number of pit bulls forces her to focus on finding homes only for the most adoptable animals.

"I can't handle all the dogs that are either coming out of a shelter or that somebody can't keep," she said.

Garrett and Asako Esperum of Seattle say that so many dogs in area shelters are pit bulls or pit bull mixes that they had to go all the way to Yakima to find the right pet.

"It seems there's a lot more (pit bulls) than other types of breeds," Garrett Esperum said while strolling in Discovery Park with the Akita-sheltie mix the couple recently adopted.

"It was surprising," Asako Esperum said.

City animal control officials are careful not to single out pit bulls as posing a particular problem, but even advocates admit the growing numbers include many that are dangerous.

"They are very most possibly the biggest breed that's out there that are owned by people who shouldn't own a dog, period," Holte said.

"They are a very good breed in the right hands. ... People who have adopted their pit bulls are in love with them. They are really happy to have their animals."

		Meryl Schenker / P-I
	Isis isn't shy about showing Annabel Swanberg, 17, affection. Grandmother Carol Swanberg says the pit bull also gets along with the bird and cat in their Queen Anne home.

That includes Carol Swanberg, not the stereotypical owner of a pit bull. Her dog Isis doesn't fit the stereotype, either.

Swanberg, 72, got her pit bull two years ago when her then-15-year-old granddaughter took it to the home they share.

Swanberg was not pleased. Then.

But now she's eager to stick up for the "55-pound lapdog" that plays gently with her cat and bird.

"She's been wonderful. They're darling dogs. Sweetest dog and most loving dog I ever had," she said.

The dogs have many critics, however.

"I'd like to see them outlawed," said Bob Walston, 70, of Mount Baker.

His dog Maggie, a poodle-schnauzer mix, was mauled to death by two pit bulls in September, and he has asked the city to pursue criminal charges against the dogs' owners.

"I know outlawing them is not an easy thing to do. (But) I would like to see the owners, more than anything, get fined," he said.

Or ask Heather Helland, owner of a 4-year-old pit bull named Brynn.

"A couple of my girlfriends won't come into the house because of the stereotypes that they have," she said.

Stereotypes or not, pit bulls are responsible for more fatalities than any other type of dog, according to statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About seven or eight people are killed by pit bulls every year. Put another way, one in every three people killed by a dog in the U.S. is killed by a pit bull.

It is for that reason that many state and local governments have enacted laws restricting pit bull ownership.

Just last month, a Seattle police officer shot and killed two pit bulls that had attacked another dog. When the officer approached, the dogs charged him and he shot them to defend himself, according to police.

Experts, including the CDC researchers, say that part of the issue with pit bulls is not temperament or number of attacks, but large size and ability to inflict horrendous bite wounds.

The CDC researchers concluded that legislation based on dog behavior is more effective than targeting breeds. Some local animal authorities agree.

"You'll see they're not up there as far as incidents go. For number of bites occurring, the smaller breeds of dogs have more," said Al Dams, head of King County's animal control program.

"When they do bite, in many cases it's more of a dramatic situation -- i.e., there's more injury caused by a pit bull bite."