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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The poster girl for pit-bull rights is a well-mannered, red-nosed Palm Beach dog named Chocolate. The reason she's a Palm Beach dog is because she is banned by ordinance from living in Miami-Dade County, where her owner lives.

Chocolate's future seems dim at this amped interval of time when dogfight stories punctuate the news and municipalities across the country debate the merits and demerits of breed-specific legislation.

It seems as if an American Pit Bull Terrier like Chocolate, once America's favorite dog, has few friends or sympathy these days.

Unlike the pit bulls and pit mixes of yesteryear, like Petey of "Little Rascals" fame, Tige the "Buster Brown" mascot, and Sgt. Stubby, the decorated World War I combat hero, she dwells in a hostile era.

Thugs want to over-breed her, fight her, use her for bait or discard her as under-performing. Politicians, playing to an alarmed citizenry, want to ban her. Breed antagonists want to malign her.

But Chocolate had her moment in the sun a couple of weekends ago, when a very special ally came to town. Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer himself, brought her on stage during his three-hour seminar in Miami. Years after she was banished from her hometown, Chocolate made her entrance in grand style.

A handsome, red bandanna knotted around her neck, she walked onto the stage of the dazzling Carnival Center for the Performing Arts.

Dog Whisperer weighs in

Millan hit the topic of breed discrimination head-on.

"Banning a breed will not solve the problem," he told the audience. "It only creates fear and ignorance. It contradicts the spirit of America. America loves dogs, not just breeds."

Chocolate's story begins on a far less glamorous stage, a grimy street in Northwest Miami. About five years ago, she stumbled into the path of a paralegal and pet rescuer named Dahlia Canes. As Canes recalls, the dog was so thin you could see her ribs.

"She was skinny as a rail. She had open wounds, full of ticks and fleas. She had just been bred," says Canes, who scooped up the dog and put her in the car. "She looked at me and put her head on my lap."

A veterinarian found Chocolate had anemia, parasites and had been bred multiple times, says Canes, who had the dog spayed. Fearing the dog would be euthanized at a local shelter, she decided to keep her in a kind of "underground railroad situation." Canes shared custody of Chocolate with friends who had fallen in love with the sweet-natured dog.

But one night, Miami-Dade reality shattered the pit bull's life once again. County animal control officers discovered Chocolate at the home of one of Canes' friends and seized the dog, she says.

"I literally fell on my knees hugging her, crying like a baby, begging them not to kill her," says the 55-year-old Canes. The pet rescuer relocated Chocolate out of the county in interim homes and stopovers.

Eventually, the dog landed in the Lake Worth home of a family friend, Yvonne Rivera.
Chocolate, who shares a home with a Labrador named Pancho and an African red parrot named Paco, has become a kind of mascot for Rivera's twin daughters, recording artists known as Twin Soul.

Challenging 18-year law

But the dog that stole Canes' heart on a dark Miami street also set her on a path of militancy. She has come together with a group of dog lovers to challenge Miami-Dade County's 18-year-old ban on pit bull breeds, including American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers and Staffordshire Bull Terriers.

The ordinance contradicts a subsequent state law prohibiting breed discrimination, but it has been allowed to remain because it predates that law. Canine advocates believe it's time to repeal the county ordinance and focus on the real dog problem — irresponsible owners and dog-fighting gangsters.

"Politicians are lazy. They'd rather kill innocent animals than go after the criminals," says Canes.

Her image of politicians did not change much after she and other advocates attended the county commission's health and public safety committee in October. They watched commissioners breeze through a potential red-flag item, which allows the Public Health Trust to circumvent the bidding process in some construction projects.

When it came time to talk about Chapter Five of the county's municipal code, the one outlining the pit bull ban, the commissioners piped in with some curious comments.

One commissioner talked about how his neighborhood dogs bark each time he goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Another talked about the Maltese he rescued after Hurricane Katrina. Most of them expressed their support for the ban.

Canes stood at the podium and waved a T-shirt emblazoned with Chocolate's image.

"This is Chocolate. This is my baby. She presently resides in Palm Beach County. Please let her come home for Christmas," she beseeched.

The issue is far from being settled even as ban opponents clamored for its repeal this week . In the meantime, Canes and her fellow dog advocates are concerned that Florida's state law forbidding breed-specific legislation has come under attack, thanks to Rep. Perry Thurston, D-Plantation, who filed a bill to eliminate the prohibition. His proposal is pending.

It comes at a time of renewed public attention to the pit-bull breeds, after the dogfighting scandal involving suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick.

More recently, alarm bells rang again when two pit bulls broke loose from an Oakland Park yard and killed a neighbor's greyhound. And last week, a pit bull mauled another dog and its owner at a sidewalk cafe in Delray Beach.

Pit bull advocates argue the public rarely hears about the stories of attacks involving other breeds, the pit-bull success stories or the very many testimonies of pit-bull owners.

National cases offer hope

But advocates find some hope in other national cases. Cities like Baltimore, Corpus Christi, Texas, North Muskegon, Mich., Portage, Wis., and a couple dozen others, have successfully fought off attempts at breed-specific rules this year.

Their position is bolstered by respected national organizations like the American Veterinary Medical Association, which addresses the breed issue in its Dog Prevention Message Points: "There is no such thing as a bad breed of dog. All dogs can bite if provoked.
Responsible dog ownership is key."

The Humane Society of the United States also opposes breed-specific policies, stating: "Restrictions placed on a specific breed fail to address the larger problems of abuse, aggression training, and irresponsible dog ownership. Again, breed alone is not an adequate indicator of a dog's propensity to bite."

But for Chocolate and her owner, the best display of solidarity came from the Dog Whisperer.

Chocolate was one of eight dogs — four Rottweilers and four bully breed dogs — brought on stage in individual crates to assist Millan in his presentation. Millan brought Chocolate out of her crate just before his question-and-answer session. He sat beside her on the stage floor. Chocolate wagged her tail, licked his hand and finally rested her head on his lap.

A couple of days later, Millan pondered the breed-specific issue again in a phone interview.
"Banning a breed is no different than banning a race or a culture," Millan said. "It's a ridiculous state of mind. It contradicts the beauty of this country."

Canes is hoping his words will resonate with the public and the politicians. In the meantime, she goes home each night to her three temperamental miniature schnauzers . Her oldest one, Fritz, "an international legend for his aggression," grew so unstable she says she had to seek help from a dog psychologist.

The bad news is he's not much better. It takes a lot of time and patience to deal with his issues. The good news is she can take all the time she wants with him. He's not a pit bull.

Liz Balmaseda writes for The Palm Beach Post.

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Name: cherisalorraine | Date: Dec 7th, 2007 5:10 AM
well i got to have a good cry tonight! I wish more people would take the time to read things like this. I am upset all the time when I go to a shelter to pick up an animal (usually dogs but you never know) and see the bully dogs in cages at the back with signs that say please do not pet may bite (as if it isnt enough to take away their life you need to take their dignity as well) and I ask why am I not picking these babies up and I am told every time well they are Pit Bulls (most are not pis they just look similar I have been told that english bulldogs are pits in the past i guees that just shows who is working for the county)and so unless they are claimed by an owner that can prove legal ownership we can not release them they will be put down in 72 hours. so I read the info on the pen and start calling to peoples houses. they can not give them to an organization because they can not be released if they are going to be rehomed. I have to look (as well as about 10 other people)for a private person to take the dogs which means going to some random persons home and asking them to make out a bill of sale from before the dogs were taken. WE MUST BREAK THE LAW TO SAVE A LIFE. It really bothers me to go to those extremes but I can not figure out why when most people in ohio do not support the breed specific bans here they still exist. I hope it can all be resolved soon. So until then I say stop being breed hitlers if you dont like them dont own one. 

Name: lindalu | Date: Dec 7th, 2007 11:03 PM
The Pit bull breed simply gets a bad rep due to poor ownership. I have seen young kids trucking around town with pits on spike collars acting like the dog is this ferocious animal.

Cherisalorraine I had an American Bull dog, many people thought he was a pit bull. 

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