Your Home Or Your Dog?
Let's say you are relaxing on your patio one fine afternoon. You admire the smoothly mown lawn with pride. Gently patting the gray-muzzled Rottweiler at your side, you count your blessings. Your kids frolic in the shadow of the lovely home that you have dreamed of for years and is now yours (and the banks, of course). And to top it all off, your house is located in a state where breed-specific legislation is illegal, so you know that no one will try to take your dog. Stretching you get up and decide to check the mail before going in. Dog padding happily at your side, you walk to the box at the end of your driveway and pull out the single envelope waiting for you inside and open.
Suddenly, your idyllic life has hit a brick wall. The letter, from the homeowner's insurance company that you have dealt with for years, is informing you that your policy will be cancelled for no other reason than the Rottweiler that is staring up at you with a wagging nub.
No consideration has been given to the fact that the dog never had a complaint against it. Nor the training you have invested in it and the obedience titles it has earned. Nor if the dog is a therapy dog. Nor if the dog in question is a 13 year old senior citizen with arthritis and cataracts.
Suddenly you are faced with the very real fact that if you don't get rid of the dog, you could very well lose your mortgage and your home.
The story above isn't just a hypothetical situation. It happens far too often.
In recent years, insurance companies have been faced with paying out large sums to cover dog bites. In response, many companies have now instated "black lists" that target specific dog breeds that the companies see as risky investments. Of course, "pit bull" breeds and Rottweilers are at the top of those lists. However, blacklists also often include such breeds as German Shepherds, Siberian Huskies, Dobermans, Dalmatians, and Alaskan Malamutes.
Like BSL, these blacklists are extremely unfair in that they target the good with the bad. Who would pose a greater risk to the insurance company, an irresponsible person who allows his untrained retriever to roam free or someone with a Rottweiler therapy dog?
According to one article I came across, companies usually base their blacklists on two main factors: the breed's reputations and statistics from the Centers of Disease Control. There are obvious problems with this scenario. First off, let's look at breed reputation. Last year, I wrote the article "History of Fear", which addresses that very issue. Basically, reputations change. The "bad boy" breed of the present might not be viewed as dangerous in the future. Case in point, German Shepherds were often feared in the years following WWII, but their reputation has improved over the years. Likewise, the family pet of this decade could very well be the feared breed later. For example, the pit bull breeds, were usually seen as a typical family pet or farm working dog until as recently as the 1960's.
Latest Articles