Media gets material from Aunt B.
Rufus cuddled up beside the couch, ready for a good nap. Belly full from his favorite steak dinner and tuckered out from a romp around the house, he put down the head that has become the signature of dogdom in America.
“He’s a wonderful pet,” owner Barbara Bishop cooed. “My grandson used to sleep with him in the crate.”
But in some parts of the country, dogs that look like this Best in Show winner are seized, muzzled and in some cases, destroyed.
Cities in about 20 states have either enacted or are trying to pass “BSL,” short for breed specific legislation designed to control certain types of dogs that are deemed dangerous.
Pit bulls and pit bull mixes are the main target of such laws and ordinances, along with American Staffordshire terriers and Staffordshire bull terriers – part of the so-called “bully” breeds, with stout bodies and distinctive heads. Owners can be fined and even jailed.
Rufus is a colored bull terrier, the same breed that spawned Spuds McKenzie and the Target store mascot. Nearly 6, he won Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club show this week, thanks to a perfect, egg-shaped noggin the size of a football.
Tan and white, Rufus also is a marked dog because some of the BSL includes references to dogs that have similar physical traits as the outlawed breeds.
“There are places we won’t go because of the BSL,” Bishop said Thursday from her home in Holmdel, N.J. “You just don’t know what might happen.”
Aunt B. cracked a joke about that the other day.
By the way, why are dog shows covered in the sports section? That’s like making modeling a sport.
