G.K. Simpson’s love of animals started young, when he used to sneak sick rabbits and squirrels into his house and nurse them back to health. He loved playing with neighbors’ cats and dogs.
But all he ever wanted for his own pet was a pit bull.
“We’re both looked at like bad guys, but we can’t help how we look,” said Simpson, who sports tattoos and dons hip-hop-style baggy pants. “They’re sweet dogs that just look that way.”
That look — the boxy head, strong jaw and muscular body — is only part of the problem. DeKalb County joined many jurisdictions nationwide to ban the dogs about a decade ago because of well-publicized attacks by pit bulls and pit-mixes.
Now DeKalb is considering lifting its ban of pit bulls as household pets as part of a larger overhaul of its animal services department. The County Commission is scheduled to vote on the issue next month.
The county shelter cannot offer the animals for adoption, driving up DeKalb’s euthanasia rate at the expense of many dogs that, if not for their suspected breed, meet temperament tests to be pets.
“There are more animals that are dangerous than just pit bulls,” said DeKalb Animal Services Director Kathy Mooneyham. “We have a dangerous-animal ordinance, and we need to focus on that and educating people on being responsible pet owners.”
Those who want to keep the ban wonder if the restriction doesn’t help with that focus. They worry most about public safety, the same concern cited in similar bans in Denver and Miami that go back decades.
Even the Army and Marine Corps have restricted pit bulls in base housing in recent years.
No other metro county has a ban on the breed, though proposals have raged in Georgia for years. The Legislature proposed a ban of the animals statewide in 2005, but that failed. Douglasville narrowly avoided a ban last year, which was proposed after three loose pit bulls bit a woman who was out for a walk.
“My concern is not so much the breed but that this breed is most often associated with aggressive behavior,” said County Commissioner Elaine Boyer.
“The issue is those breeds are sold and trained for aggressive behavior, and we need to deal with that.”
Animal rights advocates, who have pushed for lifting DeKalb’s ban, argue that dog fighting and animal attacks are the result of bad owners, not any breed of dog.
A March dog attack near Lithonia seems to underscore that point. Two dogs mauled an 8-year-old girl who was playing in her own yard, injuring her so badly that doctors had to amputate one arm below the elbow.
One dog in the attack was a pit bull. The other was a mutt. Both were destroyed after the attack.
DeKalb Solicitor-General Sherry Boston is prosecuting the owner, Twyann Artrell Vaughn, on charges of reckless conduct, failure to provide the dogs with rabies vaccines and owning vicious dogs. The case is expected to go to court in August.
“My focus is on the vicious-dog statute, and we will prosecute for any dog, regardless of breed, we can show is aggressive or trained to be aggressive,” said Boston, who did not take a stance on the proposed lifting of the ban.
Mooneyham said she was unaware of anyone ever being charged with violating the pit bull ban in DeKalb, largely because “pit bull” is too vague a description.
The breed actually encompasses at least three different types of terrier mixes, including the Staffordshire pit, a mix of terrier and a Georgia icon, the bulldog. Petey, the dog that trailed the Little Rascals in the 1920s and 1930s movie shorts, was reportedly a Staffordshire mix.
It’s the terrier part that can make the dogs somewhat hyper and aggressive, said Byron Haygood, a dog trainer who has six dogs, four of them pit bulls.
His company, B. Good Dog Behavior Modification, works with all dogs but mostly pit bulls. Haygood recently moved from central DeKalb to Smyrna, not to avoid the pit bull ban but to have a big enough yard to run and work his dogs, and he prefers to work at someone’s own home for training.
That’s because all terriers, whether a pit or a Jack Russell, need to stay active to be happy household pets, he said. Getting them used to exercising in their own environment can create another Mama, Haygood’s chunky 2-year-old pit bull who will stop whatever she’s doing if she hears his 3-month-old son crying.
“Mama will fuss to make sure he’s OK because she knows we claim her and she claims us,” Haygood said. “People need to learn how to treat dogs the way they do people.”
Simpson learned about pit bulls after his father presented him with his first one, Tank, when he was 14.
Simpson and his father began breeding the dog, hoping someday to have their own kennel. They never fought their dogs and would refuse to sell a puppy if they knew it would be used that way.
Years later, when Simpson had moved from up North to DeKalb, he realized he had been part of the problem. He saw people abandoning pit bulls because they didn’t take time to train them. Pit-mix puppies were being taken to the pound for not looking rough enough.
“When I saw how many were dying, you could say I saw the light,” Simpson said.
Simpson, who works at the spay-neuter clinic Lifeline, has since become an advocate that all pets be fixed. He and Haygood work with community groups in poorer neighborhoods, urging responsible pet ownership and care.
He also has become a pit bull rescuer. Mercy is the bulky baby who always begs for belly rubs. Prada is the goofy puppy. And China is in love with Simpson’s 14-year-old stepdaughter, Kiki Milton, who has cerebral palsy.
“She will get right up on the wheelchair and stretch out to kiss Kiki,” Simpson said.
“Pit bulls love people. They love everybody,” he added. “More people need to see that side of them.”
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