Pit Bulls are the only breed type with their own political lobby.
Michigan is being targeted by the ultra wealthy Pit Bull Lobby = Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS).
This popular animal rights organization has a strange and dark past, but is now one of the biggest animal rights organizations in the USA, with corporate sponsors and partners, such as Skechers and Hallmark and Hollywood celebrity endorsements. BFAS receives $100 million in yearly donations.
They employ lawyers and lobbyists, including John Dunham of ‘Big Tobacco’ that push their agenda to “save them all”, including very dangerous dogs, across the USA and Canada.
BFAS contends that any restrictions on Pit Bulls is “discrimination” and their followers equate breed restrictions as a form of “racism”.
In 2007, BFAS began a comprehensive campaign to rebrand the pit bull from dangerous fighting dog to a “family friendly pet”.
In 2017, reporter Marie Claude LeBoeuf, of La Presse, exposed the levels of the pit bull lobby. The article was translated to English by DogsBite.org and extracted by NPBVA. (The links provide more detail).
Five Levels of the Pit Bull Lobby
Level 1: The financing source. Animal Farm Foundation (AFF), owned by Jane Berkey.The company’s motto is: “Securing equal treatment and opportunity for pit bull dogs.” AFF devotes itself entirely to fighting pit bull regulations. “After inheriting a fortune from her father, Jane Berkey, who also owns a literary agency, turned over at least $6 million to her group, $2.85 million in 2013, according to government records. She pays 9 employees (one of whom, the director, makes more than $100,000 a year) and finances numerous groups that share her philosophy,” La Presse reports.
Level 2: The researchers. “To produce studies, AFF bought a private research body in 2007. The acquisition was kept secret until the victims’ group Dogsbite discovered this during litigation. The National Canine Research Council (NCRC) was created by a veterinary technician, Karen Delise. Neither an academic researcher nor a veterinarian, she self proclaims as the ‘greatest national expert on deaths caused by dog bites,’” La Presse reports. NCRC co-authors and finances studies, like the ones cited by the OMVQ, which chiefly attempt to show pit bulls cannot be identified.
Level 3: Publication. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA).“The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) publishes NCRC studies in its journal. On its own website it proposes sample letters [for readers to write] contesting any law aimed at pit bulls. Moreover, its site has a link to AFF,” La Presse reports. The journalist even points out the AVMA’s notice on the embargoed 2000 fatal dog attack study, which falsely and fraudulently states: “In contrast to what has been reported in the news media, the data contained within this report CANNOT be used to infer any breed-specific risk for dog bite fatalities.”
Level 4: The political lobby. Best Friends Animal Society. Their senior legislative analyst, Ledy VanKavage, drafts state-level bills to eliminate local pit bull ordinances (state preemption laws) and is also a board member of AFF. VanKavage boasts on Best Friends’ corporate website that she commissioned an ex-economist from the tobacco industry, John Dunham, to create a fiscal calculator designed to advise governments on the cost of breed banning. Dunham’s sham BSL calculator, financed by the NCRC, over exaggerates these costs by nearly two orders of magnitude.
Level 5: The distributors. The animal care industry. “All the lobby studies are abundantly distributed by animal-based companies like shelters, breeders, trainers, etc. In Montreal, they are [distributed] by, amongst others, the SPCA, whose mission is to avoid euthanizing dogs and whose two most senior executives are themselves owners of pit bulls,” states La Presse. “On social media, pit bull owners deploy these studies relentlessly and accuse all their opponents of ignorance,” La Presse reports. More aggressive ones have even threatened the mayor of Québec City with death.
Please watch this important documentary on the pit bull lobby tactics. In it, the Best Friends Legislative Attorney states that they are targeting Michigan to end “breed discrimination”. It also exposes the dangerous propaganda in this movement.
