One of the biggest problems of placing dogs is the insurance industry "red lining" certain breeds. The Insurance Industry Institute has considerable information on this subject. http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/dogbite/
You might want to check your homeowners insurance policy if you have a pit bull or a rottie. You may not be covered if your dog bites the mail carrier or meter reader. The Postal Service reports over 3000 bites just last year.
According to my friend in rottie rescue, one insurance company has a list of 25 dogs they won't insure. That includes poodles and chihuahuas. My friend does ask to see a homeowners policy prior to adopting out one of her rotties. She has to turned many people away.
At this point, maybe we need to solicit the insurance industry regarding "No Kill" and how it wants to force people to adopt these "red lined" breeds. Also the insurance industry can help to bring about mandatory spay/neuter if they required dogs to be altered in order to be insured.
This is one of the biggest reasons why pits and other large dogs aren't being adopted from the shelters and one reason why so many are being turned in. With this in mind, where does "No Kill" stand? What if there are enough homes but these homes can't take a pit bull without losing the homeowner insurance? If you were a responsible homeowner and understand your insurance policy, would you adopt a pit bull and take a chance of losing your insurance? The answer is no and therefore more pits, rotties, etc., will be left in the shelters.
The Winograd program doesn't take nuances like this into account. This one item alone affects our shelters like nothing before has. And if we don't start paying attention to the insurance issue then it might be in the future that if you own a home, you can't have a dog and insurance at the same time. I feel this is the biggest factor in our fight at this point and we all need to pay attention to this issue.
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1 comment:
Fantastic article, and yes all these things are going against the strong breeds. I would hope that any homeowner considering a pittie or such would check before bring the animal home only to have to get rid of it later......... And two paws up from Oreo for addressing this issue.
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