Academic Home Run for the Breed

Early this year, RPB was contacted for help with some questions being posed by a Masters student from the University of Maryland named Bethany Gibson. Bethany was working on her thesis. The subject? BSL and the Pit Bull - which was interesting because, despite being a dog lover, Bethany was not knowledgeable about Pit Bulls or BSL. Yet she felt compelled to write about the important subject of public safety & dog attacks, breed discrimination, and how such things impact people and Pit Bulls. We just received a copy of the finalized thesis (which won Best Thesis in her graduating class - congrats, Bethany!), and were so impressed! It is a wonderful piece that would certainly prove beneficial in the fight against discrimination and ineffective laws that do little if anything to protect the public. Bethany hopes to take her thesis - titled Demonizing the Pit Bull: Breed Specific Legislation & the Circuit of Communication - further by having it printed in academic journals.

The work of people like Bethany is so important in that it legitimizes what all of us breed advocates have been saying: deed not breed. Sound examination of the topics at hand prove time and again that the breed is not to blame, and that BSL is not the answer.