Dogfight on the western front
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000
BRUSSELS––Germany, France, Italy, and
Britain are battling again in Belgium, and invading
bloody Americans are again ensnarled in the thick of it.
That’s American pit bull terriers this time.
Like the doughboys of World War I and the G.I.s of
World War II, they are said to be over-large, overdosed
on testosterone, and over here, looking for a fight.
This time they are seen as allies of neo-Nazis
and Huns––Attila’s Huns, who ravaged Europe from
434 to 453, when the notoriously reactive Attila’s brain
burst as he celebrated his honeymoon.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council of the
European Union on September 29 heard a German proposal
to ban throughout Europe the breeding or import of
any kind of “fighting dog,” defined as any member of
14 breeds with American pit bull traits. As well as the
American pit bull and Japanese tosa, who have been
banned in Britain and The Netherlands since 1991, the
German proposal would ban Rhodesian ridgebacks,
Neopolitan bulldogs, Staffordshire terriers, English bull
terriers, and bull mastiffs.