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Does Sacramento have a breed-specific ban on certain dogs?

If you're like us and follow dog bite stories in the news, you may have also noticed that most attacks are caused by breeds notorious for being more aggressive than others. The more attacks that are reported involving these breeds, the more people begin to fear them until eventually people start asking if lawmakers should step in and protect the public.

This is typically what causes breed-specific bans to be put in place. Most commonly associated with pit bulls and Rottweilers, breed-specific bans prohibit people within a certain jurisdiction from owning a breed of dog that is considered to be dangerous. The idea behind these bans is to "reduce the probability of an attack by simply reducing the mere presence of certain types of dogs in a community," explains the American Bar Association.

After learning this, you may be asking the question we're proposing in the title of this post: does Sacramento have a breed-specific ban on certain dogs? The answer is no.

Although some jurisdictions within California do have legislation in place to protect the public from dogs deemed dangerous or vicious, these laws are not breed specific. That's because legislation that is breed specific is not allowed here in California under Section 31683 of the Food and Agricultural Code. This section does however give cities and counties the right to adopt programs that control potentially dangerous or vicious dogs.

Much like breed-specific bans, the legislation that has already been passed in several jurisdictions in our state is designed to protect the public from dogs who have a history of aggressive behavior that could indicate the possibility of an attack down the road. The difference between our state legislation and breed-specific bans though is that our state legislation does not allow jurisdictions in California to label an entire breed of dog dangerous simply because of the actions of specific dogs in the past.

Source: Dogsbite.org, "California breed-specific laws," Accessed June 12, 2015

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